Staff at Rooks Heath School understand that choosing the right course at a suitable university is one of the biggest challenges for any young person preparing to leave School. We take enormous trouble to help our students make the best decisions they can.

The process starts in the final term of the Year 12 when the Head of Sixth Form, tutors and staff from the  Harrow School Careers Team give  talks to the whole group and individual interviews. In May the students are given an introduction to the online UCAS application system and encouraged to begin sending for prospectuses and going on visits to universities to which they are considering applying. This is an ideal time of the academic year for going on these trips and we strongly urge our students to do it in the summer rather than leaving it to the autumn. There will also be trips to individual Oxford and Cambridge Schools for those thinking of taking that route.

Once the Autumn Term is under way every student will have a personal interview with the Head of Sixth Form before finalising their UCAS form and sending it off. We focus on completing this process by the end of October, although the official closing date is not until January, because experience and statistics show that early applicants get the best responses from universities. However the support process does not stop there. In August, when the A-level results are published, senior staff are in School to advise students whose results have placed them in any sort of a dilemma.