Early application helps students' confidence

If the Government is to succeed in its mission to widen participation in higher education, it will have to look to the success of youngsters such as Claire Rushton, aged 17.

Claire, a student at Stoke-on-Trent sixth-form centre, will be the first person from her family to go to university, thanks to a successful early application scheme pioneered by Staffordshire University.

Today's National Audit Office report urges other universities to take a leaf out of Staffordshire's book. Under the scheme, students can put in their applications in the first year of the sixth form and be offered a place, conditional on A-level results, a year early. They are also given help and guidance by university staff in choosing their course.

"It's a really good scheme," said Claire. "It takes the pressure off you in the first year if you know you can go to university." Youngsters do have to reapply through the Ucas system a year later but it is no longer baffling for them and they know they will get an offer at the end of the procedure.

Claire, who is planning to study English with a view to becoming a teacher, has applied formally through Ucas and has two offers, one confirmed by Staffordshire and another from Manchester Metropolitan University. She said the confidence she gained from getting an offer in her lower sixth form helped her fill in her Ucas form. "I'm looking forward to going now."

She is not the only one. Fellow students Andrew Windsor, aged 17, and Elizabeth Forrest, 18, are also on course for Staffordshire after using the scheme. Andrew is planning to study forensic science while Elizabeth is opting for English and psychology followed by a PGCE teaching course.

Elizabeth said: "I'm a bit excited and a bit nervous about it but my family have been really encouraging because nobody from our family has ever been to university before."