Colleges have
a very wide range of students. They work in partnership with schools to
deliver courses to school aged students and they enrol school leavers
aged 16, students who have left school at 17 or 18, with and without
formal certification, and also a large and increasing number of older
students. Admission requirements are related to courses, but mature
applicants’ experience and previous learning can be considered.
Non-advanced courses do not normally have formal entry qualifications.
Advanced courses normally require candidates to have, for example,
passes in the Scottish Qualifications Certificate of Education (SQC) or equivalent qualifications.
Higher Education
The
usual entry requirement for higher education courses is a group of
awards at grades A-C in the National Qualifications Higher or Advanced
Higher level examinations set by the Scottish Qualifications AuthorityGeneral Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and GCE Advanced Level (or the equivalent) are also accepted. For some HE courses, particularly
Higher National Certificate (HNC) and
Higher National Diploma (HND), a group of appropriate National Certificate (NC) awards (often achieved in college courses) may be acceptable.
Many
students move to a university or higher education institution to take a
degree after successfully completing an HN qualification at a college.
Applications
from outside Scotland to pursue a higher education course are
considered individually to ascertain the acceptability of entry
qualifications.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service
(UCAS) processes most applications for entry to higher education
institutions in Scotland. It distributes them to the individual
institutions and enables candidates to apply to several institutions on
one form. For some courses, for example in art and design and in social
work, there are other arrangements, which are detailed in the Entrance
Guide to Higher Education in Scotland.
The higher education
institutions welcome applications from mature students (defined as
applicants over the age of 21) as well as from school leavers. A range
of specially designed courses prepare adults both for higher education
in general and for particular courses. Such "access" courses include a
range of SQA units or courses, successful completion of which may lead
to an SQA award. Many "access" courses carry a guarantee of a place in
higher education on successful completion.
(SQA), or qualifications deemed by a higher education institution to be
equivalent to these. For many HE courses the candidate needs to hold
awards at specified levels. Awards in the English
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