Be University Wise guides › Your five choices

Choosing your five UCAS choices

You can apply to up to five courses. Many students find it helps to spread their choices so that, whatever their results, they are likely to have an offer they are happy with.

Checked against official sources on 24 September 2026.

How many choices you get

You can choose up to five courses on one application. If you apply for medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine or veterinary science, you can use up to four choices for those courses, and use the fifth for a different subject if you want to. Conservatoire applicants can make up to six choices.

Spread your choices

Compare your predicted grades with the grades past students had when they started each course. A useful list often includes:

• one or two courses where your grades are below most past entrants (we label these Aspirational),
• two or three where your grades sit in the middle (Realistic), and
• at least one where your grades are above most past entrants (Safer), which could become your insurance choice.

Past entry grades are not offers. Universities also look at the subjects you take, your personal statement, your reference, and sometimes interviews or tests.

Compare more than entry grades

Look at what students on the course say in the National Student Survey, how many carry on after the first year, and what graduates go on to do. The Be Wise tables and Discover Uni show these figures from official data.

Think about where you will live

Rent is most students' biggest cost. Compare rents in university cities before you decide.

You do not have to use all five

If you only want to study at one or two places, you can apply to fewer. You can add more choices later, up to five in total, as long as the course deadlines allow.

Sources

• UCAS dates and deadlines
• Discover Uni