Contextual admissions policy

Check if you're eligible

To qualify for a contextual offer, you must have Home-UK fee status and your current or most recent school cannot be an independent school.

One of the following must also apply:

• You live in an area where people are less likely to go to university – check your postcode below

• You have completed one of the following programmes not hosted by the University of Nottingham: a UNIQ, Lincoln Medical School or Sutton Trust summer school or another Sutton Trust programme at post-16.

• You have refugee status from the Home Office
• You have spent more than three months in care – in this situation, you are still eligible for a contextual offer if you have attended an independent school

Postcode checker 

Type in your home postcode – for example, NG7 2NR.

Please note that this only checks the postcode eligibility for the 2023/24 application cycle.

The postcode checker will be updated in August 2024 for the 2024/25 application cycle.

Postcode eligibility is defined by national measures of participation in higher education, which are subject to change. The data within this postcode checker was last updated in August 2022.

The university will only take into account postcodes that are identified as eligible at the time of making an offer to study one of our courses.

Interviews and tests

Some courses include an interview or test as part of the entry requirements. You will need to pass this before we can make you a contextual offer.

Specific courses

Medicine

We make contextual offers for our five-year medicine courses – A100 and A10L. If you meet the requirements for a contextual applicant and are successful at interview, your offer will be the contextual offer of AAB including an A in either biology or chemistry, with the other no lower than a B. Our IB requirements would be 35 points in total with 6,6,5 in Highers including 6 in either biology or chemistry, with the other no lower than HL 5. Scores exclude the core component.

If you won’t meet the entry requirements for the five-year courses, you can apply for our six-year foundation options – A108 and A18L. These courses are only open to applicants who meet the contextual admissions criteria detailed above. Your offer will be made using our standard entry requirements for our Medicine BMedSci and BMBS with a Foundation Year course (BBC).

Veterinary medicine

For courses D100 and D104, in addition to the criteria outlined above, we also make contextual offers to applicants who meet two of the following criteria:

• First in the family to enter higher education
• Have disadvantaging circumstances which the exam board(s) has not already taken into consideration
• Be a carer

Contextual offers will not be made for D190 Veterinary Medicine with a Gateway Year.

Nottingham University Business School

We make contextual offers to several of our courses at ABB, which is two grades lower than standard requirements. The courses include:

• Industrial Economics BSc
• Industrial Economics with Insurance BSc
• Industrial Economics with Placement Year BSc
• Industrial Economics with Insurance with Placement Year BSc
• Management BSc
• International Management BSc
• Management with a Placement Year BSc
• Accountancy BSc
• Finance, Accounting and Management BSc
• Finance, Accounting and Management with Placement Year BSc

Law

We make contextual offers at AAB, which is two grades lower than standard requirements. This applies to:

• Law BA
• Law LLB
• Law with French and French Law BA
• Law with German and German Law BA
• Law with Spanish and Spanish Law BA

Check if you're eligible

To qualify for an enhanced contextual offer, you must have Home-UK fee status and your current or most recent school cannot be an independent school. You must also have completed one of the following:

• the Realising Opportunities Programme at any university
• the Sutton Trust Summer School at the University of Nottingham
• the Sutton Trust Pathways to Law at the University of Nottingham
• the Sutton Trust Pathways to Medicine at the University of Nottingham
• the Sutton Trust Pathways to Law Online
• Ambition Post 16 at the University of Nottingham as a Tier 1 member

Exceptions for specific courses 

For undergraduate courses with entry requirements of BBB, the lowest enhanced contextual offer we would make is BBC. 

For 2024 entry, enhanced contextual offers will not be made for Veterinary Medicine courses. Standard contextual offers will apply for D100 and D104. Enhanced contextual applicants will be offered the opportunity to interview regardless of their score on the situational judgement test.

For the Faculty of Engineering, enhanced contextual offers will not be further reduced for students taking an EPQ.

Medicine  

For 2024 entry, enhanced contextual offers will not be made for Medicine courses. Standard contextual offers will apply for A100 and A10L. 

Medicine applicants applying for September 2024 who meet the following criteria will be considered for the interview stage without having to go through the UCAT/GCSE scoring stage of our selection process:

• meet the entry requirements for any of our undergraduate Medicine courses (A100, A10L, A108 and A18L)
• have completed a Sutton Trust Pathways Programme at the University of Nottingham, Sutton Trust Summer School at the University of Nottingham, or the Lincoln Medical School Summer School

Applicants will still need to sit the UCAT and achieve Band 1 to 3 on the Situational Judgement Test.