Once you’ve submitted your application, the Admissions team will pass it on to the Institute that best matches your profile. Applications that end up in the ICM, are discussed between the PGR Team and prospective supervisors and in case of acceptance, the actual registration process will be set in motion after Admissions receive some additional information from the supervisor.
Staff applicants are best to submit their request for staff fees simultaneously. However, unlike the online study application, this is a paper form which needs to be submitted to your institute. This can be done via e-mail at icm.pgstudentenquiries@ncl.ac.uk. Once the staff candidature is approved by the Institute Director and the Dean of Postgraduate Studies, the Graduate School will process this on the applicant’s records which will enable Admissions to send an offer mentioning the reduced amount of Tuition Fees.
JACS Code and ATAS clearance
Every research project is allocated a JACS code – the supervisor chooses the most appropriate code for the project from a list. The selected code is especially important for international students because some JACS codes require international students to apply for ATAS clearance. This can be done online on the Home Office Website.
Conditional Offer Letter
If you haven’t met all the conditions before starting your course, you will receive a conditional offer letter telling you which conditions you’ll have to meet before receiving an unconditional offer letter and being allowed to complete registration. These conditions can be the receipt of reference letters, proof of your English language skills, providing certificates, requesting ATAS clearance…
Acceptance of the conditional offer letter can be done online via your S3P account.
Unconditional Offer Letter
Once all conditions have been met, you will receive an unconditional offer letter which you will also be able to accept by using your S3P account. Once the unconditional offer has been accepted, the only thing standing in the way of completing registration, is a financial hold that will only be lifted when your tuition fees have been paid.
How to complete your registration on S3P
Once you’ve accepted your unconditional offer and paid your fees, you will be able to complete registration on S3P – unless there’s any reason for you to decline the place you’ve been offered or defer it to a later date. At this point you should receive a notification explaining how to obtain your smart card as well as gain access to your postgraduate e-mail account and PGR IT systems.
Retrospective registration
Occasionally, a student asks for retrospective registration. In the majority of cases, this doesn’t carry any benefits; all students pay fees for the full term of the qualification, and it is in any case possible to make a request for early submission. In fact, if there is any risk of over-running then it is a significant disadvantage to back-date a registration, because the deadline for final submission is brought forward.
On vary rare occasions, there might be a compelling case to back-date. For example, if the student’s financial support is tied to a particular registration period, and their registration has been delayed for some reason. These exceptions will be considered by the graduate school on a case-by-case basis.