How to Accept Your UCAS Offers, Step by Step

To accept your UCAS offers, wait until every university has made its decision, then reply in the UCAS Hub before your reply date. You choose one firm offer, can add one insurance offer if your firm is conditional, and decline the rest. For 2027 entry, your reply date is 5 May, 2 June or 21 July 2027.

Replying takes minutes, but it decides where you could be studying, so it's worth doing calmly and not on deadline night. Below you'll find the steps in the Hub and a table that tells you your exact reply date. If you're not yet sure what your offers actually mean, read conditional vs unconditional offers first and come back.

When do UCAS offers come out?

Each university decides in its own time, so offers arrive one by one after your application reaches them. You'll see each decision in your application in the UCAS Hub, the place UCAS uses for tracking and replying. (If an older guide tells you to use UCAS Track, it's out of date: Track no longer exists.)

Universities do have deadlines of their own for 2027 entry:

• If you sent your application by 13 January 2027, universities have until 12 May 2027 to make their decisions.
• If you sent it by 30 June 2027, they have until 14 July 2027.

If a university hasn't decided by its date, that choice is automatically made unsuccessful. So you'll never be left waiting forever, even if one university is slow.

You don't need to reply to each offer as it arrives. Your reply date depends on when your last decision comes in, so the normal thing is to wait until you've heard from all your choices.

How do you accept an offer in the UCAS Hub?

When every university has decided, here's how to reply:

1. Check every choice has a decision. Your reply date is set by when the last one arrived. Use the table further down to find yours.
2. Read each offer in full. Note whether it asks for grades or UCAS Tariff points, and check for non-academic conditions too.
3. Compare the conditions with your predicted grades. For a points offer, run your predictions through the predicted grades UCAS points calculator to see how much room you have.
4. Sign in to the UCAS Hub and open your application. Your offers are listed there, along with the option to reply.
5. Choose your firm choice. This is the offer you most want to accept.
6. Decide on an insurance choice, if your firm is conditional. It's optional. If your firm is unconditional, skip this step, because you can't hold an insurance.
7. Decline every other offer. You can only hold one firm and one insurance.
8. Check your replies, then confirm them before your reply date. Make sure each offer has the reply you meant to give it.
9. Note the date you replied. For 14 days afterwards, you can change your replies once by contacting UCAS.

Check your predicted points against your offers

What are your reply options: firm, insurance and decline?

You have three possible replies to each offer.

Firm is your first choice. If you meet its conditions (or it's unconditional), this is where you're going.

Insurance is your back-up. UCAS defines it as "the back-up choice to a conditional firm acceptance", which is why you can only have one when your firm is conditional. It's optional, so you can hold a conditional firm on its own.

Decline is for every other offer. UCAS says: "You can only accept one firm choice and one insurance choice (if you choose to have one). You must decline all other offers."

That leaves four combinations you're allowed to hold. UCAS uses these short codes, which you may see in its guidance or hear from your school:

Picking which offer goes where is the hard part. Our guide to firm vs insurance choices covers how to choose a safe insurance, with a worked example in points.

What are the UCAS reply deadlines for 2027?

Your reply date isn't fixed at the start. It depends on when you receive your last decision. Find the first row your last decision fits into:

Two quick examples. If your last decision arrives on 20 March 2027, you reply by 5 May 2027. If it arrives on 2 April 2027, you've missed the first cut-off, so you reply by 2 June 2027.

Don't plan to reply on the day itself. Aim to have your replies in a few days early, so a login problem or a last-minute wobble can't cost you your offers. For every other date in the 2027 cycle, see our guide to UCAS deadlines and key dates.

What does "declined by default" mean?

If your reply date passes and you haven't replied, UCAS declines any offers you haven't answered. This is called declined by default, or DBD. It happens automatically, and it means those offers are gone unless you act quickly.

There's a short safety net. UCAS says: "You have 14 days – starting on the date the automatic decline was recorded – in which the automatic decline can be swapped." If this happens to you, contact UCAS straight away. There's also a hard stop: no reply swaps are possible after 18:00 UK time on 22 July 2027. So if your reply date was in July, you have very little time.

If the chance to swap has passed, you still have routes to a place:

• UCAS Extra, if you used all five choices and aren't holding any offers. It runs from 25 February to 1 July 2027. See UCAS Extra explained.
• Clearing, which opens on 2 July 2027 for applicants who aren't holding an offer.

Can you change your mind after replying?

Sometimes, and the rules get stricter as the year goes on.

Within 14 days of replying, you can change your replies once by contacting UCAS. After those 14 days, you'd need the permission of the universities involved. Either way, the last day for reply swaps is 22 July 2027 at 18:00 UK time.

After results, you can't swap your firm and insurance around. Whatever order you chose is the order that counts.

If you want to give up a firm place, there's a button in your application called "Decline my place". From 2 July 2027, if you're holding an unconditional firm place, you can use it to release yourself into Clearing and look for a different course. It can't be undone, and it cancels your insurance place too. UCAS advises lining up a new place before you use it.

If you'd rather start a year later, deferring after you've got an offer is the university's decision. Our guide to deferred entry explains how to ask.

What happens after you've replied?

For most people, very little until results day. You'll find the 2027 results days in our UCAS deadlines guide. If your firm is unconditional, finish any admin the university has asked for, such as a DBS check, and you're set.

If your firm is conditional, the university checks your results against your conditions when they come out, and your application in the UCAS Hub updates to show the outcome. If you've missed a condition, a university may offer you a different course instead, called a changed course offer. UCAS says you must reply to it "within five days or you will lose the offer(s)", so check your application often around results day.

If neither your firm nor your insurance works out, Clearing is the next step. Our guides to what to do if you miss your grades and UCAS Clearing explain how it works. And if you're wondering how your offers compare with what other courses ask for, our UCAS points calculator is a quick way to check where your grades land.