About mitigating circumstances for undergraduate applicants

We understand that sometimes students can underperform during their studies due to mitigating circumstances and therefore if your studies or performance have been significantly disrupted by circumstances beyond your control, you should complete and return the mitigating circumstances form. Completing the form will allow you to provide us with full details of your circumstances so that we are able to take everything into consideration when we assess your UCAS application.

If you submit a mitigating circumstances form, it does not guarantee that we will make you an offer or that we will confirm your place at the University if you do not meet the conditions of your offer. We will not make a lower offer based on the information you provide on the form.

However, we will thoroughly assess your mitigating circumstances alongside your UCAS application and use the information that you provide to help us assess your academic performance in light of your individual circumstances. We will treat the information and any additional documents that you provide in the strictest confidence.

When we receive your UCAS application, we can see information about your educational or socio-economic background which allows us to consider the context in which you have been studying. You do not need to complete a mitigating circumstances form to provide this information as we will take your application into careful consideration through our contextual admissions process

When we consider mitigating circumstances for applicants

We consider mitigating circumstances when we are deciding whether or not we are able to make you an offer.

If you are an offer-holder and select Bath as your firm or insurance choice, we will consider your mitigating circumstances if you do not meet the conditions of your offer. We have a dedicated Admissions Progression Team to make sure that any information provided is considered carefully when we are deciding whether or not we can confirm your place.

School closures and educational disruption during the Coronavirus outbreak

Given the global nature of the Coronavirus outbreak, we are aware that all students have experienced significant disruption especially in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 academic years to both their studies and home life. We want to assure you that our admissions decisions at Bath are extremely thorough and we will carefully take into account the closure of schools alongside the widespread disruption. Therefore, although we very much appreciate how unsettling this time will have been for you, we do not need you to get in touch to inform us of any general disruption during this period.

However, we recognise that the impact of Covid-19 will have affected everybody differently, and we appreciate that you may have experienced individual or specific circumstances which may have affected your academic performance. Therefore, if you feel that you have been specifically disadvantaged, we would encourage you to complete our mitigating circumstances form, so that we can take this information into account.

Examples of disadvantages due to COVID may include but are not limited to:

• Where you have been unable to attend school despite schools generally being open due to self-isolating, a local lockdown or when a school bubble is sent home
• Limited access to technology or online resources during homeschooling
• Financial Hardship
• Housing conditions that affected your ability to study, for example needing to study in cramped conditions or at home with disruption from very young siblings
• A long-term health or mental health condition and you experienced disruption to your support or medical care

Other mitigating circumstances

We want to know about these circumstances so that we may take them into consideration when we are assessing your application. Please use the typical examples provided below as a guide, however, please be advised that if you are unsure if your circumstances will be considered, submitting a form will not be detrimental to your application in any way and any information you provide will be treated with sensitivity and thoroughly considered.

Examples of mitigating circumstances

In order for us to consider mitigating circumstances, you will need to show how the circumstances have affected your studies. We do not have a set criteria for circumstances that we will consider, however typical examples include:

• bereavement
• serious, acute or chronic illness
• serious illness of a close family member or partner
• significant caring responsibilities, care leavers or living independently (estranged students)*
• significant adverse personal circumstances
• significant disruption to the provision of education at school or college
• any other factor that has had a serious and significant impact on your academic performance

* If you are a care leaver, care experienced, an estranged student or young adult carer, you may have already emailed us a short paragraph to provide an overview of your circumstances. Please do also complete our mitigating circumstances form if you would like to provide us with more detailed information about how your circumstances have affected your studies.

If you have a disability or long-term health condition, we will typically only consider this a mitigating circumstance if:

• there were no appropriate adjustments made for studies or exam performance
• you had an acute episode of illness which had a particular impact on a period of study or your exam performance
• you were in a shielded group due to your disability or long-term health condition and this impacted your academic performance

You should contact our Disability Service for information about the support available for current students at Bath.

When to submit your form

You can submit the form after making your UCAS application. If your mitigating circumstances have impacted on your previous performance or your predicted grades, please submit the form as soon as possible after making your application so that we may take your circumstances into consideration when we assess your application.

Please submit the form as soon as you know about any circumstances that may affect your final exam performance.

If you submit your form after your final results have been released, we may not be able to take your circumstances into account. We strongly recommend you submit your form before 31 July 2023.

If you have already submitted a form

If you have applied to the University in a previous year and already provided mitigating circumstances documentation and there is no change to your circumstances, you do not need to re-submit a form.

If there is any change to your circumstances which we should be aware of, or you are concerned that your exam performance may be affected, please complete and submit an updated mitigating circumstances form.

If you have already submitted a form and would like to share additional information with us later in the admissions process, you can do so via: ugadmissions-confidential@bath.ac.uk.

Your personal data

Information about how any personal data you provide will be processed can be found in the mitigating circumstances section of our undergraduate applicant privacy notice.

The mitigating circumstances form includes an ‘Applicant Declaration’ section. This section allows applicants the opportunity to give consent for the information they have provided to be shared with Student Services:

• should they receive an offer and choose the University of Bath as their Firm or Insurance choice
• should they go on to enrol at Bath

Student Services will then keep this information confidentially on file in order to provide students joining the university with the best possible support, should they ever need it.

If you choose Bath as your Firm or Insurance option and the information provided suggests early engagement may be beneficial, Student Services will contact you so that you are aware of available support prior to the start of the course. This will help to ensure any support required has been discussed with you directly and is in place should you join the university so that you have the best possible start.

Coming to university can be a big adjustment for all students and we want to help support your transition to the University as much as possible.

The University has a number of specialist Support Services to aid students, and enable them to fulfil their potential. We strongly encourage students to pro-actively engage with support services, should help be required.

**Please note that in exceptional circumstances if the information you provide suggests you may be at serious risk to yourself or others this may be shared without your consent with the relevant faculty/department or student support services, should you join the University of Bath. *

Information about how any personal data you provide will be processed can be found in the mitigating circumstances section of our undergraduate applicant privacy notice.

Submitting your form

Please submit your completed form and any supporting evidence to ugadmissions-confidential@bath.ac.uk

You should submit your form by 31 July 2023.

If you submit your form after this date, or after your final exam results have been released, we may not take your circumstances into account.

Please note if you are a current University of Bath student experiencing Individual Mitigating Circumstances then you will need to complete an IMC report form and forward it to the Academic Registry.

Submitting mitigating circumstances on behalf of an applicant

We understand that in some circumstances it is very difficult for an applicant to complete the ‘applicant statement’ section of the form. If you are submitting mitigating circumstances on behalf of an applicant, you can do so by completing the ‘supporting statement’ section of the form. However, you will need to ensure that the applicant has completed and signed the ‘applicant declaration’ which can be found in section 5.