Eligibility for Pre-sessional English courses
Application criteria
To apply, you must:
- be 18 years old or over
- have a valid IELTS (or equivalent 4-skills English test) result
- have submitted an application for one of these main courses at UAL: Certificate of Higher Education or degree-level or higher.
Which Pre-sessional course should you choose?
The right Pre-sessional course for you depends on your:
- main course language requirement
- current English level
- improvement needed.
1. Main course language requirement
Find your language requirement on your main course offer letter or UAL Applicant Portal.
Example language requirement:
- IELTS (or equivalent) level 6.0 or above, with at least 5.5 in reading, writing, listening and speaking.
Next, you will compare this to your current English level.
2. Current English level
To show your current English level, you must submit a single, valid, accepted test result.
- You can't combine scores from different tests.
- Your result must be less than 2 years old at the start of the Pre-sessional course.*
* If you have already studied in the UK or on Pre-sessional, you might need a test result issued after the start of your previous or current course. See our Pre-sessional visa and immigration guidance.
Accepted tests:
- IELTS Academic / IELTS Academic Online / IELTS Academic for UKVI
- PTE Academic / PTE Academic for UKVI
- TOEFL iBT / TOEFL iBT Home Edition
- Trinity ISE
- LanguageCert Academic SELT.
3. Amount of improvement needed
Compare your language requirement to your current English test result. Calculate how many IELTS bands (or equivalent) you need to improve by:
- Need to improve by 1.0 IELTS bands or equivalent? Choose 12 Week Pre-sessional Online.
- Need to improve by 0.5 IELTS bands or equivalent? Choose 7 Week Pre-sessional On Campus.
Non-standard entry requirements
Your main course might have non-standard language requirements. Examples include Certificate of Higher Education, courses requiring 7.0, and courses requiring higher skill scores. For these courses, there may be unique entry requirements for Pre-sessional. Please see the 12 Week and 7 Week course webpages or email Presessional-admissions@arts.ac.uk.
Eligibility updates for 2025
We welcome students who hold an offer for a Certificate of Higher Education course to apply for 12 Week or 7 Week Pre-sessional.*
Unfortunately are unable to accept students who:
- Already meet their main course language requirement.
- Hold an offer for Foundation Diploma.
- Hold an offer for Level 3 main courses.
* If your main course is a Certificate of Higher Education, you can use Pre-sessional to meet your UAL language requirement. However, you also must provide an IELTS Academic for UKVI, or equivalent approved , for your main course visa.
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