National Access Summer School

The National Access Summer School (NASS) is a four day residential, designed to introduce Year 12 students from across England and Wales, to university life and higher education.

This programme is only available to students who live outside the Greater West Midlands region and are currently in Year 12. The next programme begins with a week long residential at the University from Sunday 18 – Wednesday 21 August 2019.

Each student will experience first-hand what life studying and living at a research-led university is like by staying for four days and three nights in the University halls of residence and attending academic sessions in an area of their interest. During the evenings, students will be able to take part in social activities and will also have the opportunity to take a tour of the UK’s second city, Birmingham. Throughout the residential, there will be a team of current undergraduate student ambassadors on hand to support within a relevant academic stream to support and advice.

There are two broad academic streams that applicants can choose from and the academic stream must be related to current studies or relevant to the degree programme students wish to study. The academic streams will include some of the following areas, but these are all subject to availability of academic staff:

• Humanities – Law, History, English, Philosophy, Theology etc.
• Biological and Health Sciences – Physiotherapy, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Biology, Biomedical Material Science, Chemistry etc.

In addition to academic lectures and seminars there are contributions from external organisations.

To apply for the National Access Summer School, please apply here.

Students who successfully complete the National Access Summer School and apply to the University of Birmingham will receive special consideration from admissions tutors. If their application is successful, they will receive two offers from the University of Birmingham, the standard offer and an alternative offer. The alternative offer is typically a reduction of up to two A level grades (e.g. BBB rather than AAB). For Medicine, the alternative offer is a reduction of up to three A level grades (e.g. ABB instead of A*AA).

As well as the alternative offer, students will also be eligible for the Pathways to Birmingham Bursary worth £1,000 and an Pathways to Birmingham Scholarship worth £1,500 per year of study.