Universities did not get all the application details submitted by students

Some students have found that their chosen universities apparently have not received any details about them.

The admissions service, Ucas, said the universities could look up the information via a secure web link.

But there had been problems in also providing them with paper versions of people's applications.

Information missing

A Devon parent, Paul Evans, told the BBC News website that his daughter, Ellis, had made her applications electronically in October.

But then one of her chosen universities e-mailed her and, although it had received her personal statement, clearly didn't know anything about her qualifications.

"She was asked to e-mail the admissions tutor with the missing information," Mr Evans said.

"Concerned by this I contacted her school who contacted the university and they confirmed the missing data from Ucas.

"The school then contacted the other universities she has chosen and was asked to forward the missing information to one by fax, another in the post and another by e-mail. One simply wanted the details over the phone.

"This was obviously time-consuming for the school.

"If the first university hadn't e-mailed my daughter, I wonder how long it would have been before this would have been sorted out?"

Hindsight

Mr Evans added: "Some of her friends received welcome letters from Ucas which showed that they had made applications for colleges and courses they hadn't actually applied for."

When problems were reported three weeks ago, Ucas said there had been some "glitches" but no one would be disadvantaged.

That assurance stands.

A spokeswoman said universities could go via a secure web link to view applicants' details.

"Applications are being processed more quickly than last year," she said.

"But universities still want paper copy forms, and reformatting the electronic information to go back onto paper has been challenging to say the least."

For example, some text had been truncated or things had been left out altogether.

Asked whether the system could not have been designed so that the information it contained could be printed out, she said: "Hindsight is a wonderful thing."

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Some of the comments we have received:

I've been waiting almost three weeks since my UCAS application was sent off, and only two universities have acknowledged receiving my application, despite UCAS (after putting me on hold for 10 minutes) telling me every choice had received an application! It all seems rather vague; all the UCAS Track website says is that my choices are 'referred'.
Tom, Student, Penzance, Cornwall, England

I am applying to a local university, and have had no confirmation letter, and UCAS inform me that my details have not been passed on to the local university, as yet.
Laura Jury, Brixham, UK

It's terrible! My parents had to pay �15 to UCAS for me to apply, and for that you hope you can have some confidence in the system. These 'glitches' should have been foreseen and ironed out long ago...
Alice, Gloucestershire, UK

This problem also applies to CUKAS, the application system into the conservatoires in the UK. My son has submitted his application and when we track the history we find that all his education data ( qualifications ) has disappeared, his National Insurance number has changed and that he is not in full-time education but on a sandwich course. We also find that other data has changed and then corrected itself overnight, this includes his name, address and current college. In one instance he became a female living in Yugoslavia and being educated in Poland. I have contacted CUKAS on several occasions and they assure me that the data accessed by the conservitoires is correct, and that the problem seems to be confined to the tracking software. Currently we have received replies from five out of the six conservatoires so hopefully they are correct in their statement.
Colin Monk, Northampton, UK