The courses step is one of the most important steps a student will complete on their application or enrolment form. The settings in this area should always be checked to make sure students can only proceed as per your school requirements.
To get to the courses settings, click Settings on the lower left and then select Application Form.
Once you are on the application form area, select the Courses step, where you can review and customise your settings.
Why can't an applicant select any courses?
If an applicant tells you they can't make any course selections, check these settings first - the cause is almost always one of them.
1. Make sure the courses are visible on the application form. Go to Settings, then Subject Options, and open the Subjects tab. Each course has an "Available on Application Form" toggle. If this is switched off, that course won't appear for applicants to choose, and if every course is switched off the applicant sees an empty list with nothing to select.
2. Check the entry-requirement restriction. On the Courses step, the setting "Would you like to prevent applicants from choosing subjects for which they do not meet the entry requirements?" decides whether grades are enforced. When it is set to Yes, an applicant can only choose courses whose entry requirements they meet - so if their predicted or achieved grades haven't been added yet, they meet no requirement and every course that has an entry requirement becomes unselectable. Either set this to No, or make sure the applicant's grades have been imported or entered, so they can make their choices.
If you want applicants to be able to express an interest in any course regardless of their grades, choose "Restrict enrolment by teachers" instead. Applicants can then select any course, and staff decide which courses they qualify for at the enrolment stage.
A few other settings can also leave an applicant with nothing to select:
- The Courses step is switched off for that applicant type - check the "Enable for Internal / External" toggle at the top of the Courses step, as it can be on for one type of applicant but off for the other.
- The applicant is on a Pathway that limits them to a specific set of courses, or excludes the ones they expected to see.
- A course is a follow-on (dependent) subject whose prerequisite hasn't been selected yet, so it stays locked until the required subject is chosen.
Restricting student course selection by entry requirement means that if they don't meet the entry requirements you have specified, the student won't be allowed to choose that particular course.
Many schools still want to see what students are interested in studying, and opt instead to restrict their enrolment by teachers. This means students can express an interest in any course, but staff involved in the enrolment process can only enrol them into courses for which they qualify.
You can limit the number of choices an applicant is able to make; either by the number of subjects or by the number of learning hours. You would make use of the Learning Hours options if you offer courses which are worth double or triple a single A Level or equivalent.
You can choose which other settings to have in place; do you need to cap the number of places on a course at the application stage? Do you want applicants to see the capacity for each of their chosen courses on results day?
If you want to import the predicted and/or achieved results for your internal applicants, you can do so via the imports area of the platform. Here, you can choose to prevent the internal applicants from editing the grades you add in on their behalf, so they can't make any cheeky changes!
Internal applicants and predicted-grade uploads
The wording "Select the course you are interested in:" is the fixed heading on the applicant Courses page. It is not a custom question or a Courses-step setting, so you cannot change it.
To stop internal applicants from uploading grade evidence, go to Settings > Application Form.
Open the Education step for the application-form phase.
Open File Upload. Under Exam results upload, switch off Allow exam results upload button in the Internal column. Internal applicants no longer see the exam-results upload button. If Exam Result attachment is required when on Application Form is on for Internal, switch it off as well.
The Courses-step setting "Prevent internal students from editing and adding grades on the education step" only stops internal applicants from adding or editing grade rows. It does not hide the upload button. Staff can import or add grades separately.
You can also ask applicants to rank their subjects in order of preference when applying, and can also enable them to see the learning hours for each course - this is completely up to you.
If you are using the Learning Hours settings described above, you would need to have "display learning hours" active.
Prevent Subject Clashing and Activate Option Block View are two settings which go hand in hand; generally they are either both on, or both off.
If you have given your subjects and classes different names, use the "use class title for class name display" option to toggle between the two, and decide which view you'd prefer the students to see.
Enable Offer Courses Listing would allow you to use the offer courses list on a student's profile, to generate a list of courses you wish to make them an offer to study. The offer list is often used in conjunction with the meetings area of the platform and allows you and students to differentiate between application choices & offered subjects.
The 'Subject Selection Rule' allows you to define the number of subjects that an applicant can select from a specific list that you have made, or enforce a specific choice (for example, if you need them all to select "Supervised Study", you can define that in this list).
Prepare your list by putting a tick on the subjects you need under the 'Available Subjects' column and then click Arrow Right. The subjects will now have moved to the right column labelled 'Students must choose from this list:'. After that, indicate the number of subjects that the students must choose from your list then click "Save".
This area enables students to choose reserve subject(s), and you can set a minimum and maximum number of reserved subjects as needed.
Students select their main choices first and once those are selected, a pop-up will then appear to prompt them to select their reserve choice(s) if these settings are active.
A subject is missing where applicants add their predicted grades
The grades table on the Education step is separate from the courses list. Your course settings do not control it, so check the Education step instead.
Go to Settings and select Application Form.
On the step bar, open the Education step.
Under Settings that apply to ALL applicants, the question "Which qualifications types do you want to accept from applicants? Select all that apply." lists the qualification types your applicants can use. An applicant only sees the subjects that belong to a type you select here. A missing subject is usually a missing type, so add the type and the subjects under it appear.
If the type is already selected and the subject is still missing, that subject is not in the central qualification list that Admissions+ holds. Schools cannot add to that list themselves. You have two options. Select Other or Other Vocational in the same question, which lets the applicant type the subject name. Or ask us to add the subject to the list for you.
A subject that an applicant cannot select on the courses step is a different problem. Use the checks at the top of this article for that.
An applicant's reserve subject list is empty
Admissions+ only records reserve choices when the Courses step asks for them. On the Courses step, check that "Would you like students to choose a reserve course choice?" is set to Yes. With it set to No, nothing is collected and every reserve list stays empty.
The Minimum number of reserve subjects setting decides whether a reserve choice is compulsory. When it is 0, an applicant can finish the application without a reserve choice. That applicant's reserve list is then empty while other applicants have entries.
Three more causes give an empty reserve list:
- Applicants who submitted before you switched the setting on have no reserve choices. Their list stays empty until they or a member of staff add the choices on the student profile.
- The reserve pop-up only appears after the applicant completes the main choices. An applicant who stops before that point records nothing.
- When you open the reserve list for a course from the courses summary, the list leaves out applicants whose application is Withdrawn, Declined or Deadline Missed, and applicants whose offer is declined or withdrawn. The list can look empty although choices exist.
Related articles
- How to activate reserve course option
- How to enable applicants to list additional qualification types when adding their grades
- Why is a student showing as not qualified (or qualified) when their grades say otherwise?
If a check above does not solve it, ask Emma in the platform, or open a ticket from Support & Requests at the top of your dashboard.