Undergraduate education year in school on the grounds of academic giftedness) may enter below this age but large universities are now setting minimum age limits of 16 or 17 after a number of well publicised "child prodigies" were found to be emotionally and mentally unprepared for university life. Applications for undergraduate courses in UK higher education are made through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). For their first degree, most students read for the degree of bachelor, which usually takes three years, however in the sciences and engineering integrated courses covering both undergraduate level and advanced degree level leading to the
UCAS and in the first year it handled around 140,000 applications to polytechnic courses, of whom 40,000 a year went on to study at polytechnics. Although many polytechnics offered art and design programmes, and some also offered teacher training courses, these admissions systems remained outside PCAS. Art and Design admissions worked to a later timetable as a result of the role Art Foundation courses had in developing a student's proposed specialism (painting, sculpture, graphic design and so on). Work was furthermore generally submitted before a decision was made on whether to interview. However means of absorbing the Art and Design Admissions