The dates that decide your year.

Spring week applications open and close

Some opened in late August. Most are read on a rolling basis and fill before the date they advertise, so getting in during week one is worth more than a better answer in week six.

This is the single most expensive thing not to know, and it is why we lead with spring weeks rather than university applications.

October TMUA and ESAT booking closes

Booking, not sitting. If you are applying to Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, LSE, UCL, Warwick or Durham for a course that needs one of these, this is a hard stop and it is easy to miss by a week.

TMUA and ESAT, first window

We do not teach these. We do help you work out whether you need one, when to sit it, and how to plan the fortnight around it without losing your statement.

Oxbridge, medicine, dentistry and veterinary deadline

Everything in, through your school, by six in the evening. Schools set their own internal deadline before this, usually by a fortnight, so check yours.

Statement help peaks in the two weeks before and we are usually full then. A session in September is a better session than the same hour in October.

Spring week tests and video interviews

Online tests, HireVues, and for the quant firms a technical round. Rejections land in waves from late October. That is a normal part of the process and not a verdict on you, and it is usually where people give up too early.

Cambridge and Oxford interviews

Mocks are worth doing in late November, not the week of. By December you want practice at thinking out loud, not new content.

The main UCAS deadline

For everything that is not on the October list. The rush starts on 2 January and we fill quickly, so if you know you want help, say so in December.

Offers arrive, and summer internships open

Choosing between two offers is a real decision and worth an hour of someone else's time. Meanwhile second years start applying for next summer.

Spring weeks actually happen

A week inside the firm. What you do with that week decides whether a summer internship offer follows, and almost nobody prepares for it.

A-level results day

We will be around, and we will say so beforehand. Yuyao has been through the bad version of this morning, missed a place by one mark, and got in the following year. There is a plan for it.