Queen Mary University of London is committed to supporting those who are, or have been, in the care of a Local Authority (in foster care or semi-independent living or a residential care home), to achieve their potential and succeed at university. As such, Queen Mary has a dedicated scheme to support care-experienced students, which includes having a dedicated, named member of staff as your key contact. One of the Welfare Advisers will be your dedicated key contact for support during your time at Queen Mary. You are encouraged to contact us to access this support scheme before you start at Queen Mary - ideally, before you apply for your place at university or soon after. However, you are also welcome to contact us at any stage of your course.
Our dedicated webpages will help you understand what support is available for you as a care experienced student at Queen Mary. You will have some important decisions to make about where to live and in what type of accommodation and you will need to understand what funding you can apply for to pay for your living costs and tuition fees.
Coming to university without family support can be challenging, but there is a lot of support at Queen Mary to help you with any difficulties you might have, and we have many students studying with us who are care experienced.
We encourage you to disclose your care experienced status on your UCAS application form (There is a tick box on the UCAS form which lets us know you are care experienced, and you can also mention it in your personal statement). This is useful for the admissions tutor to be aware of. If you did not mention it and would now like to (if your application is still being considered) you can email the Admissions team dealing with your application and ask them to let the admissions tutor know.
We do understand that you may be unsure about letting the university know you are care experienced, but please be aware that this information is only ever shared with those who need to know. This information will never be used against a student; it will be used to offer you appropriate support. You can then decide whether you want to take advantage of that support, and if so, when you want to do that.
Pre-entry
The Queen Mary Student Recruitment and Widening Participation Team work closely with the University’s Advice and Counselling Service to ensure we provide continued support for our students and applicants who are Care Experienced or Estranged from their families.
We understand the hurdles independent students face and are here to make your journey to university as smooth as possible and ensure that you have access to all the care, funding, housing and welfare services that we offer.
For full and detailed information on Queen Mary’s offer to Care Experienced and Estranged Students, you can visit this site.
Alternatively feel free to contact Joe Sampson, who can guide you through your application to and transition to Queen Mary University of London
Joe also works with Virtual Schools and LEA’s across London boroughs to run University Awareness events for Looked After Children. If you are from one of these settings and would like us to visit you, please get in touch.
Financial Support
If you are getting Student Finance as a single independent student, you should automatically qualify for a Queen Mary Bursary. You do not need to make a separate application for this, and there are an unlimited number of these bursaries. The bursary is non-repayable and is for you to use on whatever you need.
University Financial Assistance Fund
The Financial Assistance Fund awards grants to eligible students whose income is not enough to pay for their essential costs. The fund can help young independent students with a grant to help towards the cost of their rent during the summer vacation. You might also qualify for a grant during the academic year, depending on your circumstances. A Welfare Adviser can help you understand if you might qualify for a grant from the fund and can help you to apply.
Contact us: [email protected]
You can also find out more about our full offer on our Propel page