Support for prospective students

If you have a disability, we would encourage you to declare this on your UCAS application. A disability could include, but is not limited to, a medical condition (such as Sickle Cell Anaemia, Diabetes, Epilepsy, Cancer, Crohn’s Disease or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), mental health condition, visual or hearing impairment, autistic spectrum condition or a condition affecting your mobility.

If you choose to disclose your disability on your UCAS application, then our Transitions and Retention Officers will contact you to ask for more information about your condition once you have made DMU your firm choice university.

If you have not disclosed your disability on your UCAS application, then you can contact the Transitions and Retention Officers separately to discuss the support that you could potentially access at university. To do this, you can email SSM@DMU.ac.uk or phone 0116 257 7595 (option 1).

We appreciate that you might not have received any support at school or college. However, as university is a different environment it is important to discuss what support you might require during your time at DMU.

The Transitions and Retention Officers will ask about your disability-related needs and any reasonable adjustments that you may need at university. If appropriate, they may invite you for a Student Support Meeting to discuss this in more detail.

When you are contacted by the Transitions and Retention Officer, we would encourage you to respond as soon as possible as some types of support can take a number of weeks or months to arrange.

If you are invited for a Student Support Meeting, this could take place via phone, a Teams meeting or face to face. You are welcome to bring someone with you to the meeting, such as a parent, carer, friend or support worker.

The Student Support Meeting is a meeting to discuss how your disability impacts on your studies and what your support needs might be whilst you are at University. This meeting does not have an effect on your academic status, it is purely to ascertain what support you may require. Any information you provide will be treated confidentially and will only be shared with relevant staff. The meeting is relaxed and gives you the chance to ask any questions or raise any concerns that you might have. It is nothing to worry about and our aim is to help support you.

Some areas of discussion in the meeting might include:

• Accommodation - the team can make referrals to our Accommodation Office to help you find somewhere to live that is suitable for your needs. Find out more about disability provision in our Halls of Residence
• Faculty support such as advanced access to lecture slides and handouts and support information that you may want to be communicated to your tutors
• Examination arrangements
• Any Health and Safety concerns, including Delta referrals if appropriate
• The government fund called the Disabled Students' Allowances (DSA) (eligibility criteria apply). Find out more about DSA
• Advice on accessing support from external agencies such as Social Services if eligible
• Other individualised support and any concerns that you might have about studying at university

You can see the students speaking in more detail about their individual support at university on our YouTube channel. Below is just one example; access the full playlist for more student stories detailing their experiences, the support on offer to them and how it helped them reach their potential.