Access for Rural Communities

Access for Rural Communities

Access for Rural Communities (ARC) is a pioneering project aimed at supporting and enabling young learners on their journey into university. The ARC project provides opportunities for S4 to S6 pupils from the following local areas to explore higher education:

Argyll and Bute
Highlands
Eilean Siar (Western Isles)
Shetland and Orkney.

S4 Summer School 2023 – Sunday 4 June to Wednesday 7 June

The ARC S4 Summer School is free of charge. Applications are welcome from S4 pupils who will progress to S5 after the summer break. The University of St Andrews will cover the cost of transport, accommodation, and meals over the course of four days and three nights.

At the summer school, pupils will be introduced to a range of subjects and are encouraged to develop their investigative and analytical skills by completing a group project. This provides an opportunity to network with other learners from rural communities across Scotland, as well as local pupils from Fife schools, who will also be attending the summer school.

Rural learners will arrive at the summer school on Sunday 4 June, one day before local pupils from Fife, to engage in teambuilding and to go out for dinner in St Andrews with student ambassadors.

Current S4 pupils from the local areas listed above can apply to the summer school by completing the application form below by Tuesday 28 February.

Please accept all cookies to view the form.

The subjects covered by the S4 Summer School in 2023 are:

Art History
Biology
Geography & Sustainable Development
Medicine
Modern Languages
Psychology

S5 & S6

Rural learners attending the S4 Summer School will be offered additional support and guidance throughout the university application process in S5 and S6. Pupils are also encouraged to apply to the Sutton Trust summer school programme.

Our intention is to extend this support to all rural schools interested in working with the University of St Andrews. Please email us at rural.access@st-andrews.ac.uk to get in touch with members of the team.

The University of St Andrews is interested in understanding the particular barriers pupils applying to and attending university from rural areas may face, and understanding the best ways we can support pupils going forward. Colleagues have therefore undertaken research which assessed the effects of rurality on access to higher education in Scotland, in particular to the University of St Andrews.

This research:
- gathered evidence to gain a better understanding of the perception of access to higher education from these rural communities
- proposed some guiding principles to ensure that young people living in these rural communities have equal opportunities to attend highly competitive courses offered at Scottish institutions and in turn realise a positive destination
- developed an index reflecting the level of access to higher education according to the degree of rurality.
Please see the documents below for further information:
- Access to Higher Education for Scottish Rural communities: an exploratory analysis
- Facts explained: access to higher education for Scottish rural communities: an exploratory analysis

Apply now for the S4 ARC summer school

Applications close on Tuesday 28 February.

The information collected in this form will be held and used only in the ways outlined in the University's data collection statement.

Access for Rural Communities

ARC research

Apply now for the S4 ARC summer school