Accepting your offer & paying your deposit

Your Offer Letter will contain full details about how to accept your offer and what documentation is required from you.

All offers are conditional, and It’s important that you meet the conditions set out in your Offer Letter – and upload evidence of you having done so to the Applicant Portal – as soon as possible.

We will send the Offer Letter by email and you will need to accept your offer and pay your deposit within three weeks of the date of receiving this letter. If you do not do so, your offer may be withdrawn. Your RCA Offer Letter will provide you with both the details and conditions of your offer. Please read it carefully before making your decision.

If you have not received an update on your Round 1 application by 28 February 2025, please contact us via the Applicant Portal.

Round 2 offers will be made on a rolling basis – allow around eight weeks to hear back and receive your result.

To get started, go to Application Offers on the Applicant Portal.

Once you have clicked on this link you will be given two options regarding your offer:

• Accept the offer

or:

• Decline the offer

Please note that if you receive two offers, you will need to decide which offer you would like to accept. Once you accept an offer, the other offer will automatically be declined.

If you have been awarded a scholarship, the scholarship name will be displayed next to the programme that the scholarship applies to.

Once you have accepted your offer, you will receive two emails from the College:

1. The first email provides confirmation that you have accepted your offer.
2. The second email provides instructions for paying your deposit.

If you have not received either email within 24 hours of accepting your offer, please raise a query in the applicant portal.

New students are required to pay a deposit in order to secure their place, within three weeks of being made an offer. The deposit payable is shown in your offer letter. The deposit is non-refundable but is deductible from your tuition fee when you come to pay that.**

**Applicants with a fee status of Home who are applying to study MA Architecture Part 2 and who intend to take out a tuition fee loan from Student Finance do not need to pay a deposit.

Please see below for deposit amounts to be paid per degree programme and for Home and Overseas/EU students. Your Offer Letter will state whether you have been assessed as a Home, Overseas or EU student for fees purposes.

Home and Ireland Student Deposits

• MA, MRes, MPhil, MDes, MEd, MFA and PhD: £1,000
• Graduate Diploma: £2,000

Overseas and EU Student Deposits

• MA, MRes, MPhil, MDes, MEd, MFA and PhD: £2,000
• Graduate Diploma: £2,000

Follow the instructions given in the email on how to pay your deposit.

You will need to accept your offer and pay your deposit within three weeks of receiving your Offer Letter. If you do not do so, your offer may be withdrawn.

Most international students need a Student Visa to study in the UK. For details on how to apply for a visa, see the Student Visa page.

You need to upload evidence of any qualifications stated in your application and your IELTS Certificate (if you have taken an IELTS test) to the Applicant Portal, if you have not already supplied these, by 9 August 2025.

Please note that the earliest date you will be able to upload any documents is 24 February 2025.

• If you are an international applicant:
  Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) Number checklist (PDF, 146kb)
  Please note that you will be able to upload the completed form and supporting documents to the Applicant Portal from 17 February 2025.
• For applicants contesting their fees status or those with undetermined fees status:
  Fees status questionnaire (PDF, 348kb)
  Email the completed form to [email protected].
• For applicants who are not currently able to provide a formal transcript or certificate showing their degree qualification:
  Confirmation of Previous qualifications (MS Word, 35kb).

How will I pay my fees?

If you are an International student, or a Home student who is not taking out Student Finance loans, you need to pay at least 50% of your tuition fees by 1 August, with the remaining 50% paid before the start of term 2 in January 2026. All Graduate Diploma students will need to pay the full fee prior to enrolment.

What if I'm taking out Student Finance to help pay?

Students applying for a Postgraduate or Doctoral Loan from Student Finance England will still need to pay the fees themselves, as they will receive the money directly from Student Finance England.

• You can pay your fee in three instalments in line with your Postgraduate/Doctoral Loan payments (i.e. September 2025, January 2026 and May 2026).
• This means you can be enrolled (subject to the other enrolment conditions being met) and then pay your first instalment in September.
• Please be aware your Postgraduate/Doctoral Loan may not cover the full cost of your fees and so you may need other funds to make up the shortfall.
• You will be able to apply for your Student Finance from June 2025.

Home students studying MA Architecture (Part 2) may be eligible to apply for a fee loan to cover their fees. If you have an approved fee loan in place at the point of enrolment which covers your full fees, you will be enrolled and you will not be required to make any fee payments. You will be able to apply for your Student Finance from March 2025.

For more information, please see Paying your fees.

We will provide you with step-by-step instructions in June, to help guide you through the enrolment process.

The College is bound by the Education (Fees and Awards) (England) Regulations 2007 when assessing fee status. For more information please see the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) England – HE fee status. If you do not believe the fees status listed in your Offer Letter is correct, you must notify the Admissions team within two weeks of the letter to request a fee status questionnaire. Details of how to request a fee status questionnaire are included in the Offer Letter.

Temporary Deposit Exemption

If you are reliant on an RCA or external scholarship to fund your studies and you are unable to secure your place through a deposit, you can apply for Temporary Deposit Exemption status by completing this form - please accept your programme offer prior to completing the form.

This is discretionary support and you should only make an application where absolutely necessary, and submit this as quickly as possible after receiving your programme offer. You can only apply once and if you fail to provide all requested information and accompanying evidence, your application will be deemed ineligible for review. We aim to confirm the outcome of your application within 10 working days.

If your application is unsuccessful, you will need to pay your deposit within three weeks of receiving your application outcome. If you do not do so, your offer may be withdrawn.

If your application is successful, please note that this is not a tuition fee discount and temporary deposit exemption will only remain in place until the outcome of your scholarship application is known, with no guarantee of further financial support. We encourage all students to look at a range of financial options to support their study, as an RCA scholarship might not be available.

For any questions about scholarships or temporary deposit exemption please contact [email protected]