UAL Graduation Guide

UAL runs graduation in rounds, each one in the same sequence: an email from the Awards team, a registration window, ticket sales, then the ceremonies. Most problems start early, with an email left unread, a registration window that shuts weeks before the big day, or a name nobody checked. The exact dates for each round go up on UAL's graduation page.

At UAL your ceremony is decided by your College, and some Colleges share one. Type your College's name or its initials below. Once UAL has published a round's times, the search shows your ceremony; until then, it shows when your College graduated last time.

Registering is what puts you in the hall. It happens in the myGraduation tab of the student portal, and it's done by you, not for you. If the tab isn't showing, don't wait for it to appear: tell the Graduation Team through its enquiry form.

That holds even if you qualify for help with the cost of your robe. The discount code arrives after registration closes and doesn't sign you up, so register first and let the rest follow.

Guest tickets at UAL are bought, not handed out, and the Royal Festival Hall adds its own booking fee on top. While registration is open there's a limit per graduate (two or three guests in recent rounds), or you can take a private box that seats four instead. After registration closes, extra tickets may go on sale, first come, first served, but those seats won't be with your group.

Anyone over three counts as a guest and needs a ticket; younger children go free if they sit on someone's lap. Friends without a ticket aren't shut out of the day, either. The building is public, so they can come in and wait; it's only the auditorium they can't enter.

Everything takes place under one roof on the South Bank. Waterloo station is 200 metres from the door and there's no parking at the venue, so come by train, tube or bus. UAL's graduation page doesn't publish arrival times, so leave yourself room for bag checks at the entrance and for photographs before you go in.

UAL asks graduates to hire academic robes and names Ede & Ravenscroft as its preferred supplier. It then says plainly that you're free to use another supplier, because it can't restrict your choice. Students who qualify for financial help are sent a single-use discount code for the robe after registration closes.

The robes are UAL's own. Until 1993 its graduates wore the dress of the Council for National Academic Awards; once the London Institute, as UAL was then called, gained its own degree-awarding powers, it created its own, designed by Ede & Ravenscroft with Bobby Hillson of Central Saint Martins. Bachelor's and master's graduates top it with a mortarboard; doctors have a velvet bonnet instead.

Popular sizes are the first to run out, so book as soon as you know your ceremony.

Two parts of the day are personal to you, and both are worth checking well before it. The first is your name. UAL calls your first name and surname as you cross, and if you'd rather a different name were used, the Graduation Team takes requests through its enquiry form. Each round has a deadline for changes shortly before the ceremonies, and the team reviews every request.

The second is your certificate. At the summer ceremonies you receive it after crossing the stage, as long as you attend the full ceremony, and nobody can collect it on your behalf. Graduates who don't attend have theirs posted to the certificate address on the portal.

The ceremony celebrates your award; it isn't a condition of it. If the date doesn't work for you, everything that matters still reaches you.

For anything about your own situation, write to the Graduation Team through its enquiry form.