Applicants must be 19 years or over by the start date, and ideally be out of formal education for 2 years. Applicants are interviewed to assess suitability regarding academic focus, motivation, commitment and drive, higher education goals and career aspirations; they do not require academic qualifications or profile, or recent experience of formal education. Applicants are individually assessed and composite scored, based on a short interview along with English and Maths assessments, which must reflect the required standard.

Students will learn particularly through lectures and tutorials and will be assessed by a variety of coursework assignments, presentations, and practical work.

Access courses are equivalent to A levels and are an increasingly popular way to advance into higher education at a local university or further education college. Many NI Access graduates progress to Higher Education study in Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, others choose from a wide range of HE options in Arts, Media and Screen production, Humanities subjects such as English and History, Teaching, Social Sciences and Social Policy, a wide range of Business courses, Computing, Law, Criminology, Politics, Youth and Community work and even some specialist Science courses.

During your course you may be required to purchase course textbooks and incur additional costs for printing, photocopying and binding. The overall additional costs incurred to support your studies may be in the region of £100 or more per year.