The courses with the 15 October deadline include medicine, dentistry, veterinary and all applications for undergraduate places at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Statistical data for all other 2014 entry university applications will not be available until the main Ucas deadline on 15 January.

This year¡¯s figures on early-deadline courses, released by Ucas on 24 October, show that there were 58,200 applicants for 2014 entry, an overall 2 per cent increase from last year. The number of applications from England remained almost parallel with last year¡¯s rate. Applications by Scottish students saw a 2 per cent rise from last year, and there was a 5 per cent increase in applications from Wales.

Northern Irish applications for 2014 entry saw a decline of 10 per cent as numbers fell from 1,130 last year to 1,040. However, this decline was limited to first-time applicants. Northern Ireland actually saw a 5 per cent increase in the number of reappliers ¨C applicants who had already applied to Ucas last year.

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England, Scotland and Wales also had increased numbers of reappliers: a 1 per cent rise among English applicants and a 14 per cent increase in Scotland and Wales.

Applications from outside the European Union through Ucas have seen a 10 per cent increase, although these represent a small proportion of overall applications from such students.

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Applicants have been able to submit applications to Ucas for all 2014 courses since early September.