Exam pressures have been multiplied this year by increased competition for university places. The fear of not getting the right grades is rational - without them, you won't make it onto the course of your choice. But aside from studying hard, university admissions advisors say there is a range of things that can help make your application to university successful. First and foremost, you must demonstrate a commitment and passion for the subject you want to study - by reading and researching beyond the examination syllabus and making connections between your field and other interesting avenues of investigation. What's in the news is a good place to start, and can provide material for an extended project. Work experience can also impress the selectors, but it must, if possible, be relevant to your subject or career. Then you have to target your application form at the right course and the right institutions. Happily, the information available is becoming better all the time. If in doubt, university admissions experts say someone wondering whether or how to apply should feel no hesitation in picking up the phone and calling a university admissions department: there's nothing better than direct contact, especially if your qualifications are not just standard A-levels. But the internet can also help you, with a range of advice sites, from the official information hubs of each college to the more recently developed collections of online feedback and reviews of each university and course by current students. From next year, universities will have to disclose everything they know about each course - even the sort of jobs students go on to - so that applicants have a better basis for their choices. And with higher tuition feen a reality from next year, there are range of sources on how to work out the immediate financial liabilities - and the eventual payback from having access to graduate jobs and careers. Still worth it? And that's the main consideration. There are voices, sometimes from businesspeople who learnt on the job, saying it's no longer worth studying for a degree. The amount of extra earnings over a career for a graduate rather than a non-graduate has been gradually decreasing. But individuals with a degree in the bag are still better placed to prosper financially - especially women, for whom non-graduate jobs tend to be very badly paid. Other benefits are much harder to calculate in bald figures: the people you meet, the extra opportunities that come your way in terms of career, broader interests and social life. Would you get all that from "the university of life"?