Mr. Shari Irfan:

In theory, schools should have an guidance councillor but in reality, not every school does. Even where some schools do have a guidance councillor, they are not able to cover the entire school population as they are overburdened with the number of students. It puts schools in a difficult position. The whole point of a guidance counsellor is to advise the young person on what he or she should do.

One of my close friends was applying for UCAS and had to write a personal statement. He had no idea how to do it. I was not able to help him and there was nothing on the website. This seems to be the issue, namely, students lack information and this puts them off applying in the first place.