Phase 5 · Write and submit
Application planner
Work backwards from your target review: tasks, dependencies, your own confirmed dates, and what is blocking what.
Who this is for:Candidates at any stage
A place to plan the application backwards from the session you are aiming at, using the dates you have confirmed with ICE rather than any date published here.
Your target and your confirmed dates
Queensferry does not publish ICE's key dates. Read the current ones from ICE and enter them here.
These change. Read them on the ICE key dates page and enter your own confirmed dates in the application planner. Queensferry publishes no date of its own.
Tasks
A starting list you can edit, delete from and add to. The dependency column is where applications actually go wrong.
No tasks yet. The standard list covers the usual twenty; edit it to fit your route.
Everything here is stored in this browser only. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is analysed, and clearing your browser data will delete it — so export anything you want to keep.
The dependencies that catch people out
IPD completion has to be registered before you apply, not before your review. A Professional Review application is rejected if a Training Agreement completion has not been registered with ICE, and that can take up to eight weeks after your SCE signs off.
Sponsors submit before you do. Both statements of support have to be on the sponsors portal before you upload, by the published deadline. That means asking them weeks earlier than feels necessary, because they have jobs too.
The fee is paid before the upload. Not at the same time, and not afterwards.
Your report needs to be finished early enough to be read. Your lead sponsor has a duty to give constructive criticism of it, and they cannot do that in two days. Working back from the deadline, a good draft needs to exist roughly two months before you upload.
The educational base is not a late task. If it is unresolved, it is not a task on this plan at all — it is a prerequisite, and it may move your target session by a year.
How to build a realistic plan
- 01
Pick the session, then check it is possible
Look at the confirmed deadline, count backwards, and be honest about whether the report can be written properly in the time. Most people who rush this apply again.
- 02
Put the fixed dates in first
The application deadline, the sponsor deadline, and any dates ICE has given you. Everything else moves around these.
- 03
Work backwards in months, not weeks
Report drafting is measured in months. Appendix assembly, in weeks. Final formatting and the single-PDF assembly, in days — but they always take longer than expected.
- 04
Book your mock reviews now
Practice interviews depend on other people's diaries. Ask before you need them, and ask your lead sponsor first — arranging them is part of their role.
- 05
Leave a fortnight of contingency
Something will go wrong. A sponsor will be on leave, a file will be over 15 MB, or a certified copy will need chasing.
Related pages and tools
- The applicationWhat goes in, in what order, and the administrative details that hold applications up.
- SponsorsWho can sponsor you, what the lead sponsor's role actually involves, and how to approach both without leaving it late.
- Report plannerPlan the structure, allocate the word budget, check attribute coverage and record what still needs resolving.
- Submission checkThe last pass before you upload, covering the things that get applications returned.
- WorkspaceEverything you have recorded, in one place — with a plain account of where it is stored and how to delete it.