Assess girl delayed securing entrance to university (8)
I believe the answer is:
evaluate
'assess' is the definition.
(I know that assess can be written as evaluate)
I don't understand how the rest of the clue works.
(Other definitions for evaluate that I've seen before include "Judge the worth of something" , "Reckon worth of" , "Make an assessment of, determine worth" , "Make an assessment of, measure" , "'Assess, appraise (8)'" .)