UCAS Clearing

If you find that you don't have a place, then you will be eligible for UCAS Clearing, a way of matching universities without students to students without universities. Essentially, it is up to you to find a university that is prepared to accept you. The best way to do this is to check their website or ring a university and tell them what you want to do. Usually, if they have vacancies, they will take your details and either give you a decision straightaway or very soon afterwards. Just keep going until somewhere offers you a place. Here are some points to remember if you end up in this position.

• Prepare in advance – unless you are very confident you will get the grades, do some contingency planning before results day. Make a list of possible courses and universities where you might be prepared to go in priority order. This will be easy to check against the Clearing listings when they are published.
• Be there – don't go on holiday at this critical time.
• If you think you may not have a place, regularly check UCAS Track. If you become eligible to use Clearing an 'Add Clearing choice' button will become available on your Track Choices screen. Or, check directly with your firm and insurance choices as soon as possible.
• Check the official Clearing listings in the national press, the UCAS website, or the websites of individual universities to find where there are vacancies in your subject. We recommend always using the official listings as they are always the most comprehensive and up-to-date.
• Think about alternative courses (perhaps a joint course with another subject instead of a single subject course) to maximise the choice available. Start ringing possible universities straight away (places at good universities can be filled very quickly).
• Always telephone yourself – universities are less impressed by people ringing on your behalf.
• If you can't get through, keep trying, but also send an email or fax.

There will be a few vacancies not listed in the official vacancy lists because the universities know they can fill them with speculative callers and do not need the extra calls generated by the vacancy lists. If there is somewhere you really want to go, it might just be worth ringing even if they are not in the lists. However, such vacancies will be taken within hours, at most within a day of A level results being published.

Many universities will run clearing open days to enable applicants (and their concerned parents) to visit, view the facilities (particularly accommodation) and talk to staff and students. Even if there is not an official opportunity to visit, the Clearing applicant is well advised to contact the university and try to see the place prior to making a firm commitment. A university that has the interests of the applicant at heart will see the value in this, and provided that there is not too great a gap between receiving an offer and making the visit they will generally hold open the offer of a place.

If your results are much better than expected

If you find your results are much better than you expected and are qualified for a much better university than the one you accepted, or for a high-demand course such as medicine for which you never thought you would be accepted. If you find yourself in this position, you can do one of three things:

• Carry on with your existing choice, as long as you are sure that is still what you want to do.
• Apply next year with your grades already in place to show to universities.
• Register for the UCAS Adjustment Period – a process that allows students who have achieved better grades than those of their Conditional Firm (CF) acceptance to hold their place open on their original CF choice whilst looking at other courses with higher grade requirements, and make an adjustment to one of those courses.

• The Adjustment process is available from results day until early September and you must be eligible to use it, i.e. your results must have met and be better than the conditions of your Conditional Firm (CF) place and you must have paid the full application fee to UCAS. Eligible students have to register for Adjustment and will have a maximum of five calendar days in which to register and secure an alternative course. For further details of the scheme, see the UCAS website.

  We would strongly recommend that students do not make hasty decisions to adjust or upgrade at what is a stressful and busy time. Think carefully before you register for Adjustment – hopefully you thoroughly researched your original university and course applications and have since developed a 6–12 month relationship with your Conditional Firm (CF) place university. Students who change their mind late on in the application process will normally lose any accommodation guarantee and/or be last in the queue for popular accommodation types (ensuite, good value, close to campus, etc). There may also be delays in securing student finance.

If your results are worse than expected

If your results are much worse than you expected, the situation could be more difficult. If there were genuine extenuating circumstances (perhaps you were taken ill during your examinations or there was a bereavement in your family) your school should have told the examining board and university about this already. Neither will be impressed by being told about it after your low grades have been published. If the results are just plain surprising, you may wish to seek a re-mark by the examining board. If this brings to light an error, and your grades go up, the university will review its decision, though if you miss the deadline the university may say it can only accept you for the following year.

Trying to get a place in Clearing is not as difficult as it sounds. There is always a lot of talk about 'chaos' and 'scrambling', but universities are getting much better at dealing with large numbers of enquiries very quickly. They have a strong interest in signing up good students as they suffer financial penalties if they under-recruit by a large margin. And the range of courses available in Clearing is huge; there may even be a number of vacancies on high-demand courses such as law and English. They may not be precisely the right course or in an ideal part of the country, but they will be available to everyone with the right grades, and prospective students, acting quickly, might obtain a place.

Having said that, trying to find a place in Clearing is not much fun for anyone. The best way to avoid it is to be sensible and realistic early on in the application process. If you apply for courses and universities where you have a good chance of being made an offer and accept offers you have a good chance of achieving, then you will probably be able to avoid Clearing altogether. That is much better for both you and the universities.