What is Clearing?
Clearing is a UCAS service which allows students without a place in a course to apply without going through the normal process. When you’re going through Clearing, you contact universities by phone to find out if there are places available on your desired course: you will then have an interview of sorts, where you discuss the course you wish to take with the university, and then they will decide whether to offer you a place or not. This service is offered from 5th July to 23rd October 2018, but don’t wait longer than you need to because places will be filled, and courses will become unavailable. The busiest day for clearing is results day, as this is when people find out if their offer has been met.
Who can apply through Clearing?
If you can use Clearing, your Track status will say ‘You are in Clearing’ or ‘Clearing has started’. You will be eligible for Clearing if:
• You have received no offers.
• You declined all your offers or didn’t respond to them in time.
• You have not met the conditions of your offers.
• You have declined an offer with a changed course, changed date of entry and/or changed point of entry.
• You applied to one course and were declined or unsuccessful but have paid the £23 fee.
• UCAS received your application after the 30th of June. In this instance you will have been entered immediately and will not have gone through the usual UCAS offers process.
If you want to apply through clearing but have an accepted and confirmed offer, then you will have to call the University and ask them to release you; they usually aren’t pleased to do so, and it can take up to 2 weeks to process your release. Make sure there is a place available for you at another university before doing this.
If, on Results Day, your status has not been updated, your application might still be under consideration by your university, even if you did not achieve the required grades. If this happens, call the university so you know what to do next.
If you are still unsure if you qualify for Clearing, you can contact both UCAS and individual universities to ask questions. You do not have had to wait until Results Day opens to speak to these people and, in fact, it’s better to do so beforehand.
-By Pippa Coster
