UCAS Clearing in The 2024 Entry
Students will often use the UCAS Track Clearing process for many different reasons. There are some who will miss their offers slightly because they scored lower exam results than they wanted, and some will have second thoughts about studying
If you need to use Clearing vacancies, that’s normal. There are plenty of students who use the tool as a way to get into university.
Let’s take a look at what you need to know about UCAS Clearing choices.
What is Clearing?
The Clearing system is how a university tries to fill up a vacant place they have on the course. You can apply from July to October each year. You can make a Clearing choice and pick a course for study even if you don’t have the grades. Think of these as being insurance choices in case you don’t get a firm place on your course.
Application is easy - you go to the UCAS Hub Track Clearing page and input your UCAS Clearing Number. Then you can add Clearing courses as necessary. You may have to do a little clearing work but that’s part of the process. The benefits far outweigh the extra work - you can keep your student finance in most cases, for example.
Understanding Clearing
The main reason students use Clearing is that they don’t have the grades they need to get their conditional offer. When you get your results on the day, and you haven’t gotten in, you can be understandably devastated. However, try not to panic. If you can’t get into a course in Britain’s Ocean City (Plymouth) to do your original course, you can get a clearing option instead.
Rather than seeing this event as an out-and-out failure, lots of people use Clearing as a way to explore a new subject or topic. There are, after all, thousands of courses you could apply for.
Clearing can take a while to sort out. You can expect to spend a long time applying to university from start to finish, so be prepared for the long haul.
If you think that you will need to make new decisions about your education after you get your results, talk to a trusted member of your school or college, so they can help you look at the options available. You can use the UCAS search tool for this.
Find Your Clearing Number
In the middle of the day, it’s easy to forget things like your clearing number. You can find this by going through the UCAS portal.
Applying For UCAS Track Clearing
So, this is where you can apply for any of the choices available. You can only apply to study courses where you’ve received an offer from the university in question.
What you’ll want to do is go to the Track section of the portal and fill in the details about your course. Once you’ve found one, call the university and get more information. Make sure you ask about things like clearing open events if they have them.
Getting Clearing Places
If you missed out on studying your ideal course, try not to worry. There are plenty of other opportunities available across the UK. There are thousands of courses available through Clearing.
If you want to find the best one for your needs, you need to try and look at the UCAS search tool. This is the only place you can look at official vacancies, and it’s always up to date.
One of the things that we will caution you about is that sometimes there isn’t always a course or university which is exactly what you’re looking for. If this is the case, you should definitely think about what kind of other subjects you could do.
Some people try and do a joint honours course, which combines two subjects together, so you may still be able to study your chosen subject while also learning something brand-new. This is just one option that you may have. Just make sure you take a look at the entry requirements for your course.
We definitely recommend looking through all of the details of the course to make sure it’s right for you, then contact the University that offered the course and start asking more questions about the campus and whether there are things like student accommodation still available. If there aren’t any, you may want to rethink studying there.
Try and remember that it’s perfectly normal to have questions about this part of the process. It’s a good idea to start preparing any questions you might want to ask in advance, so you don’t miss out on getting any key information.
While you’re on the phone, you should definitely ask if they will accept you for the course. Make sure that you give them both your personal ID number and your clearing number.
If you have got that official offer over the phone, then you need to accept it by confirming your choice via the Track Clearing portal.
It’s sensible to go and visit an open day once you have finished the clearing process. If this particular university wasn’t your first choice, then you should definitely take a look around and see what’s available while you are studying.
Your Clearing Dates
The Clearing process starts in July from the UCAS website. It’s open until October as long as there are still places available. Make a note of these key dates.
If you already know what your exam results are going to be, you can submit an application in July if you haven’t had any offers yet. This means if you haven’t got unconditional offers or just don’t have the kids required, then you can access the Clearing process from 3 PM GMT on Results Day.
If you don’t immediately hear back about your new course, try not to worry. There are often slight delays in decisions from the universities to be updated on the UCAS portal. They are dealing with a lot of applications all at once and need to update their information manually, which means that there will often be a delay on the Track system.
The best thing that you can do is wait a few hours, and then your application will be updated to reflect your new results and the decision that the university has made.
What is Clearing Plus?
UCAS launched Clearing Plus in 2020, which is their new service for university Clearing applicants. It has been made to help save a lot of effort, time and stress for applicants who don’t want to spend hours going through other possible courses. Instead, the service has been designed to help match applicants to their ideal courses.
Clearing Plus will use all the information from your application and then compare it to what universities are searching for. This can help to give you a tailored list of options regarding what you can get.