Clearing advice for parents and guardians

In the past, clearing has been a tool for students who didn’t get the results they needed, to be accepted onto their firm or insurance choices.

Today, clearing is not only for this but also by students who’ve changed their mind on what course they want to study, by students who’ve made a late decision to join university and by those who have outperformed in their results and want to aim for a higher level degree.  

When can they apply? 

While the main clearing activity will take place after A-level results day, your child can contact us to apply through clearing from July if they already have their qualification results.  

What if they don’t achieve their required grades?

If your child has missed the grades they needed for both their firm and insurance offers, they may still have been accepted by their firm or insurance university, so they should check first before they start applying through clearing. 

How do they apply? 

If they are in the UCAS system, then they can release themselves into clearing, or can find out if they’re in clearing already by logging into their UCAS Hub. If they’re not in the UCAS system, they can contact us directly.  

If your child does need to find a course in clearing, they can start contacting universities directly – each university website will have details of their own hotline or online clearing form. If they’re offered a place on a course and want to accept, they’ll either need to add the course as their clearing choice in UCAS Hub (if they’ve already applied via UCAS) or may need to provide details to be set up with UCAS. They can only accept one choice. 

Clearing moves at a rapid pace, so anyone who wants to take part should be ready to make calls and find out which courses are available at different universities quickly.   

How to help your child prepare for Clearing

It’s never too early to prepare – whether it’s researching degrees, looking at alternative universities or making a list of other courses they’re interested in - just in case. The sooner they know which course they want to go for, the sooner they can call – and we recommend doing this as early as possible.  

Prepare for the phone call 

The call into a clearing hotline can seem quite daunting, but we’ll put them at ease, guide them through the process and answer any questions they have to make sure what they’ve chosen is right for them. Just make sure they have their qualifications to hand and that they know which course they want to apply for. 

You can’t make the call on your child’s behalf (we need to speak with them directly), but you can help them make sure they’ve got all the basic information ready - their UCAS Personal ID, details of their qualifications (including A-level, AS-level, GCSE and equivalent results), login details for UCAS Track, and any questions they have about the course/university. 

It’s never too early to prepare – whether it’s researching degrees, looking at alternative universities or making a list of other courses they’re interested in - just in case. The sooner they know which course they want to go for, the sooner they can call – and we recommend doing this as early as possible.  

Prepare for the phone call 

The call into our Clearing hotline can seem quite daunting, but we’ll put them at ease, guide them through the process and answer any questions they have to make sure what they’ve chosen is right for them. Just make sure they have their qualifications to hand and that they know which course they want to apply for. 

You can’t make the call on your child’s behalf (we need to speak with them directly), but you can help them make sure they’ve got all the basic information ready - their UCAS Personal ID, details of their qualifications (including A-level, AS-level, GCSE and equivalent results), login details for UCAS Track, and any questions they have about the course/university.