UCAS clearing how does it work?

St A is hardly a vibrant city location! She would need to look at what is available for her grades on Results day and negotiate a place before asking RH to release her.

My uncle was a senior psychologist and lectured / wrote some of the exam papers at one point.

He said that he preferred students who had ‘done something’ before coming into the degree as it gave them another element to their character (or specialisation/area of knowledge).

So maybe a year out doing ‘other things’ will be great for her!

We are in a similar situation. Exams have started and he is panicking. Poor kid.

My DD's sixth form have warned the students that nobody knows what clearing is going to be like this year because of last year being so crazy. So many students deferred for a start and lots of last year's cohort ended up with excellent results.

I’d say since she’s only got one offer that she’s not keen on it would be better to decline it and go through UCAS Extra. She can search for courses/unis that still have availability on the UCAS website. As a pp mentioned, it might be worth looking at some of the slightly less prestigious but still well thought of Russell Group unis (e.g Cardiff, Liverpool, QMUL, York, Birmingham). No point going to a uni that’s she’s not happy with and as much as RHUL is beautiful and seems like a friendly uni, there’s not much going on in the area.

I can honestly say, the switch would 100% not be possible into Psychology at the University I work at.
There is also an extremely limited timeframe for any internal transfers and if it doesn’t happen, she could end up losing the extra year a year of student funding, if she then drops out.
If she achieved mostly 9s at GCSEs then her Sixth Form has definitely affected her chances of being offered, by predicting her As at A Level instead of A* s.

Fingers crossed it works out for your DD OP! In hindsight yes it looks like she concentrated too much on the 'top' unis and didn't have enough of a range. As others have said, a popular course like Psychology is unlikely to come up in clearing at a uni more 'prestigious' than Royal Holloway, so it looks like her realistic choices are between accepting the Royal Holloway place or taking a gap year and reapplying.

If she wants to be a clinical psychologist then starting another course with the hope of changing would be a very risky approach. What if she can’t swap? There is a big difference in swapping from say Theoretical Physics to Astrophysics, or switching major and minor components, than swapping onto a subject with accreditation/specific requirements that is oversubscribed.

What’s the particular aversion to a gap year? I know the change in repayments is a frustration, but not worthy of doing a course you don’t want to avoid it.

Royal Holloway is ranked 17 out of 118 for Psychology in the Complete University Guide:
www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings/psychology

@StokesJP please don’t advise her to look for an easier course to get on with the hopes of changing to Psychology. It’s highly unlikely to happen.
I work at one of the universities she applied to and we had more than 3000 applications for psychology, for a few hundreds places.
To be competitive for this type of course she’d need to be predicted 3 A*, meet the subject requirements and have at least 8 GCSEs at 8 and above. This year due to the way GCSEs we’re awarded, many applicants have in excess of 8 grade 9s at GCSE. Attending a private Sixth Form will have had no bearing at all on not receiving an offer.
Psychology at a highly ranked university has virtually no chance of being in Clearing.

I dont think she would be able to switch to psychology part way through. With psychology you need to complete every module so that your degree is accredited by the BPS. At least that was the case years ago!

Does your DD actually want a career in psychology, or is she just doing the degree because it interests her? If the latter, she could consider degrees that are Psychology with something or maybe a joint honours. I don't know if such courses are more likely to be coming up in clearing, but might be worth a look for Extra.

I think the mistake she made was in applying to 4 of the top 10 universities for psychology instead of a wider spread, which meant she was always going to be up against very strong competition.

Royal Holloway is well thought of for psychology (top 15 in league tables) and is a good second choice, I very much doubt she would get somewhere better than RH in clearing. But I appreciate that isn't much consolation if she isn't attracted to the location. Not sure Exeter or St Andrews offer 'a more vibrant city location' than RH to be honest but if she really doesn't fancy RH she'd be better off starting again next year with grades in hand.

Sorry, meant to say, the chances of doing that are slimmer and slimmer now. Especially as you want to change to a more popular course.

Definitely do not apply to somewhere with the intention of changing (radically changing at that) the course.

Is she doing Maths A level?

I think realistically if she wants to go to a top Uni she needs to take a gap year, as unlikely any of those uni’s will have spaces in clearing. Or perhaps worth researching some other Russel Group uni’s that she may be happy to go to prior to results day so she’s ready and it won’t be as stressful. As you may know taking a gap year this year could result in more student loan being repaid as there are changes taking place next year. It is very disheartening when your child works so hard and gets very good grades and can’t get a place where they want. Best of luck to her

For psychology, which is really popular, it’s unlikely to be in clearing at competitive unis. She needs to accept that and not pin all her hopes on clearing.

ask her to consider whether she’d prefer RHU or a gap year and go from there.

Scrap that- they aren’t open to application from home students!
A few places may come up in clearing but it is obviously not guaranteed with such a popular course. Would she consider a Gap year? Are none of her friends planning around the world trips?

It looks like you can still apply to Birmingham and Durham through Ucas as a late applicant? I haven’t looked past D but presumably there will be others. I would get her to look which courses have availability and ring around.

How did she apply to six unis? Those five you list above are all pretty competitive and popular so I would doubt if clearing will be available tbh. It's hard to call tho.

My previous post was not clear, sorry. Last year's clearing was almost non-existent for the most popular unis (I know about Lboro as a friend's DS was interested in a clearing place). This year will not be as bad bc students are actually taking exams and more will not do their very best. This will mean more (than last year) will miss their top choice and go for insurance (unis like Leicester, Leeds Beckett, Sheffiled Hallam, NTU). This will then open up places in more popular unis. That's how it works. I would advise your DD to research places she might be interested in apart from her original list and yy consider UCAS Extra as @Roses1221 says.

Otherwise I agree, a gap year may be best. She is surely more likely to get an offer at Exeter or Bristol etc with her great grades in hand next year.

Only my experience and we're talking 15 years ago now but I knew I wouldn't have the grades for a uni course I applied to. I emailed the relevant department a few weeks before to express my interest in the course, should there be any clearing spaces available. Sure enough, there were. That morning I called and they remembered me from my email. I do believe this helped.

Firstly I advise she speaks to her school careers adviser or UCAS lead before making any decisions.

This has been a really tough year for competition, she shouldn’t be too disheartened, although it can feel mightily unfair.

If she is yet to confirm her firm and insurance choices she can decline her offer and go into UCAS Extra. She would need to search on UCAS for courses with spaces and contact the unis to verify they will accept Extra applications. She can apply to one course at a time; await their decision; accept/decline and then try another if necessary. I did a really quick search on UCAS and plenty of psychology courses still available it seems, but as you can imagine they are few and far between in the RG universities.

The alternative would be to wait until results day and choose to decline her place and find a course through Clearing. She could select ‘Clearing plus’ on Track and that should match her to available courses matching her grades (this has replaced the old ‘adjustment’ process, just in case you come across that anywhere - adjustment would have been perfect for her!) However as others have said we are not expecting many places to be available in Clearing this year, especially popular courses at popular unis. Suspect that is why adjustment has gone!

Finally, a gap year and reapply with achieved grades should lead to some lovely unconditional support at preferred institutions. A gap year with purpose can be a real benefit!