No real skin in the game this year (tho getting A level results tomorrow)...
But, can I ask, is your young person relieved to see their first choice in Clearing... but with a lower grade entry? Do they not worry that if they achieved the, let's say AAB needed, they'll be sitting with ABB, or BBB students?
I ask because we went a bit 'unconventional' with DS1, who messed up ASs so badly that he started again with a BTEC, which he got top marks in (oh, sweet Maturity!)- so headed off to uni, to find himself surrounded, in Computing, with kids who hadn't done ANY programming whatsoever, to the extent he felt he would have made a better fist of delivering a couple of the lectures on Cobra himself, having done 2 years of nothing but computing at BTEC...
It has made his first year at uni relatively 'easy', but DS readily says there at kids on his course who really don't cut the mustard- he's interested in seeing who doesn't turn up in Sept.
However, Computing has a high drop out rate as kids don't know what they're signing up to, have done no coding, think it's all Game Playing.
At least DS, via the medium of the reviled BTEC, knew exactly what he was signing up for! But sees many on his course who are 'seat-fillers'. And has had to be quite 'proactive' in group projects to have to chuck some of the assigned group under a bus to confirm who, in the group, has put in the effort, and who didn't bother; to the extent that each group member, this year, rates their fellow 'team mates' against criteria like participation, involvement, attendance- to allow the grading lecturer insight into who actually cares.
I hope this won't be your DC's experience where Clearing has opened the flood gates, but it's a consideration. This used to be the preserve of struggling ex-Polys, but it appears to have become way more 'main stream'.