Still shocked by UCAS clearing

[ThePonderer]

Imagine you book the holiday of a lifetime, using all your savings. You're going on a cruise in the Caribbean.

You are delayed on the way to the airport and at the check-in desk they tell you, "Sorry, you're too late for your flight. But we can offer you these alternatives instead:

1. Cruising in Norway
2. A beach holiday in Antigua
3. Walking in Oporto
4. Snorkelling with sloths in Yucatan

Choose which holiday you want, run across the airport to the right check-in desk, and you might just be in time."

It could all work out well, if you know your geography, or if you'd been having doubts about your original booking anyway. It might even be the beginning of an epic sloth romance. But it's still massively stressful and an absurd way to make such a big life decision.

Surely there must be a better way?

I am sure I found a survey somewhere that showed that students who entered through clearing did just as well. There are lots of very very stressful things about learning which probably do disadvantage less confident and assertive types (ie all the phone calls, sorting out accommodation)My DS took an unconditional this year. He did do worse than expected and I know he would have run a mile from all the palaver of clearing.

Anecdotally, everyone I know who has gone somewhere via clearing has been perfectly happy, which includes my DH! In some cases, I know of students who have ended up somewhere that they feel is a better fit.

But, yes, the whole system is brutal.

Love the idea of snorkelling with sloths, I am definitely doing that next year.

I would be interested in the comparative dropout rates between firm, insurance and clearing students at same uni/course. So many seem to make quick decisions on the rebound and usually get less choice for accommodation etc so odds are stacked against them succeeding from the outset.

I’d love to go snorkelling with sloths

The Irish system has many advantages- but I’m not sure if it would work here. The number of pupils applying is fewer as the overall population is smaller. And I think the crucial thing is that people generally tend to go to their nearest uni - so you rank all the courses you like in order of preference- accommodation can be booked in advance or students live at home so less worries about scrabbling around trying to sort it out after results day.

Another benefit to the Scottish system - kids already have their grades when they apply to Uni. So if the Uni asks for AABB and you only have BBBC you don't bother applying.

For sof the very competitive courses like Medicine or if Scottish children are applying to Oxbridge there might be a conditional offer. But most will have unconditional offers.

The clearing system must be hugely stressful and agree that these are massive decisions to be taken very quickly and without the opportunity to even visit the city or uni concerned.

Surely this is why students choose a first choice and a back up in case they don't do as well as expected? Do many miss out on both?

DS went through clearing last year so I have direct experience.

He was predicted high grades but did virtually no work in Yr13, staying up late, getting up very late and just avoiding life.

The day before the results came out I looked to see if there were courses he’d be interested in, there were.

After he got his grades (on line) I drove him to school so he could hear from a teacher what he’d need to do. We then went home & he used filters on the UCAS clearing website & then rang universities.

He received offers from 3 (we stopped after that) and we decided to go and visit the one whose offer expired first the next day. We drove 2.5hrs, went round it with the department admissions officer and he decided he didn’t want to go anywhere else.

He appears to be happy there, the university has a good reputation and he’s going back in September.

Apollo, there isn't such a huge gap as you might think between uni offers so it's not that simple. take a student who is predicted BBB and that seems realistic. I suppose they could make their first choice somewhere that is ABB but some would counsel against over stretching, and they might not get an offer. So, they make their firm a BBB institution. Their lower offer might then be BCC or BBC (not many uni offer below that). If they get CCC or lower and their insurance doesn't offer them a place, they are in clearing. Exactly what happened to two of DS's friends.

I'll try and track down the survey I found LIZ. Most of its focus was on whether there was a difference for unconditional vs conditional in terms of drop out (there is) but there was a para on clearing. I just can't remember where I read it!

As Lizs says, one of the problems with clearing (and indeed many insurance offers) is that there's less good accommodation - you may end up outside the 'hall' network, or a long way away. I looked at this a while back and think I reached the conclusion that in some cases (not all!) it would be better to take a gap year than take the insurance or clearing accommodation.

But I suppose a post results application system wouldn't really solve that problem - all that would happen is that the 'poor accommodation' would be distributed to different students. There still wouldn't be enough 'good' accommodation to go round. So on an individual level a student might benefit from a post results application system, but you would still have the same numbers in 'poor' accommodation - probably decided by ballot, random allocation system etc.

@Piggywaspushed. I have had two DC go through uni. We made sure their back up places were very achievable in case they missed their first choice. Indeed my DD 2 did miss her first choice and went off cheerfully to her back up. She has just graduated and says she is glad she missed out on her first choice and she loved her back up uni. Maybe youngsters aren't making good choices for their back up place? If they miss both by a lot then maybe they just are not capable of doing those courses at those unis?

An article in The Guardian in 2016 says there are no stats for students who drop out when going to a university via clearing. Not sure if that still applies. The universities with the worst drop out rates are the lowest in the league tables but these are not necessarily clearing students. Unless each university breaks down their stats, it’s difficult to know. Some universities have many mature students with time pressures or take students with quite poor or unconventional results but not necessarily through clearing.

However, waiting a year and starting again might be a better course of action. Certainly checking out in great detail your clearing alternative as suggested above is s great idea if time permits and an instant decision is not required. You can only apply for one at a time through Track.

I agree that lack of a hall of residence is a great problem. This can isolate students and is to be avoided and another reason to wait a year if this happens.

However over 64,000 get places via clearing and having stats on their experience at the university would be useful.

I suspect that you'd find places gave accommodation allocated by grades eventually. Because they'd want to attract the best candidates in, and keep them.

It would be a draw to say "we can offer you a place and you'll be in a highest priority for allocating accommodation".

So I don't think it would end up being better for the students who would have ended up in clearing necessarily.

Apollo it is obviously easier to have an achievable back up choice if you are at the top end of ability. Other than foundation courses, the lowest (published) offers are BCC for most courses. if your predicted grades are about that, it doesn't leave you any wiggle room. All my DS's offers were between BBC - BCC. There would have been absolutely no point applying to a uni with a higher requirement than that because we knew it wasn't realistic.

Hence why two of his mates went through clearing as they Had BBC offers as insurance and didn't make it. this really does not make them stupid. they have now got places at perfectly good unis through clearing (in fact, in once case I reckon better!)

I am still looking for that article : pretty sure it was quite an official HE thing that was circulating in 2018.

NTU would be an example where accommodation is a huge problem. They simply don't have enough. It all goes within a day of being offered in the first round. Now, presumably, some offer holders don't meet offers and that frees up accommodation but not many I guess. I know some of the later people to even accept offers back in Feb time were left a with the least popular accommodation.

Isn’t one of the issues the accuracy of predicted grades? Some schools inflate predictions to meet that students want in order to make their applications. Our local school is rumoured to do this, and of 5 kids I know there this year not one made their predictions. Some still made their first choice though.

@SoonerthanIthought
Sorry to tag you like that.
DD starts uni this semester here in Germany.
Her exam results "Allgemeine Hochschulreife" came out in June.
She decided what she would like to do, applied online via a portal for these courses at different universities recieved answers (i. e. place 33 on waiting list / place granted - accept or decline / application accepted but restrictred access so wait if we take you).
A week later she got an E-Mail that she was given a place on the restriced course - her preference. She accepted online and had then to hand in her "papers and signed forms" to formalize everything.
Now she is waiting for the 1st of october when things start to happen.

Predicted grades can be an issue : but there is no such thing as an accurate prediction, unless teachers are psychic! Whole thread going on that at the mo.

The main pressure to inflate grades comes form the students and their parents.

Op, that's not quite right, it's not just about predicted grades, of the approx 275k uni applicants, only approx 17k go through clearing. About 6 percent. The vast majority do not.

I have younger DC so don't know much about the system. Is it better to take a gap year between a levels and university then, so you know what results you have, does it make the process more straightforward?

@Piggywaspushed yes indeed, that’s what local parents here say and it seems easy to push.
DS school reckon there’s little variance in predicted and achieved for them. They have their own sweet way and it seems to work.

No, it's not better to take a gap year unless that's what rhe student wishes. Kids have a first choice, then a back up.the back up they pick should ideally have a lower grade entry, if they don't achieve the grades for their first choice.

The overwhelming majority of students get their first or back up choice. It's only a small percentage that get neither and have to go to clearing. But I agree it's a horribly stressful process.

Sooner When my daughter started two years ago, Trinity were doing a trial of some contextualised places on selected courses. I'm not sure what the outcome of that was though, and whether it was continued.

We have a positive story about Clearing and the role it can play when there's a change of heart. Certainly in a year like this one when there was such a choice in Clearing.

My DD got into her firm university despite dropping a grade (not at all unexpected due to the way the exams went in one subject). However - without telling us - she had been harbouring doubts for a while and she quickly said that she no longer wanted to go there. She would fairly happily have gone to her insurance, I think. However, in the days before August 15th, we had been scouring Clearing in case her results didn't go the right way. Turns out that she'd scoured it rather more than I realised and had come up with alternatives to her insurance!

Within minutes of getting her results, she was on the phone to Sheffield (which had been on her original list), was offered a place and got an email confirmation. Sheffield did not ask her to put herself into Clearing before they did this and so she hadn't yet released herself from her firm choice. This gave her time to breathe, digest the news and talk it all through with us.

As she was certain that this is what she wanted to do, she then cancelled her firm, entered Clearing, accepted Sheffield and is now looking forward to the start of term. Her accommodation is not quite what she would have applied for, but she's happy with it.

I don't suppose too many DC change their minds after making their UCAS firm choice, but my DD is not the only one of her friends to do so. In her case, she thinks she got swept up in the UCAS form filling pressure and didn't necessarily think straight. Clearing has helped her to find what she really wants.

I hope .....