will 2025 entry requirements reflect 2024 clearing grades?

[phoenix28]

as of today so many reputable institutions still advertise clearing vacancies for popular courses with significantly lower grades than typical offers. Nottingham, Lancaster, Reading, Royal Holloway, Surrey, Southampton, to name a few. Most require grades of BBC to CCC.

Will next year entry requirements be lowered to reflect these clearing grades? If not surely students will just apply as a formality and trade up when results are out?

Not necessarily. They use clearing to fill up spaces that would otherwise go empty.

They will hope to attract more of the better students next time.

I doubt it tbh. Clearing really varies. Dd got in on BCC and the identical course at the same uni the following year was CCD in clearing. This year it is CCC. Book offer remains ABB IIRC.

In her year her subject at a different uni was BBB in clearing; two years later that uni had nothing at all in clearing (other dc was applying that year, I’m not some kind of clearing obsessive!)

Those grades on clearing could be contextual offers or international students. I think a lot of people have found that clearing doesn’t necessarily mean lower grades for all.

Some students have found that they are made offers, but courses are full when they go back to accept the offer (after considering their options/ which is a good thing to want to do!). Students in clearing won’t be offered accommodation at the same time as those who made their firm choices back in May. That’s a big issue in some cities, where there isn’t enough accommodation or where affordable accommodation is very limited (I don’t think £190 a week for a room is “affordable” personally!)

So, it can work out brilliantly but there are things to be considered.

I'd suggest any A-Level student predicted to get around BCC applies as usual but keeps an eye on the vacancies lists that come out the night before to see if there's any chance of trading up.

When helping DD with Early Clearing this year I couldn't understand why places like Essex and Aber (what I think of as solid, mid ranking unis with a history) seemed to be pitching their entrance requirements lower than some places which, to be honest, I wouldn't have been terribly happy DD applying to. Now I realise they made the right decision to do this, they will have picked up a few post-A Level students while the places demanding frankly ridiculous grades are now scrabbling around.

I too would love to know the answer to this and asked it on the clearing vacancy thread. From what I remember, my DD was born in quite a low birth rate year (2006/2007, locally the following year was enormous - loads of bulge classes) so unless a lot of people have deferred, maybe applications will be down for 2025? I wonder whether some of the courses that haven't been filled will just be cut and therefore unavailable for next year. Certainly from what I've seen on websites/open days, a lot of universities seem to be saying that modules will be changing for next year so to check websites in Sept/Oct.

I know of one boy this year who dropped a grade for his very competitive course and he still got accepted so I'm advising DD not to be put off by the grade requirements (she has no desire to go the Oxbridge/Warwick/Durham/Exeter/ICL route and isn't doing Economics/Maths/CS etc).

A student going into Y13 in September would ask why bother studying so hard to get As and A stars when you could get Computer Science / Economics / Engineering / Maths and Statistics / Data Science at these institutions ar BBC - CCC or even CCD?

You need to work hard to get good predictions to get the offers - I'm guessing the top competitive courses didn't go into clearing this year. Plus I think it's far less stressful to get your place confirmed after results rather than do the scrabble for clearing places - clearing might be great if you did better than expected but must be a bit nightmarish if you didn't and are having to make decisions in a very quick time frame.

Plus, I'd worry about students doing courses like Maths and statistics with grades CCD. I wonder what the drop out rates are for people doing such courses with such low grades.

Law at Royal Holloway is still available at CCD
The gaps between typical offers and clearing offers are just staggering

Perhaps after this year unis will have to shrink their target intakes. Makes no sense to take students with low grades into these demanding courses

No. It seems that the courses left at eg Nottingham are not the popular ones - all the popular ones either weren’t in clearing or went within an hour.

It was similar in Clearing for many unis last year ; I remember York dropping grades massively, and other RGs like Birmingham having much lower grades for a day, but entry requirements didn’t drop for this year.

I couldn't find any good Psychology or Sports Science courses in the higher ranked universities at all in clearing (nervously checking early in the morning!) if anyone is thinking of either of those!

I hope you are right and it was just a coincidence that in our area 2006/07 was a bulge year. To be honest, my son was born in Devon and we moved to Surrey when he was 3 and in both places it was a specially busy year. I´m really hoping to be wrong as we are also applying.

In our area, SW London the years above and below DD had bulge classes.

In our area, SW London the years above and below DD had bulge classes.

I agree, in our area (West Midlands) the 2006/2007 year group (including my DD) was relatively small. The year below was enormous, every school I know of in the area had a bulge class.