Lots of good advice.
The thing that sometimes comes up, is that some colleges and schools don’t issue results at 8am. They issue later in person or electronically or both. This is quite a problem because UCAS shows if you’re accepted at Firm or Insurance or automatically in Clearing (as neither has accepted you) but not your grades. You cannot get on the phones and deal with unis until you know your grades.
This could be relevant to those who miss their grades, but also to anyone wanting to ‘trade up’
My advice would be to email the school or college soon to find out what the timing and process is. Of course they do this every year. If there is any suggestion that results won’t be available at 8am, I would challenge this as disadvantaging students and explain why. Ask the timing to be brought forward.
Some schools and colleges are very pro-active. People from every academic department are available. They will share the grade boundaries, so a student can see if they just missed their grades above (can be useful in clearing conversations or if they decide to have a remark which is called a review of marking these days - priority review which is expensive can be back within 48 hrs) and also give advice about alternatives, or even have looked up alternatives for them already - schools and colleges get the results the day before. So they know if a student has missed their offer….but they don’t know until the morning if the student was taken by the uni anyway. It’s worth being aware that most places and most courses will take a very near miss. However, some very popular courses at top unis won’t. Other schools and colleges seem to have no-one around on results day or in the week between A Level and GCSE results day.
This can be a problem if a student want to request their script back and ask teachers for thoughts in the marking, or if they need to ask about grade boundaries etc.
My advice, is go to school or college and expect to ask staff about grade boundaries and fill in forms to request scripts back or a review of marking then and there on the day. Also, look at uni websites in the days ahead of results and on the evening of the day before and make lists of phone numbers and hours clearing is open at each uni. Some close at 5pm but others stay open until 7/8pm. Some will be open the following weekend and others won’t.
Hopefully, all goes smoothly and the firm choice is where they really want and is achieved. Brilliant…..most of the actions above won’t be needed. But better to be prepared and to know the game plan if it doesn’t go as planned. There are bargains to be had in Clearing, but the best will be gone within a couple of hours, so there’s no time for farting about or wailing about disappointing grades, as action is needed. Most students will find having a parent alongside to help (not call) but help them work through the processes helpful.
And one final thing, every year, people post the following week saying they are still in Clearing or trying to sort out Clearing accommodation, but have gone abroad for their holiday and it’s all very difficult. Most people get sorted in Clearing pretty quickly (before the weekend) but some run into the following week. And often accommodation can take longer. Being abroad can make an already stressful situation more difficult.