Clearing and Adjustment – what you need to know for Thursday

What is Clearing?

Clearing is the UCAS procedure students enter if they decide not to take either of their university offers (and have agreed this with the universities where they are holding offers), they don’t meet the conditions of their chosen course(s), or they have applied to university late.

Clearing is a procedure where all university courses with available places advertise these vacancies to students without offers.

What is Adjustment?

Less common than Clearing, you may enter Adjustment if you have done better than predicted, and wish to go to a different university from those you accepted a firm and insurance offer from. Adjustment students have the option to go to a university with higher entry requirements, but higher entry requirements don’t necessarily mean it’s a better course. Everyone is different-your perfect course might be at the university you originally applied for, so think carefully before giving up your place at the university you’ve wanted to go to for the past few months.

As there are a lot more students who enter Clearing than Adjustment, we’ll focus on Clearing here.

A FEW POINTS TO REMEMBER

You will get LOTS of advice this week from lots of people (family, family friends, the neighbour’s cat etc.), so let’s keep this short.

1. If you are going into Clearing (it will tell you on UCAS Track if you’re eligible), have a look on the UCAS website or in the Telegraph newspaper on Thursday for the list of courses that have places and useful telephone numbers.

2. When you’ve found a course you like, call the university. Phone lines may be busy but keep trying. Make sure you have all your information to hand (personal details, results, UCAS number, phone number they can reach you on) and a pen and paper, to make it as easy as possible.

3. It’s difficult, but try to visit the university BEFORE making an application. You’re going to be there for 3 (or more) years – go and have a look at the town/city, accommodation, facilities, meet the tutors. Many tutors will invite you to the university before you apply anyway, so take them up on this offer.

4. Remember you only get one choice for clearing, and once you’ve made a decision and entered onto UCAS Track, it’s final. Make sure you are 100% happy with the course and university before entering it. You can call as many universities as you like and receive verbal offers, but they may have a time constraint on them (e.g. 24-48 hours).

 Also remember you can choose a completely different course to the one you originally applied for. For example, if you applied for Business Studies, but you have the entry requirements for Fine Art in Clearing, you can apply to that instead.

5. Don’t make any rushed decisions in a panic. You can’t add any choices onto your UCAS application until around 5pm on results day for this reason.

Although it’s a stressful time, remember why you made the decisions you did in the first place – if you decided you didn’t want to move too far from home, don’t apply to a university that is 5 hours away. If you applied for Geography and you’re now considering Film Studies – what has changed? Why did you pick Geography in the first place? If you applied for a course in a smaller town because you prefer quieter locations, don’t choose a London university. And visit the university to make sure you like it, can see yourself living there (if you are moving away) and know exactly what to expect when you arrive in September. You might like surprises, but University doesn’t want to be one of them.

And finally, Considering Uni? is here to help if you need us – we don’t have a website but a qualified careers adviser is on hand to answer questions via social media – get in touch (WordPress, Twitter, and Facebook) and we’ll do our best to help.

Choosing Your University

This is Katie’s newest post, on how to pick the university that is right for you. Subscribe to get all of Katie’s posts direct to your inbox as soon as they are released.

In the UK there are over 300 different places you can do your degree. Not all of these are universities; there are also colleges of Higher Education and Further Education colleges that offer higher education courses… all a bit confusing to say the least, so this article will focus solely on universities and choosing the right one for you.

I asked a few friends what they thought, and came up with a list of things to consider (they’re not in order of importance, because that applies differently to each individual):

1. Location: where is the university? How far away is it from you? You might think you want to get as far away from your home town as possible, but train fares can be very expensive. And what if someone in your family gets ill suddenly or you need to get home to attend a wedding? How much will it cost you? And what if you get homesick and just want an afternoon with your mum – will she be willing to drive all that way?

2. The place itself: think about your ideal surroundings. Do you think you would be better off in a bustling city, or would you prefer to be somewhere with lots of green fields and cows? I’ve lived in a small market town all my life, and personally I don’t know if I could cope with seeing big grey buildings all the time. Or is that just me?

3. Job opportunities: if you go to a place with lots of bars and pubs, you’re more likely to secure a bar job. In a smaller place it might be more difficult to find a job, so make sure you factor this in when you’re picking your uni. Do some research about the job opportunities in the area – http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ is perfect for this.

4. Entry requirements: it might seem obvious, but make sure the entry requirements are right for you. Are you SURE you can get those grades if you work really hard? It’s also worth checking if the uni works on UCAS points or just grades – if you have grade 6, 7 or 8 in an instrument/theory you can get points to put towards getting into uni, and the same applies to lots of other qualifications such as dance, horse riding and BTECs. Look at the UCAS website for full details, and check with the universities you are considering.

5. Accommodation: if you’re not picky about where you’re going to be living then it doesn’t matter as much, but if you want your home comforts you should check out the accommodation the uni has to offer. Some websites have virtual tours, and you can find reviews and ratings of various sites such as http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/ and http://www.whatuni.com/. Some universities guarantee accommodation for first year students, others don’t, so check if you need to be prepared for finding your own.

You can find a list of all the universities and higher education places (in the UK) here: http://www.ucas.ac.uk/students/choosingcourses/choosinguni/instguide/