Top universities in desperate attempt to fill courses
Teenagers hoping to get into a top university through clearing will have a better chance than usual this year.
Elite institutions are lowering their entry requirements in a desperate bid to recruit more students when A-level results are announced on Thursday.
Colleges are awash with places because of a dip in initial applications, caused by a reduction in the population of 18-year-olds and a decrease in EU students.
University of Leeds is students to sign up ahead of results day in case they have to go through clearing, as institutions try to boost their numbers
There is no cap on the number of students universities can take – and many are aggressively trying to increase their total to boost revenue.
A Daily Mail survey revealed some will be lowering their normal grade offers, while others are running online campaigns and promising extras such as guaranteed accommodation.
Two thirds of Russell Group universities currently have vacancies, with a total of more than 4,000 courses advertised on the website of the Universities and Colleges Admission Service (Ucas). There are even places available on competitive courses such as medicine, law, English, maths and the sciences.
Experts say this year students entering clearing will have unprecedented choice.
Durham University is one of 15 Russell Group institutions entering clearing
The Mail’s survey revealed the lengths admissions tutors are taking to recruit via clearing:
Queen’s in Belfast, which is recruiting for 212 courses, has ‘no limit’ for students from England and Wales, and in many cases will accept students with at least one grade lower than the official requirements;
Sheffield is making ‘most’ courses available and will guarantee accommodation to any students coming through clearing to make it ‘stress-free’;
Liverpool is offering medicine in clearing – despite it normally being an extremely competitive course requiring a minimum of three A grades;
Cardiff has been using Twitter to promote its clearing places to potential students;
Leeds is asking students to register before results day so they are easy to recruit if they miss out on their first choice.
On Thursday, sixth-formers will open their A-level results and discover whether they have secured a place at their chosen university. Those missing out can apply for other courses via clearing, while those doing significantly better than predicted can ‘trade up’ for a more elite course through a process called adjustment.
In total, the Ucas site shows that yesterday there were around 4,400 undergraduate courses at Russell Group institutions with available places for English students.
Among competitive courses on offer was medicine at St George’s, University of London, a hospital-affiliated programme that normally requires AAA. Meanwhile, the highly selective University College London, which never enters clearing, has revealed it will make a ‘limited’ number of its spare places available through adjustment.
The 15 Russell Group universities entering clearing are Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Durham, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Queen Mary, Queen’s Belfast, Sheffield, Southampton and York.
These universities are advertising courses as the teenage population has decreased
Alan Smithers, education professor at Buckingham University, said: ‘Clearing this year is a buyers’ market. Even the leading universities, other than Oxford and Cambridge, have places they are desperate to fill.
‘Anyone with better grades than expected should aim for the top … there is a good chance they will get in. Clearing this year is a free-for-all and a great opportunity to get into the top universities.’
Many universities are so desperate to secure students that they have made unconditional offers – guaranteed places regardless of grades. Over the weekend, it emerged unconditional offers at some top institutions more than doubled in the past five years.