A Parents Guide to clearing

For a UCAS produced technical guide to the Clearing Process - please check THIS VIDEO out…

Around A Level results day every year, my phone usually starts ringing a little more than normal.

Sometimes it is a parent whose son or daughter has just missed their offer by a grade or two. Sometimes it is a student who has done much better than expected and suddenly wants to know whether there are different universities they should be looking at. Occasionally, it is somebody who has simply changed their mind. They liked the look of one university back in January when they filled in their UCAS application, but now, eight months later, they are wondering whether they have made the right choice.

What always strikes me is the amount of fear surrounding the word Clearing. Somewhere along the line, it has developed a reputation as the place students end up if everything has gone wrong. I completely understand why people think that. Every August the media loves stories about disappointed students frantically ringing universities after missing their grades. It makes for dramatic television.

The reality is much less dramatic than that.

Having worked with sixth form students over a number of years, I have seen students go through Clearing for all sorts of reasons. Yes, some missed their grades. Others simply realised that the course they had chosen no longer excited them. A few achieved much higher grades than expected and decided to see whether universities with higher entry requirements had vacancies. In other words, Clearing is not a punishment or a consolation prize. It is simply another admissions process and one that thousands of students use successfully every single year.

Why students end up in Clearing

I sometimes think we forget just how young most applicants are.

Imagine making a decision in January that is going to shape the next three or four years of your life. At seventeen or eighteen, that is a big ask. By the time August comes around, students have sat months of lessons, revised for examinations, visited more universities, spoken to friends and, in many cases, simply grown up a bit. It should not really surprise us that some of them no longer feel quite the same way about the choices they made several months earlier.

That is why I always tell parents not to think of Clearing purely as something that happens when exam results go badly. Sometimes it happens because circumstances have changed. Sometimes a student realises they would actually rather stay closer to home. Sometimes they discover a different course that fits their interests far better. I have even worked with students who looked back a year later and admitted that Clearing probably led them to a university that suited them much better than the one they originally put down on their UCAS form.

None of this means students should assume they will use Clearing. Most will not. But understanding how it works before results day usually makes the whole process far less stressful if plans do need to change.

Try not to become obsessed with university rankings

This is probably one of the biggest conversations I have with families.

Parents naturally want the very best for their children and league tables seem like an easy way of comparing universities. They certainly have their place and I would never suggest ignoring them altogether. If one university consistently performs better for a particular subject, then that is useful information.

The problem comes when rankings become the only thing families look at. Imagine two universities sitting ten places apart in a league table. One offers fantastic industry placements, smaller seminar groups and is located in a city where the student already knows they will be happy living. The other happens to be ranked slightly higher but the course is less interesting, accommodation is considerably more expensive and the student cannot really picture themselves enjoying life there.

Which is actually the better choice? I know which one I would rather see a student choose.

Over the years I have learnt that a successful university experience is rarely just about prestige. It is about finding the right course, the right environment and somewhere a young person is genuinely likely to thrive. Three years is a long time to spend somewhere that never quite feels like home.

Results day is emotional

One thing I always remind parents is that results day is rarely the best time to make huge decisions without taking a moment to think.

For some students it is one of the happiest days of their lives. For others it can feel incredibly overwhelming. Even students who have done well can suddenly find themselves questioning everything. Should I try for somewhere else? Should I take a gap year? Should I stick with my original choice?

Those emotions are perfectly normal.

I have spoken to students who were convinced, at nine o'clock in the morning, that their future had fallen apart because they had narrowly missed an offer. By lunchtime they had accepted a place elsewhere and were genuinely excited about starting university a few weeks later.

Equally, I have spoken to students who rushed into decisions because they felt under pressure and later admitted they wished they had slowed down.

That is one of the reasons I always encourage families to prepare before results day. Have a look at alternative courses if you want to. Understand roughly how Clearing works. Think about what really matters to you. If things go exactly to plan, brilliant. If they do not, you are already approaching the day from a much calmer position.

My advice to parents

One thing I have always admired about many parents is how desperately they want to help when their child is under pressure. Results day is no different.

Sometimes that means making cups of tea, reminding them to eat something or simply being there while they make phone calls. Sometimes it means asking questions that a nervous eighteen year old forgets to ask. What I would be slightly cautious about is taking over completely.

Ultimately, your son or daughter is the one who will be attending the lectures, making friends, living in student accommodation and building a life there over the next few years. They need to feel that the decision is theirs. That does not mean leaving them to cope on their own. Quite the opposite. It simply means supporting them rather than steering every decision.

In my experience, those are often the students who settle into university most successfully because they feel they have chosen their own path rather than somebody else's.

Why independent advice can help

One thing I have learnt after working in education for over a decade is that parents often do not need somebody to make decisions for them. What they really want is somebody who understands the system and can help them think things through.

That is particularly true on results day; Schools are understandably busy supporting hundreds of students at once. Universities are dealing with thousands of enquiries. Families are trying to absorb an enormous amount of information in a very short period of time.

Sometimes it helps to have somebody who can simply say, "Let's slow this down for five minutes and look at the options." That might mean comparing two university courses. It might mean talking honestly about whether a gap year is worth considering. It might mean helping a student decide whether they would actually be happier accepting a Clearing place rather than clinging to the idea of a university they chose months earlier.

There is no single answer that works for every student because every student is different.

If there is one thing eleven years working in British education has taught me, it is that young people are remarkably good at surprising us. The student who struggles in Year 12 often flourishes at university. The student who seems destined for one path suddenly discovers another. The university that barely featured on a student's radar in January sometimes turns out to be the place where they spend three of the happiest years of their life.

That is why I have never viewed Clearing as something to fear.

It is simply another route and, for some students, it turns out to be exactly the right one.