Preparing for A-Level Results: What to do Next

When is A-Level Results Day?

This year, A-level results day will take place on Thursday 15^th August whilst SQA results day will take place on Tuesday 6^th August. If your offer is conditional upon a GCSE grade, then you may have to wait until GCSE results day on Thursday 22^nd August. Usually, you can pick up your results at any time from 8am or when your school or college opens.

On results day, remember to bring with you:

A pen and notepad
Your UCAS number
Contact details for your firm and insurance choice universities
A copy of your personal statement
A copy of your GCSE results

Finding Out Whether You Got Into University

The UCAS hub starts updating from 8:15am for A-level students. It’s entirely up to you whether you’d like to have a sneak peak of whether you got into your university of choice before or after you receive your results. The UCAS hub will not show your exact grades and can only tell you if you have been accepted by your firm or insurance university.

If you do decide to have a quick look, you will come across one of the following scenarios:

A confirmed place at your firm. This could mean that you have achieved your predicted grades, but not necessarily. If you are still happy with your firm choice, then go ahead and confirm your place. If not, then you can decline your offer, go for your insurance choice, or even look for other courses available through Clearing.
A confirmed place at your insurance choice. You may have missed out on your firm but got into your insurance choice instead. You can then decide if you’d like to accept this place.
Unsuccessful in both choices. If you’ve missed the mark with both choices, don’t panic, this means that you can look for other courses available through Clearing. Keep reading to find out more.
Nothing has changed and the system hasn’t updated yet. Sometimes some of your results may be missing or cannot be matched up with your UCAS application yet. This can be very frustrating, and it may be worth contacting the UCAS helpline if this happens. Make sure to have your UCAS ID number at the
An offer at your firm but for a different course. Though less likely to happen, if do you miss your main offer, your firm may counter-offer another course that is suited to you. This typically happens with courses that have a foundation year available.

What is Clearing?

Lots of unis have a quota to meet in terms of how many students they need per course. Clearing is how unis and colleges fill any remaining places. Missing out on your first choice is always difficult, but that doesn’t mean you’ve run out of options. In fact, it’s a great opportunity to reevaluate where you’d like to go.

Going through Clearing and getting a second chance does not by any means mean second rate. There are over 30,000 courses available through Clearing, some of which are from universities that rank in the top 20 of the league table.

Clearing is open between 5 July and 21 October 2024 and you can use clearing if:

You’re applying after 30 June
You didn’t receive any offers (or none that you like)
You didn’t meet the conditions of your offer
You’ve declined your firm place

If you decide to go through Clearing, then UCAS will take you through to a Clearing page that shows you what courses are available. UCAS also has a nifty search tool called Clearing Plus that looks at the original choices you applied for combined with your achieved grades to then provide you with your best university matches.

How to Apply Through Clearing

If you find a course you fancy applying for then start calling the University clearing line straight away (UCAS will provide you with this). It’s best to start calling straight away as vacancies at high ranked unis can fill up quickly. Always phone the university yourself and if lines are busy, then try emailing. Typically, universities will make you an offer on the spot, if not, then very soon.

What’s Next?

If your A-level results are not what you expected it does not mean you should stop there. New opportunities are disguised as bad endings, and this is a time to think about plan B. You may want to consider an apprenticeship, re-sitting exams or taking a gap year to travel. Just remember that there are plenty of routes to success!

So, You’ve Secured Your Place – Congrats!

Now comes the exciting chaos of preparing for university. First things first is to think about what student accommodation you would like to stay in. There is a lot of accommodation available out there; you may want to go for the accommodation your university provides, find a shared house with other students, or go for private student accommodation.

Why not take a look at what we offer at Collegiate UK?

At Collegiate UK, we are a leading provider of student accommodation with 20 locations and counting. We do our best to help our students live life to the full, offering incredible facilities such as private fitness suites, club lounges and cinemas. Click here to find out more about what we do.