When things do not go according to plan

It happens. Sometimes it happens to the very best students. Some courses are very popular and, for these, the grades required for entry tend to rise. Far more students apply for each of these courses than there are places available. Most of them are potentially well-qualified - their schools or colleges have seen to that. Therefore, perfectly good applicants find they have been unsuccessful. Some of them inevitably meet the same outcome at all their choices or, perhaps more frustratingly, find their only offer has come from the one place they now wish they had not included.mother with son reading university prospectus

This is why Extra and Clearing are such vital parts of our system. Both offer chances to your son or daughter if their application has not turned out as they had hoped. To be eligible for either, an applicant has to be holding no offers. The only problem is that really over-subscribed courses do not usually have vacancies in Extra and Clearing. Students faced with this situation can either apply for a different kind of course or consider reapplying the following year. If they choose the latter, maintaining focus can be hard and you need to encourage them to achieve the best results of which they are capable.

Extra runs from the end of February until the end of June. Courses that still have vacancies are indicated on our website. Applicants who are in Extra refer their application online to a course with vacancies. They use the Track service, which they will have been using to check the progress of their application. If they are successful, they accept the offer and Extra is over for them. If they are unsuccessful, they just refer themselves elsewhere (time permitting). Using Extra is as easy as it sounds.

Clearing is quite similar and starts after exam results are published in August. Vacancies occur either because students who were holding offers failed to meet the grades or because those places were not filled in the first place. Clearing simply involves students who are not holding a place making a direct approach to universities and colleges that have vacancies. If they are accepted, the university or college will contact us and we will send confirmation in the post to your son or daughter.