Finding out if they got their university place through UCAS

Jul 21, 2023
4 min read

Updated: Jul 22

Once the application’s made, what happens next?

After making their applications in January, students start to hear back from universities over the spring term. Once they’ve heard from all their universities, they select their first choice (their firm offer) and their second choice (their insurance offer).

The deadline for most pupils to reply to their offers is usually in the first week of June.

Offers could be unconditional (the university offers a place regardless of the results of their summer examinations) or conditional (the university offers a place subject to achieving certain grades in their summer examinations).

In some cases, pupils may not get any offers, but don’t worry, that doesn’t mean they can’t go to university in the autumn. If they don’t get an offer from any of the five universities they applied to, they’re eligible for Extra, meaning they can apply to an additional university. They need to check there are still vacancies on the course they’re interested in and that they’re likely to achieve the entry requirements. We recommend calling the university admissions team to check.

Results day

A-level and Pre-U grades are published in August. There will be staff available in schools and colleges to help students understand their next steps, especially if their results aren’t quite what they hoped.

University applicants can find out whether they’ve been successful in getting a place by logging into the UCAS website. Don’t forget, if they received an unconditional offer, their place is guaranteed and their results will have no impact. However, if they received a conditional offer, they’ll want to find out if they’ve met it.

Confirmation of conditional university places

If your teen’s fulfilled the conditions of their firm offer, UCAS will confirm their place. If they don’t get their firm choice, they may have been successful with their insurance choice, in which case they can accept that place.

Some applicants may not meet the conditions of either their firm or insurance choice, but may be offered a place on a different course. They’ll be given details of this alternative offer and when they need to reply, either accepting or declining it.

Details of places can be checked through UCAS from 8.00am on A-level results day. However, we recommend waiting until your teen has their results before checking, so they know the context. It can cause a lot of distress to find out they didn’t get their preferred or insurance place without knowing why. UCAS will only say whether or not they’ve got their place, not the results they’ve achieved. They could have missed out by just one or two points, but end up worrying they’ve failed all their exams while waiting for their individual results.

Deferred entry

If, for any reason, they decide to defer entry until the following year, they’ll need to resubmit a UCAS application in the next season. This means withdrawing from the current season by declining any offers they’ve received, or withdrawing their application if they haven’t received any.

Clearing

This is the process of finding a university place if they’ve missed the grades needed to fulfil the conditions of any of their offers, or if they’ve decided to decline their offers (perhaps because they’ve done better than expected and want to apply elsewhere). It’s designed to help students find places for autumn admission.

UCAS has a system called Clearing Plus, designed to help them find places through Clearing more easily. It provides a list of available courses most relevant to their original application. By logging into their hub, they can view their matches and click the 'I’m interested' button to notify an institution they’re potentially interested in a course. We recommend following up by contacting the university directly. They can also search Clearing independently to see if there are courses that don’t appear in their matches but might interest them.

Be proactive

Time is of the essence in Clearing, so they should start telephoning universities with vacancies straight away to see if they can secure an offer. Once they have a verbal offer, they can enter their Clearing choice into UCAS from 1pm on results day.

Places available through Clearing can be reviewed ahead of results day, so it’s worthwhile taking a look and noting down any courses of interest and the relevant numbers to call, so they can act quickly once they get their results. This is especially true if they’re worried they may not have done as well as they’d hoped.

The process is the same if they get better grades than expected and want to try for a different course for same-year entry (rather than reapply the following year). They’ll need to look at what’s available through Clearing. However, they should be cautious, as they’ll need to decline their offers to enter the Clearing process, and there’s no guarantee they’ll secure a place on their newly chosen course.