How Clearing works

Participants

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
• Amy Garland - a student who went through Clearing
• Yasmin Bell - student recruitment officer, University of Reading

Transcript

Amy Garland: I literally felt like my life was over, but obviously it was if I could go back in terms of Amy, like just but it's okay, just chill out.

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You, the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts, Prospects. I'm your host, Emily Slade.

Yasmin Bell: My name is Yasmin and I'm a student recruitment officer at the University of Reading.

Emily Slade: So to begin with, what is Clearing?

Yasmin Bell: So Clearing is essentially a matchmaking service. It kind of exists to connect students with universities, so the students that don't have a place or want to reevaluate their options, looking for a different place with the universities that still have places left to fill in the summer before their sort of term starts. Generally it opens in early July, but that's kind of known as early Clearing. Most people will be more familiar with what we call main Clearing, which is from the results day for kind of the main kind of four days from that results day to the end of the weekend. But Clearing actually goes on until kind of mid-October, so a couple of weeks after term starts at most universities.

Emily Slade: So like who is Clearing for?

Yasmin Bell: It's for loads of people, all sorts of people. So It might be someone that has applied in the main cycle, so before that January deadline, but maybe didn't get an offer or they might have changed their minds about the offers they've received. Or it could be somebody that did receive offers and then maybe didn't get the grades they were expecting. But it could also be for people that haven't applied before. You can apply for the first time directly into Clearing. So if you haven't applied before the 30th of June as the usual date, it might vary a little bit each year. But if you haven't applied, maybe you're someone that took a gap year or is a mature student that's had a longer break and have decided now is actually the right time for me to look at university and go to university, you can apply for the first time directly into Clearing. The main thing that you would need to remember is that you would need to have all of your results that you've already received. So if you have anything outstanding, so through things like GCSE research that might be relevant to what you're applying for, and particularly in maths and English, then you would need to receive all those results before you can apply to Clearing.

Emily Slade: If you're a student that's gotten into university through Clearing, are you going to be treated any differently?

Yasmin Bell: Absolutely not. So everybody's quite concerned that maybe that's kind of going to be known throughout the course, if it's going to be on the student record, or if it's going to show on things like the degree certificate. It's definitely not anything that is treated any differently. you won't be, you won't be kind of singled out, you won't have that reflected on you in any way once you're enrolled at the university, it's kind of like a fresh start.

Emily Slade: So the Clearing phone call, is the phone call the only thing? the only way you can apply to Clearing.

Yasmin Bell: It kind of depends on the university. So at the University of Reading, we also offer an online application form, which is particularly useful for those people who might be a bit more anxious or find it a bit more overwhelming or need a sort of a different accessible way to apply through Clearing. But the phone call is the main way and it's often the quickest way. So what would happen on that phone call is that you would be connected to an advisor and they're all fully trained and they'd be really understanding of kind of how you might be feeling on results day, it's a whirlwind of emotions at that time. And they will be really clear with you about what to expect on the phone call, about what they will need to ask, a bit of personal information about you, usually things like name, e-mail address. Then there's usually a series of questions that you need to answer with a yes or a no, because these are kind of basic screening questions to make sure that the call can continue and that the university is able to help. Then there'll be a discussion around qualifications. They'll ask for the qualifications that you've achieved, the grades that you got, and it is really, really important to be as clear as possible with the information here. For example, there's different sorts of qualifications that might be graded differently, and having incorrect information recorded on the application might then impact whether or not an offer that has been made can still be valid. So really having that prepared before the phone call is really, really helpful and will help the advisor to make sure that they're able to give you the most accurate information and help you as quickly as possible and feel as comfortable as possible during the call. Just for an example, like the BTEC National Extended Diploma is different to a BTEC National Extended Certificate. So that's kind of like a big thing to look at to make sure you know exactly what your qualifications are. So when they're having that conversation with you, they'll be able to identify if a course you might be particularly interested in is available, if you're eligible for it. So if you have anything like course codes that you've seen online, then that's really helpful to have as well. But they can also maybe look at other options for you. So it could be things based on your qualifications, if you're not sure and maybe what you want to study, if you've sort of changed your mind around your original subject area, they might be able to match you with subjects you might not have even heard of before or considered before that might be of interest to you. They'll also reiterate the next steps on the phone as well. So they'll be able to say verbally whether they're able to make you an offer, what happens next, how long you have to reply, how you need to accept your offer. And they'll also confirm that information comes out to you by e-mail, which is really important to have that correct e-mail address in the application.

Emily Slade: Amazing, wow. So that's a lot and it's usually happening on A-level results day.

Yasmin Bell: Exactly.

Emily Slade: So you're making this decision. How do students ensure that they are taking their time, not rushing and not panicking and feeling, God, I must just simply go to university. How can you check in with yourself?

Yasmin Bell: So there's a couple of ways to really know. The first one is to ask questions. There'll be two kind of main categories of questions to ask on the phone call to the advisor. That would be the first one being like functional questions about your application. For example, what could I consider based on what my grades are? And the other question would be the sorts of questions that you'd ask at open days. So like, is it a campus university or a city university? What's accommodation like? Is there accommodation? How do I get accommodation? What are the facilities like, the library, student societies, that kind of student life feel? So that would be the first thing to ask questions. The second one would be that there's usually a lot of experiences that you might be able to get at universities. Some universities offer things like open days, campus tours, specific in-person experiences that you might be able to attend to see if accepting the offer there is right for you. The other sorts of things they might do is offer opportunities to chat with members of academic staff over the phone or potential current students either on the phone or online through places like Unibuddy. Or maybe if you can't make it down to the university, there'll be like virtual campus tours as well. So you can still kind of get a C for what the university has to offer.

Emily Slade: What sort of support exists if you're like incredibly anxious and overwhelmed?

Yasmin Bell: It kind of depends on the university. The main thing to keep in mind is that the advisors are fully trained and they're very aware of what the day feels like. We are all here to try and not pressure you to make a decision. We're here to make sure that whatever decision you do make is the one that's right for you and that you're going to thrive in. So if you need to ask questions to the member of staff, if you need to go away, have a think, take your time to make your decision, it might be that you're able to sort of make that decision within a few hours, maybe within a day, or maybe you need a little bit longer, but nobody's going to judge you for needing that extra time because it is a decision that is exactly, it's a big decision. But there's also resources online that will be able to help to help you like prepare and be informed before results day comes up. And that being forewarned is being forearmed. So having that knowledge, doing that research, using sort of resources like this, so that what to expect can really take some of that anxiety and the unknown out of what's going to happen on the day.

Emily Slade: And do you still have time once you've gone through Clearing to apply for accommodation, to apply for student finance, to get everything ready?

Yasmin Bell: Yeah, definitely. So each university will have a different kind of scheme or process for things like accommodation. Student finance companies are very well aware that sort of results day is in the middle of August for most people and that term kind of starts late September for a lot of people. So they would absolutely know that they need to kind of put those applications through. As I said, like having that information of what you would need to do so that you can kind of crack on with it and get those logistics in place before sort of getting to university will give you that kind of peace of mind that it's all done by the time the summer holidays end. You've got a couple of weeks to unwind, get excited and sort of get ready to move, which can also be quite a big change depending on how far you're going. But then you know it's kind of all in place.

Emily Slade: How long is the window that students have to decide?

Yasmin Bell: Usually it's about 24 hours. So the offer will be valid for 24 hours and that's because Clearing operates on like a whilst stock's last model. So there may be circumstances where a deadline to offer can be extended, and that will be if there are still places available. You'd have to contact the individual university and ask if it can be extended. It would be at their discretion. If they're unable to extend it, will be because the course is probably closed and they've made all the offers that are Available to students. because all those offers have been made and they've closed the course, it wouldn't then be fair to the whole group of students going through Clearing to extend offers for particular people.

Emily Slade: And then can you always defer your offer?

Yasmin Bell: Yeah, again, it's at the discretion of the university. It might be because of the certain courses. So for example, if you're going into a course that is a regulated profession like teaching, speech and language therapy, those sorts of courses are far less likely to enable you to defer because you have additional checks that you'd have to go through like DBS checking. If you're applying for certain courses then you'd have to study in the year in which you apply to make sure that all those additional documents are valid. But certain other courses, yeah, it's definitely worth asking. So for example, Our student Amy, who has studied English Literature with us, was able to defer her Clearing offer and then start the following year.

Emily Slade: What would you say to someone who's listening who's really worried about Clearing right now?

Yasmin Bell: So it is a really busy time and it can be a whirlwind of kind of emotions, but it's also a really exciting time. Like it's a sort of the start of the next step of your kind of life experience. So there's a lot going on. Nobody's going to judge you for having those emotions. For some people, it might help to think of results day as kind of like a hallway or a space station with lots of doors or portals and you have the control to decide which ones you're going to open, which ones you want to step through. And you also have people around you that sort of love and support you as well that might be able to help with some of the research or admin tasks. It would be far less daunting for you potentially to have a list of universities on a sheet of paper that you can then phone up that you might be eligible for instead of just the whole internet at your fingertips. And then also as well, if you have someone that can kind of keep track of who you've contacted, what the outcomes were, what kind of some of the key selling points were, then you have it in front of you on a piece of paper, easier to compare, which hopefully will take some of the anxiety out of it. The main thing is that we do need to speak to you on the phone yourself as the student to make sure we're able to offer, make a genuine offer. But if If you are speaking to us and you do get a bit overwhelmed, it's perfectly okay to take some time. We all understand it. A lot of us have had those emotions before on results day as well. So absolutely just don't feel like you owe us anything on the phone. If you're feeling the way you're feeling, then that is the way you're feeling and it's completely valid. And then you have those resources that you could use to prepare in advance to sort of make yourself feel as prepared as possible for the day, which hopefully as well will then take some of the anxiety out of the day itself.

Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely.

Amy Garland: So I'm Amy. I've just finished my final year here at University of Reading and doing English Literature.

Emily Slade: Perfect. And you're here today to talk about Clearing. So you came to the University of Reading via Clearing?

Amy Garland: Yes, I did. Yeah, I phoned them up on my resorts day. Very stressful experience, but the ledger I spoke to on the phone from Reading was so lovely and really helpful. And yeah, now the rest is history.

Emily Slade: Amazing. So let's go right back to the beginning. So you had expectations of certain grades.

Amy Garland: Yeah, so I first sort of knew that I'd need to go through Clearing after my chemistry exam. I knew that it didn't really go the way that I wanted it to go. So I started having to think, oh, maybe this might be an option for me. Did a little bit of research. and then on the actual results itself, I got my grades and then that's how I knew that I'd want to go through Clearing.

Emily Slade: So because you didn't get your expected grades within that exam, it meant that you couldn't go for your previously applied for options.

Amy Garland: Yeah, so I was looking at my different options for Clearing and I really liked Reading because there was different You could choose sort of optional modules from across different departments. It wasn't just limited to English.

Emily Slade: And so it was on the day that you got all of this sorted. So what was the first thing you did after you opened the envelope?

Amy Garland: Cry, yeah, to be honest. The first thing I did was I was really quite upset. I feel like people don't talk about this very much, but results day, if it doesn't go the way that you're hoping it to be, it can be such, it can feel quite isolating as well, because you know you're on, you're looking around your peers and everybody's you know, done so well and I literally felt like my life was over but obviously it wasn't. If I could go back and tell myself Amy like just like it's okay just chill out. It was fine and then luckily I had such lovely teachers and support staff on hand on the day. Calm me down and then I thought so luckily I've done a lot of research beforehand so I had a list of phone numbers that I wanted to call Reading being one of them. So I basically just went through my list, and Reading, I think Reading was the second university, I can't even remember who the first one was now. And yeah, I got the place. They literally, all they asked me for was my A-level results, and asked me for a couple of my GCSE grades. And then I'm pretty sure from, obviously this was like four years ago now. Yeah, and then they said to me actually that there was a open day specifically for Clearing students the very next day. Bearing in mind, I'm from just outside of Birmingham, so about a two hour drive away. My mum, bless her, she was like, come on, we'll take you down there, you know, we'll, I had the offer, the Clearing offer, and we went down here the next day, had a look around and I was like, yeah, this is a bit of me. And then I accepted my offer on UCAS while I was here with a member of.

Emily Slade: Yeah, amazing. And so the phone call was very easy to navigate. The staff was super supportive.

Amy Garland: Yeah, it was literally like they made it as easy as it could have been. I think they're all very aware that it's a really high emotions, very stressful day. Yeah, they literally go

through the questions that they need to ask you, answer them and then they tell you then and there if you've got the place or not. And I did. So yeah, amazing.

Emily Slade: If you hadn't heard prepared ahead of time with your list of questions, with your list of phone numbers, sorry, do you think, were there people at your results day who were sort of collecting potential Clearing students and helping them there, or do you think you would have had to have gone away and still... thought about Clearing, thought about? Was it something that you were super aware of ahead of time?

Amy Garland: My original plan was to know, hopefully get my grades and maybe get a gap year, because I didn't get the offer the first time around, to do a gap year and then reapply with them. Obviously that sort of didn't happen, so I was, and I knew in the back of my mind that was going to be the case, so I was researching unis, writing down phone numbers to take with me, like just in case, and I'm so, glad I did. But even if I hadn't, I think that my college was quite good with things like that. I think that there was so many staff around all day to help out. There was like careers advisors, members of the like the counselling services, teaching staff, like there was so many people there to help out. And I remember I spoke to this careers lady who was a member of staff at my college and she said to me, look Amy, like you can, you can do something that you want to do now, like you don't, you can always, if it comes to you again in the future, you can always apply for medicine or anything related or something completely different, you know, when you're, much older, I just says it's not like your life isn't linear, you can, and hearing that, I was like, do you know what, yeah, so I went and did English, but if I hadn't had prepared the phone numbers, I think it would have been much more stressful because it meant I had a plan. I had like something to do when I didn't, when it didn't go my way basically, but there were people there to help out and yeah.

Emily Slade: And did you still, was there like celebrations happening that evening and did you still go to them?

Amy Garland: I remember going to McDonald's actually, after all my friends, we all sort of went and got some food after our results. I remember just sat there sort of moping over my back. But it was such a weird day because I was still so, happy for all of my friends and because everyone was getting their places confirmed at uni and everything. But literally I wouldn't change a single thing about any of it now. I still did a gap year as well. So I got my Clearing offer, came to Reading, absolutely loved it. But then through like just personal reasons and everything, I decided that uni wasn't right for me at that time. Which was another thing. I was like, my God, what am I doing? But I basically deferred my offer and they let me do that. And so it meant that I had a confirmed unconditional offer for, gosh, it would have been September 2023-2024 entry rather than 2022-2023. So I had a year off. and that was also the best thing for me. thinking back, so this was like four years ago now, I wouldn't change a single thing about what I did from phoning up and applying through Clearing to having a year off and deferring because I worked in that year, I spent time with my friends, I had a really lovely year off and I felt more prepared. I think that I had, there was quite a lot of stigma about surrounding Clearing at the time, at least, you know, like where I went to college and, you know, like I think It was sort of assumed that you didn't have a plan or you didn't know what you were doing if you had to go through Clearing. But that completely is not the case at all. Like it can happen to anybody. Like, you know, it's always good. Even if you're certain that you're going to get 3 A stars, I think just have a little look on UCAS. That would be my advice. Go like to people in that situation. Now just write down a couple of phone numbers of universities. that you're interested in. Just so, worst case scenario, you've got something to do.

Emily Slade: That's brilliant, thank you so much for your time today.

Amy Garland: That's okay.

Yasmin Bell: That's okay, it's no problem.

Notes on transcript

This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.

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