Clearing has a reputation problem. A lot of people still picture it as a scramble for whatever is left over, the place you end up when things have gone wrong.
That picture is roughly a decade out of date. Clearing is a matching service, run by UCAS, that connects students without a confirmed place to courses that still have room. More than 70,000 students find their university place through it each year, including at selective universities, and a growing share of them are not there because anything went wrong at all. Some changed their minds. Some applied late. Some did better than they expected and decided to aim higher.
Here is how the process actually works, who can use it, and what to do at each stage.
Clearing is the part of the UCAS cycle where universities advertise course vacancies and students apply to them directly. It runs every summer, and any UK university can take part.
Two features make it different from the main application round. First, you apply to one course at a time rather than five. Second, most of the conversation happens by phone, you ring the university, discuss your grades, and they tell you there and then whether they can offer you a place. It is faster and more human than the main cycle, which catches some families off guard.
Five routes lead into Clearing, and only two of them involve disappointing results.
You will know you are eligible because your UCAS Hub status changes to "You are in Clearing" or "Clearing has started", and a Clearing number appears. Keep that number to hand, every university will ask for it.
Two things about that timeline are worth knowing in advance. You can browse vacancies from early July, but you cannot secure a place until you hold your results. And although Clearing formally runs until October, popular courses fill long before then, the busiest and most competitive period is the 48 hours after results are released.
Preparation is the single biggest advantage available here, and it costs nothing. Search the UCAS tool for courses you would genuinely consider, and write down a shortlist of five or six with their Clearing hotline numbers. Doing this in July, when nothing is at stake, produces far better decisions than doing it at 9am on results day.
Have to hand: your Clearing number, your UCAS Personal ID, your actual grades including the subjects, and a note of what you want to say. Universities can see your original personal statement, so you are not starting from nothing.
The student should make the call, not a parent. Admissions staff expect to speak to the applicant, and they are assessing enthusiasm as well as grades. It is a short conversation, usually five minutes, and it tends to follow a pattern: your details, your results, the course you are interested in, and a few questions about why.
Be ready to talk about the subject with some genuine interest. Staff are deciding whether you will thrive on the course, and a student who can say something specific about why they want to study it stands out immediately from one reciting grades.
If the answer is yes, you will be given an informal offer over the phone. Nothing is binding at this stage, you can, and should, call several universities before deciding.
Once you have decided, add the course as your Clearing choice in the UCAS Hub. The university then confirms, and the place is yours.
One rule matters more than any other here: you can only hold one Clearing choice at a time. If the university does not confirm it, the choice is released and you can add another. This is why the phone call comes first, you want a verbal offer in hand before committing the one slot you have.
This is the route people know least about, and where the outdated advice online is most likely to cause harm.
Until 2021, UCAS ran a separate service called Adjustment for students who exceeded their offer. It let you look around for something more ambitious while your original place stayed safely held. Adjustment no longer exists. UCAS withdrew it because so few students used it, and folded the situation into Clearing.
The route now is self-release. In the UCAS Hub there is a "decline my place" option next to your confirmed course. Using it releases you into Clearing, where you apply as anyone else would.
The difference between the two systems is not a technicality, and it is the reason this needs care. Adjustment protected your original place. Self-release does not. The moment you decline, that place is gone, and there is no route back if the conversation with your preferred university goes differently than you hoped.
So the order of operations is not negotiable:
It is also worth asking whether the move is the right call at all. A place chosen carefully in the autumn, on a course researched properly, is often a better fit than one secured in a single phone call because the league table position looked better. Grades that exceed an offer are worth celebrating; they are not an obligation to move.
Clearing Plus is a UCAS feature that suggests courses based on your application and puts you in contact with universities that might want you. It appears in your Hub if you are eligible.
Treat it as a useful prompt rather than the whole strategy. The matches are generated from your application data, so they can surface options you would not have thought of, but they are not a substitute for searching the vacancy list yourself and ringing the places you actually want.
"Only weak courses are in Clearing." Vacancies appear for all sorts of reasons, a cohort that came in slightly under target, a new course, a late withdrawal. Selective universities list places most years. The vacancy list changes daily, so what is available on the morning of results day is not what was there in July.
"Clearing means you failed." A third of Clearing users in recent years have been students changing their minds or trading up rather than students who missed grades. It is a route, not a verdict.
"You can only call one university." You can call as many as you like. The limit is on how many Clearing choices you can hold in the Hub at once, one, not on how many conversations you have first.
After the university confirms your Clearing choice, the practical machinery starts moving fairly quickly. Accommodation is the item to deal with first, since Clearing students are applying later than the main intake and options narrow, contact the accommodation office the same day.
Student finance can be updated to reflect the new university and course; the application does not need starting again. Enrolment details, reading lists and welcome information usually follow by email within a week or so.
Sometimes the honest conclusion is that none of the available courses is worth taking simply to be somewhere in September.
Reapplying the following year with achieved grades in hand is a genuinely strong position, applications with confirmed results read differently to those built on predictions. Where the grades sit some distance from the requirement, retaking one or two subjects can change the picture entirely. Our guide to A-Level retakes sets out how that works and how universities view resits, which is usually less of an obstacle than families expect.
For anyone weighing that decision, it helps to look at it alongside what actually happened on results day rather than in isolation, our guide to A-Level results day covers the wider set of options, including reviews of marking.
If a retake year is on the table, or a subject needs rebuilding before another attempt, that is the kind of work our A-Level specialists take on every autumn. Get in touch if it would help to talk it through.
Clearing matches students without a confirmed university place to courses with vacancies. You search the UCAS vacancy list, phone universities directly to discuss your grades, receive an informal offer over the phone, then add that course as your Clearing choice in the UCAS Hub for the university to confirm.
Clearing opens on 2 July 2026 and the last day to add a choice is 19 October 2026. You can browse vacancies from July, but you cannot secure a place until you have your results. Clearing choices can be added from 1pm on A-Level results day, Thursday 13 August.
You can use Clearing if you received no offers, missed the conditions of your firm and insurance offers, declined your offers, applied after 30 June, or released yourself from a confirmed place. Your UCAS Hub will show that you are in Clearing and display your Clearing number.
Yes. Since UCAS withdrew Adjustment in 2021, the route is self-release: you decline your confirmed place in the UCAS Hub, which enters you into Clearing. This is irreversible, so speak to your preferred universities and secure a clear indication first.
What is the difference between Clearing and Adjustment?
Adjustment was a separate service for students who exceeded their offer, and it kept the original place held while they looked. It was withdrawn in 2021 and no longer exists. Clearing now covers both situations, but self-releasing gives up your existing place immediately.
As many as you like. You can only hold one Clearing choice in the UCAS Hub at a time, but there is no limit on how many universities you speak to before deciding which offer to accept.
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