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UCAS Clearing update 19 August 2011

As of 00:05 on Friday 19 August 2011:

  • 401,957 applicants have been placed in universities and colleges throughout the UK. This is up by 7,521 applicants on this time last year.
  • 58.9% of those people who applied have now been accepted; this compares with 58.5% at this point last year.
  • 78,141 applicants are awaiting a decision on their application (for example, some may have narrowly missed out on their grades, some may be waiting for their university or college to confirm their place, some may be waiting for qualification results such as GCSEs and some may be appealing their grades)
  • 195,415 applicants have either not received, not accepted or not met the conditions of their offer and are eligible for Clearing. Based on previous admissions cycles, we expect that within this number around half will be applicants whose qualifications are not strong enough to support progression to their chosen courses.
  • Of those applicants eligible for Clearing, some will choose to pursue a Clearing opportunity whilst others will not. In 2010, by the end of the admissions cycle, almost 47,000 individuals had secured a place via the Clearing process.
  • 7,001 applicants have withdrawn their application to date.
  • There are currently 29,009 courses in UK universities and colleges offering Clearing vacancies; there may be multiple places per course.
  • There is a direct correlation between increased numbers of acceptances and decreasing numbers of courses offering vacancies in Clearing.
  • The total number of applicants currently stands at 682,514.

Usage statistics from the UCAS clearing vacancy search service indicate that the number of applicants demonstrating an interest in a Clearing opportunity this year is almost identical to that in 2010:

UCAS Clearing Vacancy Searches Year on Year Comparison

All UCAS online services are now operating at 100% availability. In relation to the issues experienced by some users yesterday, UCAS Chief Executive Mary Curnock Cook said:

"We regret having had to take one of our services offline for a short time yesterday and the disruption this caused for those affected. We gradually ramped up our services from mid-morning yesterday to avoid the risk of overloading the system after unprecedented demand that saw log in traffic peak at 644 attempts per second, almost five times the peak last year. Our planning and load testing for 2011 had anticipated a threefold increase in concurrent traffic. All services were fully functional by early yesterday evening and the ability to make a Clearing choice became available to users as planned.

"Our initial research shows that the unprecedented peak relates to applicants wanting to confirm their place rather than reflecting an increase in overall demand for Clearing opportunities."

UCAS is a charity and is the UK's shared admissions service for higher education. We manage applications for full-time undergraduate courses, together with applications through GTTR (Graduate Teacher Training Registry), CUKAS (Conservatoires UK Admissions Service) and UKPASS (UK Postgraduate Application and Statistical Service).

Media contacts
UCAS Press Office: 01242 545469
James Woodward, Press Officer
Email: j.woodward@ucas.ac.uk
James Durant, Press Officer
Email: j.durant@ucas.ac.uk

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