As invigilators call time on the last A Level and BTEC exams of the academic year, many students’ thoughts turn towards the summer. For others, however, the uncertainty that they have about their next educational step after the summer is over means that rather than thinking about the long, sunny days ahead, there’s only one thing on their mind: clearing.

As the final chapter in the UCAS application story, clearing is the last opportunity for people who want to go to university in the next academic year but either–as could be the case right now–they don’t have any offers or haven’t put in a UCAS application yet, or–as could be the case from mid-August–didn’t meet the offers they accepted and were ultimately turned away from their initial unis of choice.

Perhaps because clearing is so frequently used in the same sentence as words like “last” and “final,” people seem to associate it with a sense of panic and last-ditch efforts. Indeed, there are all sorts of misconceptions about what clearing is about, and these often unnecessarily put people off it or make them go into it with confused ideas. So we thought it was high time to put some of these to bed, so people can see clearing for what it really is: a chance to get a place on a course through dealing more directly with the universities and with less waiting.

Misconception #1: Clearing is only for people who failed to get the grades

This simply is not the case. All sorts of other people go into clearing, from people who didn’t apply for a course until after 30th June to people who, having realised they were selling themselves short with their initial five course choices, decided not to accept any of their offers and wait and see what was on offer through clearing.

Misconception #2: The courses on offer through clearing are of a lesser standard than those available at the start of the UCAS application cycle

While some of the top courses in the country will be already full and won’t appear on the clearing lists, even if some of the people with offers for them don’t get the grades required, there will still be plenty of other courses available on clearing that are at outstanding universities and/or are at the top of their respective subject tables. Among the many reasons for this being the case is the fact that not all of those bright sparks who initially get onto these courses will get the grades required, and rather than run the courses with fewer students the university will put those places into clearing.

Misconception #3: If you go through clearing you won’t have time to make an informed decision based on getting to know the course, the university and the city where you’ll be studying

Although things move fast in clearing once the A Level results come in, they generally never move so fast that you won’t have time to find out about the course, the university and so forth. There’s so much information available about courses and universities online nowadays that there’s little chance you could pick a course without first getting an in-depth description of it and the university that offers it. Moreover, when you go through clearing you get the chance to speak directly to the people who run the course, who will be able to give you even more information. This is something that the vast majority of people who accepted an offer earlier in the UCAS cycle will have had. So you could even argue that clearing gives you more of a chance to learn about what you’re signing up for!