All is not lost if today’s results leave you without a place at university. You will have a second chance through the clearing process that universities use to fill their remaining vacancies. But success in clearing will require speed and decisiveness — especially this year. The system operates until the start of the new term but the most desirable options will be snapped up in days.

The number of places in clearing has risen for several years — 42,000 students took this route to higher education last summer. But the trend is likely to reverse when the process starts today. Much as the universities would like to recruit more students, government restrictions on enrolments mean that a decline is inevitable.

The eleventh-hour addition of 10,000 places will lessen the squeeze in the sciences, engineering and mathematics. But in other subjects, including most of the really popular choices, the only question is: how steep will the drop be?

Admissions officers never know exactly how many vacancies will be left when A-level results have been published and the first round of offers works itself out. But because most of those offers were made before ministers decided to limit the number of places in a record year for applications, it must be assumed that a bigger share than usual of the available places will have gone already.

Guide to Clearing: essential information on universities in the clearing system

John O’Leary outlines some of the pros and cons of 40 UK universities likely to be offering the most places through clearing this year

• Act fast to snap up a university place through clearing

• Full universities leave A-level winners unable to trade up

• A degree of control over your future

Multimedia

• A-level league table 2009

• Good University Guide

• WEBCHAT: clearing - your questions answered

• School Gate: how to challenge your grades

Compared with last year there are 52,000 more applicants and only 13,000 more places. Most experts believe that there will be a substantial cut in the number of places available for clearing. But this should leave more than 20,000 places up for grabs from today.

The biggest increase in applications has come from people in their twenties or older, who are more likely than schoolleavers to lack formal qualifications and to be restricted by family circumstances to apply for institutions within travelling distance of home.

The range of universities in clearing is likely be narrower this year. Oxford and Cambridge never appear in the lists published on the website of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) and the squeeze on places may produce more absentees. But most will have some places available in subjects where applications are low — ironically, mainly in the areas in which extra places have been allocated.

In the popular arts and social science subjects the openings are more likely to come at colleges of higher education and universities in the lower reaches of the league tables. Some them have recruited a quarter, or even a third, of their students through clearing in previous years, so places should be available in most subjects, at least in the early days of clearing.

The 40 universities profiled on pages 19-23 of this supplement are those that declared the highest proportion of places filled through clearing in 2007. Some refuse to divulge that figure, while others report surprisingly low clearing activity, perhaps because they think a high proportion reflects badly on the university.

But the listings include the likes of Reading and Royal Holloway, from the top 40 in The Times Good University Guide.

To stand a chance of winning a place at such universities, it is essential to make an early approach. The process will be even quicker this year because there will be no paper Passport to send through the post. As with the initial applications, everything in clearing will be done online. Applicants will find out through Ucas’s Track system if they are eligible for clearing.

After that candidates can approach as many universities or colleges as they wish, including any for which they turned down an offer earlier in the year. Most universities run clearing hotlines, which are the first port of call for applicants. Advisers will know where vacancies are available and pass callers on to the relevant department.

Every eligible applicant — those without offers from any institution — will be allocated a clearing number, which will appear on the welcome page of the Track system. Universities will ask for this and will use it if they make a provisional or firm offer of a place.

The official advice from Ucas is to treat clearing like a job application. By this it means that the process requires care and attention and should not be left to parents or friends.

The first task is to draw up a list of realistic targets. The biggest danger in clearing is rushing into a course or institution that turns out to be different from what was expected. Research indicates that there is a higher drop-out rate among those who enter through clearing, often because the student has opted for a different subject to his or her initial choice and at a hastily chosen university.

Speed is vital in clearing, but the normal rules of decision making still apply. Consult teachers, glean what information you can from The Times guide and others and visit the campus and department if possible. Scrutinise the syllabus of any prospective course to ensure that it is within your capabilities and will keep you interested for three years or more.

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