Record numbers of British teenagers have won university places through clearing, as the post-pandemic readjustment of A-level grades meant thousands in England missed out on their initial course offers.
The Ucas admissions service said 10,400 UK school leavers had been admitted through its clearing service by Friday, the day after A-level results were published in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – a sharp increase on the 6,600 placed at the same point last year.
Ucas reported that 205,000 school leavers had gained places at their first or second choices, nearly 10,000 fewer than in 2022. The difference is largely explained by this year’s steep fall in top A-level grades compared with 2022, as fewer entries were awarded A*-B grades.
Universities UK said 79% of 18-year-olds had been accepted on their first-choice university course. But there was controversy over the higher grades awarded to sixth formers from Wales and Northern Ireland, where regulators decided to be more generous in their grading to take into account the pandemic’s aftermath.
About 88% of applicants in Wales gained their first choice, potentially helped by 34% of A-level entries being awarded A*-A compared with just 26.5% of entries from England. Northern Ireland and Wales both saw higher numbers accepted on to courses than in 2022, while the numbers in England were slightly lower.
Jon Coles, the chief executive of the United Learning multi-academy trust and a former director general at the Department for Education, said there was an “indefensible divergence” between England and Wales and Northern Ireland over the grading of this year’s A-levels.
Coles called for Westminster to work with the governments in Wales and Northern Ireland to rebuild common regulation on A-levels.
Ucas’s figures show that the number of Black sixth formers from the UK accepted on to undergraduate courses also reached record levels, with more than 16,300 this year compared to 15,270 last year.
Despite evidence that disadvantaged students were more likely to receive lower grades this year, the Ucas figures also showed there was a slight rise in the number of successful applicants from the most deprived areas.
But Lee Elliot Major, a professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said: “Increasing numbers of students on free school meals entering university is merely a sign of the rising tide of child poverty.”
He added: “Questions must be asked about the fairness of an examination system that has applied different grade standards to different year cohorts of students but also students in the same year.”