Students who miss out on their expected exam grades face fierce competition for university places this summer, with fewer vacancies on courses than in previous years.
A week before A-level results are published in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, several popular universities are reported to be full. This means applicants who fail to meet their grade offers will need to act quickly to secure a place elsewhere, the head of the Ucas admissions service said.
A demographic increase has led to a rise in the number of school leavers this year. There has also been a rise in international students.
As of Wednesday, Ucas’s clearing service recorded 22,410 courses available at 130 universities, compared with 23,280 this time last year, according to a survey by PA Media.
Vacancies are scarcer at Russell Group universities, which tend to demand higher entry grades. Nine of the 24 members of the group recorded no vacancies remaining this year, while the other 15 had just over 2,000 places available between them. Last year, 17 Russell Group universities had 2,358 places remaining the weekend before A-level results were published.
Clare Marchant, the chief executive of Ucas, said: “When it comes to results day on 17 August, I think a lot of those highly selective courses at highly selective institutions will go quite quickly. So certainly, my advice to students, our advice at Ucas, is to be pretty quick off the mark if that’s what you’re looking for.”
