Welcome to Teesdale Sixth Form College

Results Day

If you have got your required grades

If you have achieved the grades that you require for the offer at Uni that you accepted as your firm offer – you will receive a confirmation letter from UCAS confirming you place, with a reply slip giving you guidance on what action you should take.

You may receive this letter from UCAS in the post on the morning of Aug 18th, as they are posted from Aug 17th. If you do not receive a letter on Aug 18th, this does not mean you have been unsuccessful - your letter may have been delayed!

If you have not achieved your required grades for your first choice

Are you genuinely surprised by any of your grades? If so, you can request an enquiry into your result. See Mrs Watson about this.

If you choose to appeal about a result, you should ring the University or College and inform them, but before you do this check to see if you have been offered a place, either by your first choice, or insurance choice.

If you have not got the grades you require for your firm offer, then this does not necessarily mean that you have been unsuccessful in gaining your place at your first choice University.

What to do?

There are several ways of finding out whether or not you have been accepted.

1. Check your letter of confirmation from UCAS – this will inform you whether or not you have been accepted on your chosen course. If you haven’t, but have met the conditions of your insurance offer, then your letter from UCAS will tell you this.

2. Use the Track facility on the UCAS website at www.Ucas.com. You will need to enter your UCAS application number, and your Track User name and password. UCAS will update this regularly so that you can see any changes to the status of your application as decisions are made. If you have forgotten your Track user name and password ring UCAS on 0870 1122211. You will also need your UCAS application number – Mr T has these!

3. You should contact the University to enquire whether they will confirm your place on your chosen course, or whether they will offer you a place on a different course. This is advisable if you have only just missed the conditions.

4. If you are offered a place on a changed course, (code UCC on Track) you are not obliged to accept this. You will receive a Confirmation Change Letter from UCAS and this will outline the options available to you. The options are also shown on Track, and you can respond on line. You only have 5 days to respond to a changed course offer


Commitments at Confirmation

You are expected to honour your commitments at confirmation. If you are offered a place, you must take up that place or withdraw completely from this year’s application cycle. You cannot enter clearing, or deal with any other institution that recruits through UCAS.

If you are offered a place, but want to defer your entry or change your course, then you should contact the university or college directly.

Clearing

Once you have established that you have not been offered a place by either your firm or insurance choices, or you have declined a changed course offer, you become eligible for the clearing process. You are advised not to contact institutions about vacancies through clearing until you have received confirmation that you have not got a place.

If you are eligible for clearing, an Add Clearing Choice will appear on your Track choices screen

This may appear on your screen from Mid-July if you have not received any offers – but do not start contacting Unis or colleges until after you have received your exam results.

Once you know that you are going to use the clearing process, you should start your process of research. You might want to contact Universities that offered you a place earlier in the year, but you declined their offer to see if thy have any vacancies.

You can find out information about what courses still have vacancies by:

Using the UCAS website – this is updated regularly. Courses with places will have an X code by them.
Looking at National Newspapers – The Telegraph carries official vacancy information provided by UCAS
Refer to the letter from UCAS on sources of vacancy information.
Contact universities directly to discuss vacancies. If you are made an offer, the Uni will give you a date by which you must enter the course details in Track, and you must click on add clearing choice and enter the institution and course details. You can only enter one choice. Do not enter details unless you have been provisionally offered a place and want to accept it.

UCAS will inform the Uni that you have made an application, and if they accept it, details will be shown on Track, and you will receive a confirmation letter from UCAS to confirm the place.

If the application is declined, then the Add Clearing Choice button will re-appear, and so the process starts again!


Adjustment

If your exam results are better than expected, you may have exceeded the conditions of your firm choice, and you may wish to reconsider where and what you would like to study.

• You might want to look at a different course at your chosen Uni
• You might want to apply somewhere else, that you may have ruled out or were rejected from earlier in the process
• You might have changed your mind completely

However, it is unlikely that there will be places on the most competitive courses.

You cannot defer entry through adjustment – if you want to start in 2012, you will need to apply again – although if you have met the condtions, you should get an unconditional offer.

If you decide to look into this, you should contact the University admissions office to discuss possible vacancies and the entry requirements – this information is readily available through Course Search on the UCAS site. Make it very clear that you are considering applying through Adjustment, not Clearing – as this sends the message that you have done better than expected!

If you wish to consider this you must register for adjustment through Track, and an invitation to do so will appear in track once your conditional firm offer ( CF) has changed to unconditional firm (UF)

The Adjustment period runs from 18th – 31st August, but an individual student’s adjustment period runs for 5 days after their firm choice offer becomes unconditional.

If you are offered an alternative place and accept it, then you will give up your original confirmed place. The Uni will inform UCAS and the change will be displayed in your choices section on track.

Remember that a change may affect your student finance and accommodation arrangements.