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'Don’t panic' – how to enter clearing with confidence

Woman using cell phone by window
Make the call yourself – don’t ask a parent to contact universities. Photograph: Cultura RM Exclusive/yellowdog/Getty Images/Cultura Exclusive

Ask any admissions tutor or student for advice on clearing and they’ll offer variations on one theme: don’t panic! “Give yourself time to compose yourself,” says Susie King, head of admissions at Middlesex University. “Don’t telephone when you are upset.”

So what else should you avoid doing when applying through Clearing? Not lying might seem a rather obvious piece of advice, but panic makes us do strange things. “Don’t be embarrassed about your grades – you did the best that you could and achieved the best you could,” says King. “Universities will check your grades, so be open and honest. The call will be confidential between you and the operator – nobody is listening in.”

It should also go without saying that it needs to be you who makes the call. Don’t be tempted to get your mum or your best mate to do it for you: it doesn’t look good and it’s pointless anyway – a university won’t deal with them. “Universities need to speak directly to students – not to parents or teachers,” says Helen Bower, assistant marketing director (undergraduate) at Northumbria University.

While having emotional support from your peers is great, exercise a bit of caution, says King: “Don’t let your friends sway you into making decisions that you are not comfortable with.”

And although it’s easy to get caught up in the rush to find a place – any place – don’t accept the first opportunity that comes along, says Zoe Carpenter, 18, currently studying animal biology at the University of Gloucestershire. “I went through clearing having declined all the universities that accepted me – I was unsure of what I wanted to do at the time,” she says. “Look thoroughly through all the courses on offer and be confident you are genuinely interested in the subject. Don’t just jump at the first one you like because you think you have no time.”