Better A-level grades than expected? Time for Ucas adjustment

Results day shocks aren’t always nasty ones. If you’ve done better than expected, and your grades exceed your firm choice, you can register for Ucas adjustment – which enables you to trade up universities or courses. Your firm place will remain safe until you decide to accept a better offer.

It’s a system that enabled Imogen Burwood to finally get into medical school. “This has worked out better than I could ever have expected,” she says. When she got AAB rather than the three As she needed, she took a year out, worked in a hospital as a porter and secured a place to study pharmacy at Cardiff. On results day, however, her retakes gave her the triple As required – and her mum suggested she ring around the medical schools. “I had nothing to lose,” she says.

Burwood tried St George’s, University of London, which had kept back places in medicine for students with better-than-expected results. After a face-to-face interview, she was accepted. “The whole process was so much easier than expected.”

Once results are out, you have five days, including weekends, to contact universities you’re interested in, and places go on a first-come, first-served basis. Individual universities – not Ucas – advertise vacancies on their websites and may offer dedicated phone lines. You can register in Ucas Track without jeopardising your firm choice of course.

“Adjustment is definitely worth considering if you researched a particular university but maybe didn’t add it on Ucas as you were not sure you could achieve the grades,” says Catherine Hodgson, careers consultant at the University of Derby. But, as she points out, time is tight for making such a big decision – and a gap year could give you some much-needed thinking time. “You can always apply with your grades in the next Ucas cycle. You’ll be in a much stronger position to gain unconditional offers and have more time to research and consider where you want to study and apply for accommodation early on in the following year.”

Students using adjustment can expect to be asked the same questions as for any university application. “We’ll want to know: ‘Why our university, why this particular course, why aren’t you sticking with your conditional firm choice?’” says Laura Justham, an admissions tutor at Loughborough University.

The number of students using adjustment is low – just over 1,000 last year – but Burwood believes anyone who qualifies can’t hurt their prospects by looking around: “I think it’s not pushed as much as it could be.”

If nothing takes your fancy, your existing offer is still safe.