Over half a million students accepted to higher education so far this year, UCAS figures show today.
Posted Fri 2 September 2016 - 15:09

As of midnight, a total of 500,510 people have been placed in full-time UK higher education through UCAS. This is an increase of 1% on the same point last year and the highest number recorded at this stage.

That means a further 76,630 people have had their university and college places confirmed since midnight on A level results day.

Of the total, 52,100 people have been accepted through Clearing so far, a rise of 3% on the same stage in 2015.

The Clearing total is made up of 42,580 people placed after applying through the main UCAS scheme, as well as 9,530 who applied directly through Clearing after the 30 June deadline.

Some 140,130 people are still free to be placed in Clearing, a decrease of 2% on this point last year. Some applicants in this unplaced group will not have met their offer conditions, others will have received no offers earlier in the year, and some have chosen not to accept any offers.

The final date for applications this year is 20 September, and students can then add Clearing choices until 20 October, if they choose to. A final total of 64,300 people were placed through Clearing by the end of the 2015 cycle.

UCAS’ daily Clearing analysis reports look at country of domicile and course provider, as well as age, sex, and background (POLAR3 and SIMD) of applicants, and the subjects and types of course provider (Tariff group) they have been accepted to.

This is the final daily Clearing update of 2016. Our End of Cycle Report for 2016 will be published in December, will give final applicant and acceptance totals, and will assess the full admissions year.


Notes to Editors

In Scotland, there is a substantial section of provision that is not included in UCAS' figures. This is mostly full-time higher education provided in further education colleges, which represents around one third of young full-time undergraduate study in Scotland, and this proportion varies by geography and background in Scotland.

Accordingly, the statistics on UCAS acceptances in these data resources reflect only that majority of full-time undergraduate study that uses UCAS Undergraduate.

From the 2015 cycle onwards, applications to postgraduate teacher training programmes in Scotland were included in the UCAS Undergraduate admissions scheme, where previously these were recruited through UCAS Teacher Training. In 2015, around 120 courses at providers in Scotland moved into the UCAS Undergraduate scheme, estimated to represent around 2,000 acceptances, mostly aged 21 or over. Comparisons between 2016 and 2014 (or earlier cycles) will be affected by this change.


About UCAS

UCAS is a charity and is the UK's shared admissions service for higher education. We manage applications from around 700,000 applicants each year for full-time undergraduate courses at over 380 universities and colleges across the UK.

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