A-Level Results Day: A moment of panic and an opportunity to join Portsmouth through Clearing
Picture this: it’s August 2020, the world is in lockdown, and you’re about to receive your A-level exam results. Results for the exams you never got to take because of the pandemic halting everything. And because of life getting in the way, you didn’t do the best in your mock exams, so you’re just crossing your fingers and hoping your teachers are able to see your potential. But as you sit at your laptop, refreshing the UCAS website with anxious fervor, your results finally pop up, and your heart drops. You didn’t get the results you needed to go to your firm choice.
Obviously, you didn’t know at the start of the year that these events would transpire, so you were confident that you could put in the work and go to your top choice.
So, for your reserve choice you just put the option with the lowest grades, because you’ll never have to go there, right? Yeah, wrong.
That morning, you see that you’ve been accepted to your reserve choice, but you realise... I don’t actually want to go here.
So what now?
Panic sets in, am I going to have to go somewhere I don’t want to go and spend 4 years unhappy and far away from my family and friends at home? I know I want to go to university but this isn’t what I envisioned. What do I do?
It was then that I decided to see what other options were available to me. I knew there had to be other ways.
So as I’m googling, stressing and panicking all the while, I see that the University of Portsmouth run the course I want to study, and they offer places through clearing! I had never heard of Portsmouth until this moment, but in a quick search I saw beautiful beaches, iconic architecture, and a whole bunch of potential. I knew then that this was the place for me, but I had no clue how clearing worked, and was very apprehensive to call someone, since I was already in an emotional state. Luckily for me, the university had a live chat feature where I could talk to someone from the clearing team virtually. They explained the process to me and were very helpful, and in no time at all I had a new offer on my UCAS to study at the University of Portsmouth.
I’m so glad I found Portsmouth through clearing, as it opened up a new world to me when I thought all hope was lost and I have no regrets at all about choosing to study there.
I made great friends, great memories, and achieved so much. I was able to do an industrial placement at GSK, which is highly competitive to get into, and am now working towards my PhD on a prestigious UK MRC funded doctoral training programme.
So, no, if you go to university through clearing, that won't stop you from succeeding in the future!