Almost 70% of Warwick courses advertised in Clearing this year

This Results Day, 157 undergraduate courses at the University of Warwick have spaces advertised through Clearing in the 2019/20 admissions cycle, corresponding to 68.8% of the total courses offered at the University.

Overall, there are 18 departments with spaces listed in Clearing: Applied Linguistics, Chemistry, Classics, English, Education, Engineering, Film and Television Studies, History, History of Art, Life Sciences, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, Sociology, Theatre and Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG).

Global Sustainable Development (GSD) and Liberal Arts, which are in the department of Cross-Faculty Studies, also offer spaces.

This is equivalent to the number of departments advertising courses last year. WMG has one course listed this year, Digital Healthcare Science, while the Centre for Lifelong Learning does not have any courses listed this year unlike in 2018.

Departments at Warwick that do not have courses listed in Clearing include Mathematics, Law and Computer Science.

The number of courses advertised has increased from 146 last year. Proportionally, the total number is 1.1% points lower than 2018 as the number of courses now offered at Warwick has increased to 228.

Physics has the highest entry requirements out of all courses in Clearing this year at A*AA, matching the entry requirements two years ago before they were lowered to AAB in 2018

Physics has the highest entry requirements out of all courses in Clearing this year at A*AA in the main application cycle and lowered to AAA for those through Clearing. This is one grade higher than the AAB Clearing offer in 2018.

The Clearing entry requirement for Engineering matches that of last year with ABB, a drop from the normal AAA entry requirement.

Other courses also have lower entry requirements for Clearing such as Liberal Arts with AAB in Clearing down from AAA and Chemistry with ABB lowered from AAA-AAB.

In 2018, a number of courses were offered with BBB, a lower offer than in the main application cycle. This year, courses on Warwick’s Clearing page with requirements lowered to include History, English Literature, Theatre and Performance Studies, Sociology and courses in the Modern Languages department.

Some courses that began running in the 2018/19 academic year are now offered in Clearing, such as Politics, Philosophy and Law (PPL) as well as English and History.

Biochemistry, Biological Sciences and Biomedical Science in the Life Sciences department with an Industrial Placement or Placement year are also offered in Clearing with no entry requirements.

In the Complete University Guide for 2020, 17 subjects at Warwick were listed in the top 10, 11 of which are advertised through Clearing

In the Complete University Guide for 2020, 17 subjects at Warwick were listed in the top 10.

Of these, 11 are advertised through Clearing: French (5th), Engineering (6th), Linguistics (7th), Italian (8th), Biological Sciences (9th), German (9th), Physics (9th), Chemistry (10th), History of Art (10th), Philosophy (10th).

This year, over 30,000 courses for subjects including Law and Medicine provided by 350 institutions in the UK are still available, according to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).

17 other Russell Group universities besides Warwick are also advertising their courses through Clearing, offering 4,614 courses in total. The highest among them are the universities of Liverpool, Glasgow, and Southampton, with 919, 529, and 404 courses available in Clearing respectively.

The number of courses in Clearing at the University of Birmingham increased from three last year to 209 this year, with subjects such as Criminology, International Relations and Nuclear Science being offered.

The higher education sector has been hit by a 1.9% demographic dip in 18-year-olds since last year, leading to a more competitive market among institutions for students further heightened by a possible cut in tuition fees following this year’s Augar review and uncertainty over Brexit.

UCAS said that there was a record number of applicants this year, having risen 1% from 2018

“This year and next year are going to be very tough for higher education,” said Mike Nicholson, who directs Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach at the University of Bath.

“Next year we will know whether we are in or out of Europe. If we are out, that will take a whole lot of students out of the system.”

In light of these issues, UCAS said that there was a record number of applicants this year, having risen 1% from 2018.

They predict that up to 80,000 students may acquire a place at university through Clearing this year, as these acceptances have been “on the rise for several years” and increased by 50% in a decade, from 43,890 in 2008 to 66,770 in 2018.

“Clearing is an opportunity for students who change their mind, want to take a different direction, or do better than expected in their A levels. The introduction of self-release really puts them in the driving seat,” said UCAS Chief Executive Clare Marchant.

She added that students have a “massive amount of choice” as they are are no longer bound by unconditional offers, due to the admissions service’s new release system where students can decline their firm offer online “in seconds” unlike before.

It really is a buyer’s market for students at the moment and I think students are getting wise to the fact they can use clearing to their advantage

– Rachel Hewitt

300 of 2,500 students who have already used this tool to enter Clearing have declined unconditional offers. They will be able to apply for another course from 3pm onwards.

Two-fifths of students receiving their results today were considering using the “self-release” tool and one in 10 said they “definitely would”, according to a survey by The Student Room (TSR).

Ms Marchant told The Independent that “rather than the sort of slightly negative panic”, Clearing “is plan A for a lot of students” unlike a decade or “even five years ago”.

“It really is a buyer’s market for students at the moment and I think students are getting wise to the fact they can use clearing to their advantage,” said Rachel Hewitt, director of Policy and Advocacy at the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI).

An investigation by The Times also revealed that while 4,611 courses at Russell Group universities are available to students in the UK and EU, international students have been offered 894 more courses.

The University of Warwick has been contacted for comment.

UPDATE (15/08/19 11:12am): A number of courses are currently listed with lower entry requirements on the University of Warwick’s Clearing page than on UCAS’ Clearing list.

English Literature, History and courses in the Modern Languages department are listed with entry requirements of BBB on Warwick’s page.

Physics is listed on the University’s page with AAA entry requirements, while Engineering’s minimum grade requirements are ABB.

The University clarified to The Boar: “The grades listed on our website are the correct ones for clearing, whilst those listed on the UCAS page were the ones for the main application cycle.”

The full list on the University of Warwick’s website can be found here.

Please note that the information provided is accurate at the time at which this article was written.