Clearing: the scramble for British university admissions begins today

Admissions offers in Britain are (often) contingent on exam results, and today the A-level exam results are publiished, and the process known as Clearing begins. The Telegraph has the story (and apps to guide students through the process).
Clearing 2013: How to play the system
If you don’t get the A-level grades you want on Thursday, don’t panic. Let Andrew Marszal and the Telegraph guide you through clearing and beyond

While this particular “due date” is certain – A-level results will be published tomorrow come rain or shine – the outcome is anything but.

Based on numbers from previous years, we know that by tomorrow morning around 350,000 students will be celebrating, having secured the grades they needed to meet their university offers.

We can even speculate that one or two of them will leap joyfully into the air, shamelessly flourishing their straight A* grades for local press photographers.

But for a significant proportion of would-be undergraduates, the end of the long wait only marks the beginning of university clearing.

Once the dust had settled last year, some 167,000 teenagers found themselves eligible for clearing – the process which matches students who don’t have the university offers they want with courses that still have vacancies.

With overall application numbers slightly up for this year’s courses, it’s likely that figure could be exceeded this week.

And even those who have gained or exceeded the required grades will want to keep an eye on clearing – there is still the option of switching to a more competitive course through the parallel “adjustment” process, which carries the advantage of not having to give up your existing offer while you shop around for a better course.

So that’s why, with hundreds of thousands of teenagers making potentially life-altering decisions in the space of just a few days or even hours after receiving their results, the Telegraph has put together a range of exclusive tools to help you negotiate your application. As the exclusive media partner of Ucas, all course vacancy listings will be available only with this newspaper in England and Wales, starting from the morning of A-level results day. There will be further listings published free with your newspaper on August 16, 17 and 29 and September 5.

But bear in mind that clearing places will come and go across the clearing period until September 30, as people turn down offers and universities fill places.
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Here's a helpful graphic of whhere the vacant places are: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/clearing/10242726/Clearing-2013-graphic-which-universities-have-places.html