UCAS Extra
It’s quite possible that none of your choices makes you an offer. Or that you turn down all the offers that they make. For those situations, UCAS have invented a system called UCAS Extra. Basically, it works a bit like Clearing, but you don’t have to wait till you’ve got your grades to use it.
Some time in March, the course list on the UCAS website will start to say whether there are any places left on a course for that year. If there are, you can apply for a vacancy by using UCAS’s online ‘Track’ system (which you can also use to keep up to speed with how the whole application process is going). Or you can apply on paper by getting a UCAS Extra ‘Passport’.
You can apply for one vacancy at a time and the university in question will either make you an offer or reject you. If you turn them down or they turn you down (or if you don’t hear from them within 15 days), you can apply for another vacancy. And so on until either you accept an offer or run out of time in mid July, when Extra ends. If you still haven’t got a place, then you have to wait till you’ve got your results and either take your chances with Clearing or, probably more sensibly, take a year out and apply again for the following year.
Like Clearing, Extra is designed to fill the gaps universities haven’t been able to fill using regular applications. You may decide it’s like the dump bins in HMV where they try to flog 137 surplus Gareth Gates CDs at 99p for 12. For some people that’s a bargain. Others would rather pay full whack for something they actually want. It’s your call. Either way, for the official low-down from UCAS on Extra, see www.ucas.com/getting/after/extra.html.
Last updated on: 23 April 2008