Now that A Level results day has arrived, this year’s Liverpool Hope University Clearing process is in full swing.
Clearing enables people to secure places on undergraduate courses at universities which still have availability to start in September and, at Hope alone, there are a great many courses that prospective students can sign up to for 2021. For more information head here.
Hope recently joined forces with the Liverpool Echo newspaper to host a Clearing Q&A webinar, which covered everything from how to get to university at any point in life to finding the right course as well as the range of support that's available.
If you’re currently considering your Clearing options, you can still watch that Q&A video here:
Hope’s Admissions Manager Mark Fry says Clearing should not be misunderstood as simply a way to fill course vacancies with students whose A Level results didn't meet requirements for their initial choices – because it’s much more than that.
He told Facebook Live viewers: "Clearing is open to a variety of people. We’ve seen that people have gone through the year, have not applied, feel they’re not going to university, and then they get their results and realise ‘I could have gone to university - and I will go to university’.
"You also get people who are seeking a change in career, or who have lost their job through the pandemic. So it’s not just about people doing their A Levels - there are a lot of qualifications that people study where they maybe don’t think about university until it gets more public.
"If you’re someone who has not been in school or college then you don’t get the same amount of guidance that maybe people who are do, and it’s only when things like Clearing and A Level results happen that it kick starts some people into action. In the week following results day we still get quite a lot of people getting in touch about moving to higher education.
"Also, the main qualification we talk about is A Levels but there’s also BTECs, cache diplomas, international qualifications, European qualifications. It’s getting that message across that just because you don’t have three A Levels doesn’t mean you can’t go to university - there’s a lot out there that you can use instead."
Meanwhile Sarah Weir - who oversees the student journey at Hope, from recruitment through to registering students – adds: “You’re never too old - university is for everyone and there's a pathway for everyone to get into higher education.
"We speak to a lot of mature learners and it might mean there needs to be a first step before you come to university such as an access to higher education course. Or it might be that you have older qualifications that are still really relevant with your experience to come straight away.
"Liverpool Hope University also has degrees with a foundation year for students who are not quite ready for the academic challenges of the first year of the degree. A third of the students' time is spent brushing up on study skills and learning how to write academically - it also helps people who have not been in a classroom for a while.
"Mature learners are very welcome at university and bring a real wealth of experience for seminars and discussions that is a breath of fresh air."