Clearing is coming

The torrential downpours are here, wind is getting up, and every three days the sun is out, yes the Great British Summer is finally here. So summer in HE, students have done their exams, the last artworks in the degree show taken off the wall, and you can get served in the on campus Costa in under three minutes. For support staff though, it is our busiest time as we prepare for the beast that is clearing.

Each year the emphasis on clearing across the sector varies, from important to really important, and this year it is definitely the latter. In part this is due to the changing applicant behaviour, we’ve seen trends during recent cycles of applicants making decisions later and later, putting more pressure on the clearing process.

This year we are more ready than ever. Although technically an applicant can’t apply for a course with a university until the official start of clearing on 8 July, we have already launched our Clearing 2017 website. There are a few changes this year too, the first being the main call to action. As we are a month early, we are asking students to call and leave details with us, or complete a request a call back form, enabling us to compile an almost VIP list of interested applicants. This gives us the opportunity to keep those really keen, interested and warm. 

A second notable change is the way we display our student success stories. Often day-to-day the successes of our graduates can go unnoticed when absorbed in your own departments work. We can often take for granted their achievements, and this year we are going all out in shouting about them. The beautiful thing about these stories is that the successes are all from students who attended the University of Bedfordshire through clearing.

I think that the stigma of gaining a place at university through clearing being seen as a bad thing is disappearing, and reading these stories you’d see that from international Rugby star Maggie Alphonisi, to ITV news reader Becky Jago, you are just as likely to succeed and get the career you’ve always wanted, even if it all started with the clearing hotline.

To complement our early kick off to clearing, we have an array of digital ads running and inventory across key students sites, and from August you can also look out for ad in a cinema near you. The importance of this information, well as an extra who didn’t end up on the cutting room floor, the back of head gets into at least two shots.

You can register your interest in a course or just take a look at the University of Bedfordshire Clearing 2017 site at www.beds.ac.uk/clearing.