As of midnight on Thursday 20 August a total of 477,280 people had been placed in full-time UK higher education, an increase of 3% on the same point last year.
Of these, 43,220 people have been accepted through Clearing, a rise of 5% on the same stage last year and the highest number recorded by UCAS at this still early stage.
The Clearing total is made up of 36,520 placed after applying to the main UCAS scheme, as well as 6,700 who applied direct to Clearing after the 30 June deadline.
Over 139,430 people are free to be placed in Clearing, down 5% on last year. This number goes down as the number of placed applicants go up. Some applicants in this unplaced group will not have met their offer conditions, others will have received no offers earlier in the year, and some have chosen not to accept any offers.
Students not holding offers can enter Clearing up until 21 September – if they choose to. A total of 61,300 people were placed through Clearing by the end of the 2014 cycle.
UCAS’ Daily Clearing Analysis reports can be found here, looking at country of domicile and institution, as well as age, sex and background (POLAR3) of applicants and the subjects and types of institution (Tariff group) they have been accepted to.
These updates will be published each working day until Friday 28 August. Our End of Cycle Report for 2015 will be published on 17 December and will assess the full admissions year and include final applicant and acceptance totals.