How Clearing works

Clearing is an opportunity for you to secure a university place, particularly if you:

• are applying for university after 30 June
• have changed your mind about what or where you want to study, and are rethinking your choices
• are not already holding an offer from a UK university
• have results which are different to what you expected – either because didn't meet the conditions of your offer, or you did better than you expected

You can learn more about the Clearing process on the UCAS website.

You can typically apply for an undergraduate course in Clearing if:

• you have your results and, if applicable, your English language test results
• you've not yet applied to any universities in this cycle
• you've achieved higher grades than expected
• your results are not as good as predicted for your original firm and insurance choice universities, and you've been rejected by both choices
• you may have changed your mind about your subject or university

We can't make any conditional offers in Clearing so if you don’t have all your results, you’ll need to wait until they're available.

Clearing for 2026 opens on 2 July, 8am 2026.

When Clearing for 2026 entry begins, we'll update this page with a step-by-step guide to our application process.

We'll publish more details about our Clearing hotline, including telephone number and opening times, shortly before Clearing opens.

If you want to talk to us directly, you can contact our enquiries team by email: enquiries@southampton.ac.uk