My Clearing journey when my results weren't what I expected

If I’m being completely honest, results day hadn’t gone the way I planned it to. I had spent years thinking about what I wanted my future to be like. I already had a firm offer for the course I wanted from another university. By this point, I’d visited their open days, spoken to lecturers at this university and even began to consider their accommodation options.  

But, when I opened the letter of my results and realised that they weren’t as I had expected, it suddenly felt like my entire future had come crashing down in a matter of seconds. The letters on the paper didn't match the ones on my offer on UCAS. And just like that, I was experiencing an endless sense of panic and uncertainty. The first question I asked myself was “what am I supposed to do now?”

The disappointment I was feeling was overwhelming. In that moment, it felt like I hadn’t just lost my firm offer, but like I had also just lost my own sense of direction.

But if there’s one thing I know about the future, it’s that you never know what it has in store for you. After the initial shock wore off, I took a deep breath and did the one thing I had never considered doing before: having a look at universities through Clearing.

I’d always viewed Clearing as a last resort, or something that happened to people who hadn’t tried hard enough, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. As I scrolled through the available courses online, I felt that Clearing was, in fact, an abundance of new opportunities.

That’s when I stumbled across a cybersecurity course at Kingston University. It wasn’t what I had originally applied to, but something clicked as I read more about it and the facilities the University had to offer. I have always been fascinated with technology, problem-solving and programming, and this course immediately stood out as the one for me.

Next was making the call to Kingston’s Clearing Hotline. It was nerve-wracking, but the person on the other end of the line wasn’t there to judge my grades (as I had wrongfully assumed). He was there to help me find a place in the course that I wanted. He treated me with such kindness and sincerity, that I was honestly taken aback. He greeted me warmly, asked me for some personal information, and within the span of a couple of minutes, I had already received an offer in my email.

Now, fast forward to the present day, and I’m a first-year cybersecurity student here at Kingston University. The course is intriguing, challenging and engaging, and feels like I’m preparing myself for a future that actually excites me. My class is full of people who took different paths to get where they are today – some through clearing, some through the main cycle, and some who switched courses within the first week. Either way, I am constantly surrounded by kind and genuine faces, and I’ve learned to understand that the path you take to university becomes far less important. It’s what you do once you arrive that counts.

I didn’t end up where I thought I would, but rather, I ended up exactly where I should be.

So I say – welcome the idea of a Plan B, because it might end up being your best plan yet! 

Learn more about Clearing at Kingston University and what your Plan B could look like.