Record-breaking results cause surge for university places

A late surge of university applications generated by this year's record A-level pass rate was received by admissions staff yesterday.

At De Montfort University in Leicester, for example, about half of those students who inquired yesterday had decided to apply only after receiving their results. They had not sought provisional offers before their exams or applied to go through the clearing system.

Professor John Coyne, Pro Vice-Chancellor of De Montfort, said the university had made about 350 offers of places to students, half of whom were making their first approach to discuss continuing into higher education.

He said the university would look at any candidate who could give evidence of a points score of 80 – the equivalent of one C grade. "It's not what's happened before that we're worried about," he said. "We would want to look at them and see if they had the potential to succeed afterwards."

The news that first-time applicants are approaching universities will be a boost to the Government as it aims to reach its target of 50 per cent of youngsters going into higher education by the end of the decade.

Earlier figures published by Ucas, the universities and colleges admissions system, showed that the number of school leavers applying for university places had fallen this year. The drop of about 350 was masked by a big increase in mature applicants (over-21) and overseas students.

The sheer volume of hits by students seeking clearing caused the Ucas website to crash temporarily yesterday afternoon.