Students face tense wait ahead of exam results day

As pupils recover from the stress of taking their GCSE and A-level exams, Abbie Wightwick looks forward to results day – and the options young people have

THIS year, A level results are released on Thursday August 16. Results can be collected from school or college. You can get your results by going to pick them up from your school in person, or they may be sent out to you in the post if you tell your school or college the address to send them to in advance.

You can also ask a friend or relative to pick your results envelope up from the school, but make sure you tell your school or college you have given them permission in advance.

Schools and colleges will often open from around 8am, but they are all different so make sure you check in good time when and where you need to be on the day.

You won’t be able to get your results until the morning of A-level results day. But you will probably be able to check the status of your university application an hour or two before arriving at school or college.

Universities, which find out applicants’ A-level results a few days in advance, inform the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) of their decision ahead of results day. Ucas then publish these decisions online on the morning itself.

Students who have applied to university are therefore able to find out whether their application status has gone from conditional to unconditional or - if their grades haven’t gone to plan - they have been entered into Clearing, all before they arrive at the school gates or know their grades.

Ucas won’t have all the information, however, and it is only when you open your results envelope that you will know exactly what grades and results you have for each subject.

If you get the grades you needed, you won’t have much to worry about. Accommodation and student loans should have been sorted and universities will send confirmation of your place. When you register at your new university in September, loan payments will be triggered.

If you don’t get the grades you needed don’t panic. It may feel like the end of the world, but it’s not. There are options and you don’t have to give up your hopes and dreams.

Take time to think about these options. If you want to go o to a specific course you may want to re-sit, so speak to your school or college about this.

You may decide full-time higher education isn’t for you after all. In which case, you can either think