A record number of 18-year-olds are likely to get into their first choice of university this year, the head of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) has said – even if they narrowly miss their grades.
Dr Jo Saxton said universities were keen to enrol UK undergraduates because there was more “uncertainty” around international student numbers.
She said they would “quite possibly” accept students who did not meet the conditions of their offer adding that domestic students offered universities “stability” for “financial planning”.
The prediction comes as thousands of students will open A-level, T-level, Btec and other level-three results next week.
Dr Saxton said it was a “really, really good year to be a UK-domiciled 18-year-old that wants to go to one of our world-class universities”.
“I would anticipate a record number of 18-year-olds will wake up with confirmation, quite possibly even where they are near-misses,” she said.
She added that universities were “recognising, actually, that a three-year undergraduate student is stability for your teaching and learning, for your university community, for your financial planning”.
Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, said universities were “certainly competitive” with one another, which meant applicants had “lots of choice”.
Ucas says universities have made more offers this year, which it says “typically translates into more acceptances”.
Dr Saxton said she expected there to be “slightly fewer” places in clearing as a result – because if more places are taken up by students who have received offers, there will be fewer places to list.
Ucas’s clearing system lets students search for university courses with available places.
More than 22,600 courses had listed vacancies for undergraduate students from England this week, according to a Press Association analysis of 129 universities.
There were more than 3,600 courses advertised across 17 of the selective Russell Group universities.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said year 13 students were “well placed” to study where they wanted to.
“The financial plight of universities makes them very keen to fill their courses and they will be falling over themselves to sign up good potential students,” he said.
Students from England and Wales will pay higher tuition fees for university this year, after the sector called for help with its finances.
Tuition fees have risen from £9,250 to £9,535 for the 2025-26 academic year.
It is the first time they have gone up in England since 2017, and comes after universities said their real-terms value had fallen.
They have become increasingly reliant on higher fees from international students in recent years to make up for frozen domestic fees – but the number of overseas students coming to the UK has fallen.
In May, the regulator in England, the Office for Students, warned that more than four in 10 universities expected to be in a financial deficit by this summer.
Maintenance loans have also gone up this year, which means students can borrow more to help with day-to-day living costs.
In England, the maximum maintenance loan for students from England who live away from their parents outside London has increased to £10,544 a year, up from £10,227.
Ucas said last month that the number of 18-year-olds from the UK applying to university had risen again to 328,390.
However, because the total number of 18-year-olds in the UK has also grown, those applicants make up a slightly smaller proportion of the total 18-year-old population than last year (41.2%).
Students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive A-level and other level-three grades next week.
In Scotland, the number of pupils achieving an A, B or C grade at National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher rose across the board this year.
The Scottish Qualifications Authority also reported a reduction in the attainment gap between candidates from the most and least deprived areas.
