Development Monthly | #46 August 2025 | Critical Moments, Courageous Moves : Leading and Learning When It Counts

Written in partnership with AHEP Consulting

Clearing isn’t a bolt-on. It’s not a contingency plan. And it’s definitely not just an “admissions thing”. It’s core business. A high-pressure, high-stakes phase of your recruitment cycle. One that shows, in real time, whether your institution is set up to deliver on its promises.
Yet every year, we see leaders treating it like a side issue. Something to be “handled” behind the scenes by Admissions. A flurry of activity that doesn’t need strategic oversight. But that’s not how Clearing works anymore, if it ever did.
Clearing is not the end of the cycle. It’s not even the goal. An Unconditional Firm acceptance isn’t a done deal. A “yes” today doesn’t guarantee enrolment. No funding lands until that student shows up.
Clearing is about more than new recruitment. It’s also about:
- Retaining your offer-holders – especially when other institutions are chasing them
- Converting decisions into enrolments with smooth, timely processes and confident communication
- Responding when student behaviours shift (and they will)
Last year*, 22,000 people applied directly through Clearing. Not late, not rejected, just on their own timeline. 15,000 switched provider and 9,000 traded up. In contrast, only 18,000 entered Clearing because they missed offer conditions.
Applicants are scanning websites, re-reading emails, asking questions. They’re weighing up course flexibility, support services, location, cost of living, tone of voice. If your messaging is slow or confusing, if your staff sound unsure, or your systems can’t keep up you will lose them.
And when applicants switch, it’s often back to a university they originally applied to and initially declined. That should tell you everything about the importance of maintaining momentum and clarity from offer to enrolment.
And it cuts both ways. Your institution may well be chasing insurance offer-holders trying to tempt them away from their Firm choice. These moves don’t just happen at confirmation. They happen all the way to the point of enrolment. Which means Admissions, Registry, Marketing, IT and frontline support all need to be working together with shared information and joined-up systems.
If you’re in leadership, ask yourself:
- Are your progression steps from offer to enrollment clearly mapped?
- Do applicants know what’s expected of them and when?
- Are your teams confident in what to say and what to escalate?
- Can you see – live – where your offers are, what’s accepted, and who’s at risk?
This isn’t just about being efficient. It’s about being effective under pressure and not letting legacy systems or sign-off bottlenecks cost you students.
Clearing exposes the gaps in your infrastructure, your communications, and your trust in your own teams.
If your staff say a campaign won’t work, listen to them. If they suggest a strategy shift in response to real-time information, let them. If they say a process is breaking, fix it or work around it. This is not the time for vanity targets or optics-based panic.
And please, don’t ask them to send out more offers just so a report can hit a year-on-year line. Admissions teams are making difficult, high-pressure decisions. The last thing they need is interference from people who aren’t in the details.
Clearing is a whole-organisation effort.
It involves:
- Real-time coordination
- Accurate and accessible data
- Clear governance and escalation
- Confident, supported staff across multiple departments
It fails when one part of that chain breaks. When IT support is unavailable. When enrolment processes aren’t ready. When the CRM and SRS don’t talk to each other. When senior leaders disappear at the moment they’re most needed.
And it fails when leadership sees this as “just operations”. Or worse, a cost centre.
If you think you’re saving money by making Admissions pay for out-of-hours IT, or waiting until results day to find out what your fallback plan is, you’re not protecting the business, you’re putting it at risk.
If you’re in leadership, here’s what you should be doing:
Plan for Clearing as part of your annual cycle, not a one-week panic. Build in time for prep, testing and review.
Support real-time decisions with live dashboards, rapid escalation routes, and cross-functional coordination.
Equip teams to retain students, not just recruit them. That includes confident comms, offer management, and clean progression workflows.
Defer to operational expertise. If your staff tell you a process is buckling or a message won’t land, believe them.
Resource properly. That means IT, systems, staffing, phones, physical space, and wraparound support.
Stay involved but don’t meddle. Leadership visibility matters. Don’t go missing during one of the most business-critical moments of the year, but don’t get in the way either.
Learn from it. The most effective institutions take time to reflect. Not just operationally, but strategically. Who did we lose, and when? What did applicants tell us, directly or indirectly? Did our offer-holders progress smoothly, or did we lose people at the final hurdle? If your debrief starts and ends with Admissions, you’re missing the point. Because Clearing isn’t a one-off crisis. It’s a recurring test and every year gives you the chance to do better next time.
Clearing isn’t a favour to applicants. It’s a critical moment of access, trust, and delivery.
It’s not a bonus round. It’s where your strategy, systems and staff are tested. All at once, and in public.
If you care about widening participation, student experience, and institutional sustainability, Clearing is where that shows.
So don’t just watch it unfold. Own it. Back your people. And get them the tools and authority to do what needs doing.
Because if students can’t get in, can’t get a straight answer, or can’t get enrolled, the rest doesn’t matter.
*2024 End of cycle Clearing report, UCAS: https://www.ucas.com/providers/our-products-and-services/understanding-clearing-students-motivations-and-mindsets
📩 Let’s talk about what’s possible before the next cycle starts all over again: consulting@ahep.ac.uk
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