UCAS Clearing Plus Explained: How the Matching Tool Actually Works

Most Clearing guides tell you to search the UCAS vacancy list and start phoning universities. That still works. But since 2020, UCAS has also run a second, quieter route into Clearing that a lot of students never actually use properly: Clearing Plus, an automated matching tool that suggests courses to you instead of making you search for them.

This guide covers exactly how it works, what "I'm interested" actually does, and why it should sit alongside calling universities directly, not replace it.

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What Is Clearing Plus?

Clearing Plus is a feature inside UCAS Hub, available to applicants who are in Clearing. Instead of manually searching thousands of vacancy listings, UCAS generates a personalised set of course matches for you automatically.

It launches with an initial batch of suggested courses, with further batches available as you review them, rather than one static list.

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How the Matching Actually Works

UCAS builds your matches from three things:

1. Your profile — the qualifications you're taking, your grades (predicted or actual), and the course choices you made earlier in your UCAS application, even if those specific choices didn't work out.
2. What universities have told UCAS they want — the subject areas and applicant profiles a course with vacancies is actually looking to fill.
3. Patterns from similar applicants — what students with a broadly similar profile to yours have gone on to study successfully.

This is why Clearing Plus can surface a course or university you never considered in your original application. It's matching on your profile and interests, not just the exact subject you searched for.

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Step by Step: Using Clearing Plus

1. Be eligible for Clearing. This means you did not get a confirmed place — you missed your offers, had none, or self-released.
2. Log into UCAS Hub. If you're eligible, your matches appear automatically. There is no separate sign-up.
3. Review each match. Course details, entry requirements, and what makes it a match for you are shown alongside it.
4. Click "I'm interested" on any course you'd genuinely consider. This is the only action Clearing Plus requires from you at this stage.
5. Your details are passed to the university. They can see that you're interested and review your profile.
6. The university decides whether to contact you. If they want to pursue you as an applicant, they will get in touch — usually by phone or email — to discuss next steps.
7. More matches appear over time. If your initial batch doesn't include anything you want, check back — UCAS releases further batches as availability changes.

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What "I'm Interested" Actually Means

This is the detail most students get wrong: clicking "I'm interested" is not an application.

It tells the university you might want a place on their course. The university then reviews everyone who has expressed interest and chooses who to follow up with — much like how a business might review a shortlist before making calls. You are not committed to anything, and neither is the university, until an actual offer is made and you accept it through UCAS Hub in the normal way.

This means two things in practice:

• You can click "interested" on more than one course. You are not limited to a single match, and doing so does not count against you the way holding multiple Clearing choices does.
• Interest does not guarantee a response. A popular course might have more interested applicants than places. If a university doesn't contact you, that doesn't necessarily mean no, it may simply mean they are prioritising other applicants first — or that the vacancy filled before they got to you.

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Clearing Plus vs Searching and Calling Directly

Clearing Plus and the standard Clearing search are not competing options — they work best together.

	Clearing Plus	Manual search + calling
How it works	UCAS suggests courses to you	You search and choose courses yourself
Effort	Low — review matches, click interested	Higher — research, shortlist, call
Speed of response	Depends on the university contacting you	Immediate — you get an answer on the call
Best for	Discovering options you hadn't considered	Courses you already know you want
Your control	Passive — you wait to be contacted	Active — you make the case yourself

The students who do best in Clearing generally use both: they check their Clearing Plus matches for anything worth considering, and they also independently shortlist and phone the universities and courses they already know they want, rather than waiting to see if a match appears.

A calling script and everything else you need for the phone call itself is covered in our full Clearing 2026 guide.

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Common Mistakes With Clearing Plus

Relying on it exclusively. Clearing Plus surfaces options, but it doesn't call the university for you and doesn't argue your case. If you have a course in mind already, phone them — don't wait for a match to appear.

Not checking back for new batches. Matches update as vacancies change. A course you want might not appear in your very first batch.

Assuming "interested" is enough. If a university you're genuinely keen on hasn't been in touch within a day or so, call them directly and mention that you clicked interested — it puts a name and a voice to the profile they're reviewing.

Ignoring matches outside your original subject. Some of the most useful Clearing Plus suggestions are for closely related courses you didn't originally apply for. It's worth reading the course description properly before dismissing a match just because the title differs from what you searched for originally.

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The Bottom Line

Clearing Plus is a genuinely useful discovery tool — it surfaces vacancies matched to your actual profile rather than making you search blind, and it costs nothing but a click to express interest. But it's a supplement to the active parts of Clearing, not a replacement for them. Review your matches, click interested on the ones you'd genuinely take, and keep calling the universities and courses you already know you want in parallel.

If you end up needing to explain a change of course or university on a Clearing call, your personal statement is still what universities look at. See our Clearing personal statement guide for exactly what they can see and what to prepare, or get your statement reviewed before results day if you want it as strong as possible either way.