Online clearing searches

Subjects and institutions that have been traditionally the preserve of the rich have proved the most popular for online clearing searches, writes Alison Goddard.

Law was the most popular subject for online searches for places offered through clearing, according to figures released this week by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.

Some 37,350 searches were made for law courses on the Ucas website in the 34 days following the publication of A-level results. The most recent data on accepted places show that 11,000 law places have been accepted.

Meanwhile, 34,800 searches were made for courses in business and management studies - which had 16,000 accepted places.

Pre-1992 universities are also disproportionately represented in the number of course searches.

There were almost 11,000 searches for courses at the University of Leeds - the most popular institution for online searches.

Next were Nottingham with 9,000 hits; Birmingham with 8,800; Manchester with 7,900 and Warwick with 6,550.

Just three of the top 20 most popular institutions on the Ucas website were post-1992 institutions: the universities of the West of England (10th); Nottingham Trent (14th) and Oxford Brookes (20th).