What is A-level results day really like?
Student insight
By Emily Arnott / 17 August 2026
Emily has just finished her A-Levels at Hills Road Sixth Form College, where she studied maths, further maths, physics and biology. She will now be starting biomedical engineering at the University of Sheffield in September 2026.
On the morning of results day, I woke up a seven o’clock as I wanted to prepare some things before I got my grades. I had thought all of my exams went well and was expecting to get into my firm choice, the University of Sheffield, since my predictions were higher than their requirement of AAB, however I was scared to find out my actual grades, because I was hoping for higher than the requirements for my course.
I had been surprised at my ability to not think about results day until right before, as for GCSEs I had been worrying about it for a long time, but by now I was quite scared. To prepare, I wrote down my UCAS ID and the Sheffield clearing phone number, and I had an idea of where else I would be prepared to go to (the other Universities I’d applied for). I then opened the UCAS website and my college email, since my grades would be emailed to me instead of having to pick them up in person.
At eight o’clock I refreshed UCAS, and the first thing I saw was confetti on the screen. It said I had got into my first choice of university, which was a massive relief. Although I had expected to get in, there was always a voice in my head saying it was possible I don’t, and I’d had my heart set on Sheffield for a while now. My friends started texting that they had got into their universities too which was exciting, but we didn’t have our results yet. I waited for another half hour for my results, which was what I was most scared for. I’d had a dream about this moment the night before. I got A*, A, A, A and an A* in EPQ, so I was really happy, and so were my parents, who were in the room with me at the time, along with my dog. I had very much wanted all As and A*s but really wasn’t sure that I’d get that, so I was hugely relieved.
After getting my results, I called my grandparents who were so happy for me, which meant a lot because I really wanted to do them proud. My parents started telling my extended family and lots of their friends, and I started to hear how other people had done. All my friends were happy with their results too, which added to my happiness and relief.
What surprised me about results day was how long the wait felt before getting my offer and between getting my offer and getting my results. I had expected to have lots to be doing in preparation but once getting my offer, I was just waiting and refreshing my email for half an hour. I was also scared that UCAS would crash or take ages to load, since so many people would be using it at once, but I was surprised at how quickly it updated once I refreshed it at eight.
I’d wanted this day to be over for months, and it feels like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders now that it’s done, and it went as well as I had hoped.
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