A record number of A-level students have been able to confirm their university places, following last week’s bumper haul of A grades.

Ucas, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, said yesterday that nearly 346,000 applicants due to start full-time undergraduate courses this autumn had been placed so far this year. This breaks the previous record set in 2005, when 335,912 applicants had a place confirmed by this point. Those figures were boosted by applicants trying to get into university before the introduction of £3,070 top-up course fees.

At present, 109,210 applicants are still eligible for the Ucas clearing system, which matches students who did not gain the grades they needed for one of their preferred universities.

Last night several members of the Russell Group of 19 leading universities were still advertising clearing places in a range of popular subjects. Manchester University is still offering places in nursing and engineering, while Leeds has places in new media studies and Nottingham has places in sociology and physics. Anthony Mc-Claran, Ucas chief executive, said: “There are still plenty of opportunities for people to find a higher education place through clearing, with almost 36,000 courses still advertising vacancies.”

He added that Ucas’s new social networking site, yougofurther.co.uk, which allows students to swap advice before they go to university, had been very popular.

By the time clearing ends on September 20, almost 40,000 students are expected to have found a place through the system.

Bill Rammell, the minister for higher education, said he was particularly encouraged by the substantial rise in acceptances for maths, chemistry, physics and languages.

The figures suggest that tuition fees are not putting off students from applying to university. “I am convinced that the generous student finance package on offer, in the form of student loans, nonrepayable grants and bursaries helps to ensure that money is not a barrier to higher education for any student, no matter what their background,” said Mr Rammell.

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