Clearing 2013: top universities still recruiting bright students Five leading universities - Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Queen's Belfast and Sheffield - were still taking a large number of applications from UK students; Some top institutions, such as York, had a very small handful of courses with vacancies; Other universities including Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow listed vacancies despite confirming to the Telegraph that they were now full and would be removing them shortly. But this year, admissions tutors have been given powers to recruit unlimited numbers of ABB students while capping places for other candidates. It was intended to drive competition between universities and allow the most popular to expand to take in more students. Exeter has already revealed that it is taking an extra 600 students through the system and other institutions such as Newcastle have announced a record intake this year. The Telegraph has revealed how this had also prompted a boom in the number of "sweeteners" being offered by institutions to tempt talented sixth-formers, including huge scholarships, cut-price university accommodation and cheap books and computer software. At the start of the clearing process two weeks ago more than 3,000 courses had been advertised by Russell Group members, but only a quarter of these - 788 - remained on Tuesday. It is not known exactly how many spare places are available because each course can have more than one vacancy. Liverpool alone is advertising 217 courses through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), including astrophysics, biochemistry, economics, engineering and law. A spokesman said: "We do have a limited number of places available for those students who have done better in their A-levels than expected and who may not yet have considered the University of Liverpool." Newcastle has 119 courses in subjects such as computer science, geography, mechanical engineering and modern languages. A spokesman insisted the university was only accepting students onto courses where there are "no restrictions on space," adding that numbers could rise in these disciplines "without harming the student experience." Sheffield is still advertising 209 courses in a range of academic disciplines. "The university has currently met its target number of places, however, due to the Government's decision to allow university's to recruit as many high achieving students as they are able, we are still recruiting some additional high quality students in some subject areas through clearing and adjustment," a spokeswoman said. A UCAS spokesman said a total of 25,000 courses still had vacancies at all UK universities and colleges on Tuesday. Some 452,250 students in total have found a university place so far this year, six per cent up on the 424,890 who did so at the same point in 2012, when £9,000-a-year tuition fees were introduced for the first time. It is the second highest number on record.