levels: 'Students may not sell themselves well' As teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland find out their A-level results, there is concern that those who need to go through clearing may not be able to sell themselves well. Clearing is a service for students who failed to get the right grades for the courses they wanted or for those who didn't get any offers from the universities they applied for earlier in the year. Pat Thomson, director of the Centre for Research in Schools and Communities at the University of Nottingham, said she was "concerned that some students will be better at selling themselves than others."