'Call waiting' was a constant state for staff at Ucas headquarters
Approximately every hour today, the doors to the the nerve centre of Ucas's clearing operation opened to let in a small fleet of trolleys. Laden with crisps, sausage rolls and penny sweets – plus fresh fruit pots for the more health conscious – they proved crucial as the toughest clearing process ever got under way.
With calls asking for advice, help with the online system, and reassurance pouring in faster than the 115 staff could answer them, time away from the phones had to be kept to a minimum.
"It's been absolutely non-stop," said Barbara Weldon, in her 12th year in the job. "The trolley is brilliant. We get fed and watered at our desks." (Toilet breaks and time away to eat proper meals were also permitted, she hastened to add).
In the corners of the open plan office at Ucas's Cheltenham headquarters, LCD screens gave a constant reminder of the scale of the task, tracking the number of calls waiting, the longest current waiting time for an answer and how many students had been dealt with.
The body had upped its staff numbers from 100 last year and trained them up earlier, in anticipation of the work ahead. Four hours after the hotline opened at 7am, some 5,461 queries had already been handled; by 4pm the figure was 10,113 – on course to equal last year's 15,000.
Managers kept a close eye on the "oldest call waiting" marker, which they were determined to keep under two minutes. Mostly they succeeded.
Senior staff paced the floor to advise on particularly knotty problems, summoned by the raising of the laminated red card bearing the word "help" issued to each call handler.
And though those manning the phones said it was too early to get a strong sense of an increase in the numbers failing to find a place through clearing, the soothing voices amid the frenetic clatter and hum told of the pain of those who had got lower grades than hoped for.
"You have people who are very, very upset," Weldon said. "I personally don't like to let them go off the phone until I've at least calmed them down. I put my motherly head on then.
"In those cases it's about accentuating whatever positives there are. I personally can feel very emotional about it." By lunchtime she was yet to have anyone crying, but that, she thought, was "just good luck on my part".
And the students were not the only ones to call in; in recent years anxious parents have increasingly been getting on the phone themselves, sometimes in tears.
"It's almost like something primitive. Parents naturally are hugely defensive of their children. They're either trying to shield them from the disappointment, or, occasionally, they might have an issue with a decision that's been made."
With so many warnings already issued about the chronic shortage of places this year, would-be students had probably already realised they would need to be flexible, especially in the most competitive areas, reckoned Weldon.
But for all that, there were many who called in merely to hear from a human being that what they could see on screen was true: they would soon be off to study at their chosen university.