As a Wonkhe reader, you are the person in the lives of most regular people who understands higher education.

At key points – usually as results day approaches, you’ll be getting a bunch of people asking you questions that go a bit like this:

My child wants to do software engineering at university, but reckons they’ve stuffed up their A levels. Where should they be applying in clearing?

First up, if someone didn’t perform well at their first go at level three qualifications there is no shame or dishonour in retaking them – and this may be the best choice. However, it will not feel like the best choice either for 18 year olds (who will be set on going to university in the autumn come what may) or parents (the WhatsApp group shame is real) – though I would urge you to give the idea some thought.

Barring that, you should be thinking about your clearing options as soon as possible – even taking a few days to think about what different universities and courses are like (reading the course pages, and the UCAS pages) will help. Just living with the idea of where a student may be studying, and what life will be like as a result of that choice, is important – even for a few days.

But where should you be looking in Clearing? Well, first the good news for applicants – Clearing shouldn’t be too competitive this year. The pattern seems to be that people are confirming their firm choice on results day if they can, and with slightly less applicants in the system this year there will be more places available.

For me, I’d look at places that have historically given places to applicants with similar tariff points to the ones you have in play. This is not easy information to get to – so I have built you a dashboard.

[Full screen]

First – enter expected results on the top row (pink boxes). This will automatically calculate your tariff (turquoise boxes) – if you are doing qualifications other than A levels, use the controls to approximate the tariff value you need.

Next choose your subject area (two levels, the top box is a really broad set of subjects, the lower one narrows your choice down). Here you can also select a region of interest (maybe you want to stay near home, or have always fancied living in Wales…), and determine whether or not you want to go into a foundation year.

A note on foundation years – this is an extra year of study before you start your first year. You’d need to pass this year to get on to the main course. The cost of this year (in terms of fee loans, and living costs) will be the same as a regular year.

After all this, your list of courses is shown at the bottom. In the chart area, the orange dot shows your projected tariff points, and the two blue arrows show the approximate upper and lower tariff points held by people currently studying on the courses in question. Depending on the size of the course, this can relate to an aggregation of similar courses over one or two years. If you mouse over one of the dots on the chart you can check this, and learn a little more about the course.

The list basically demonstrates that someone holding around the tariff points you have selected has entered the course (or a similar course) in the recent past. It’s not super-high quality data (though it is what the government is happy to use on Discover Uni) but it might at least give you some ideas.

Good luck – however the results land and whatever you decide to do.