YOUNGSTERS faced a nail-biting morning after a website used by students to check whether they had secured their university places crashed.

The students were left in limbo and unable to be allocated Clearing numbers after the service was shut at 8.40am due to unprecedented demand.

At one point the Ucas website was receiving 450 hits per second – nearly four times as many as last year.

The website was back online by yesterday lunchtime and the company stressed that students’ ability to choose a Clearing place had not been affected.

Worcester Sixth Form College pupil Jack Cunningham, aged 18, was among those affected.

He achieved Bs in Maths and Physics and a D in Economics but was left uncertain as to whether he had secured his place at Leicester University to do Physics and Astro-Physics.

Jack, from Warndon Villages, Worcester, said: “They wanted three Bs.

“I tried to get on the site but it just said the web page was overloaded and to come back later. It’s kind of useless.”

Pauline Mason, head of students services at the College, said: “If students haven’t made their grades they don’t know if they’ve been accepted by the university or not.

“I had a student come to see me who’d missed getting two As and a B by one mark.

“Hopefully they might let her in to her first choice university but she just doesn’t know and she can’t get through to the university so it’s very frustrating for her.

“Fortunately she’s made the grades for her insurance choice so she’s definitely got a place but there are other students who haven’t got their first choice or their insurance choice.

“They are just in limbo. Ucas are normally excellent and incredibly helpful so I feel sorry for them because they must be so frustrated they can’t offer their usual service.”