Image source, PA MediaByHazel ShearingEducation correspondentPublished21 minutes agoResults for A-levels, T-levels, BTecs and other vocational qualifications are out.
And this year, they've come at a time when all eyes are on what teenagers decide to do next.
Universities are keen to get them through the door. As they grapple with their finances, they know that every filled seat in a lecture hall comes with tuition fee funding.
The new prime minister, meanwhile, wants to carve out clear routes into technical jobs that can rival the well-established path of A-levels and a university degree.
For teenagers, considerations about the immediate and long-term cost of university, as well as the availability of other options, are all in the mix.
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1. Top A-level grades edge upAbout 40% of 18-year-olds in England receive A-levels every summer, and this year top A-level results across the whole of England, Wales and Northern Ireland have risen for a third year running.
Overall, 28.5% of grades were marked at A* or A, up from 28.3% last year.
The results are still much lower than they were in 2020 and 2021, when exams were cancelled and results were based on teachers' assessments.
After that, there was a concerted effort to bring them back down. Grading in England returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2023 – prompting a big fall in top grades – while Wales and Northern Ireland followed suit in 2024.
The proportion of top grades across the three nations combined has been slightly creeping up since that drop in 2023.
The proportion of A-levels marked at A* and A was:
A record number of 18-year-olds in the UK have been accepted into university, according to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) - with more than ever getting into their first choice.
The steepest growth has been in acceptances to what Ucas calls "higher tariff" universities. These are the most selective institutions, like those in the Russell Group.
These universities have taken on 5.5% more UK 18-year-olds than last year, and many are still advertising courses in Clearing.
The raw number of 18-year-olds getting into their first choice of university may have risen, but there are more of them in the population than in previous years. The actual percentage of 18-year-old offer-holders getting into their first choice has fallen from 82% to 79%.
Taking on more UK students may offer some financial stability for those selective universities, but other institutions will be hoping to recruit more students through Clearing.
Four in ten universities in England are expected to report a financial deficit in 2025-26, squeezed by a long-term freeze in domestic tuition fees and a fall in international student numbers.
Jo Saxton, chief executive of Ucas, told the BBC the sheer amount of courses listed in Clearing meant teenagers could "absolutely still go to university in the autumn if that's what they would like to do".
Universities aren't the only ones worried about their finances. Teenagers, too, are concerned about the cost, and Saxton said many are using Clearing to find courses closer to home.
But ultimately, the percentage of UK 18-year-olds applying to university has remained stable, and worries about the long-term costs - with rising tuition fees and widespread criticism of the student loans system - do not appear to have put teenagers off.
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More than 19,600 students received grades in 21 subjects this year, up from 11,900 students across 18 subjects last year.
This will be welcome news for the new prime minister, who says he wants pupils in England to be able to study technical subjects in addition to core academic learning from Year 10.
The pass rate increased slightly from 91.4%, according to last year's provisional results, to 92.6%. And the percentage of students achieving a merit or above grew from 65.3% to 68.9%.
The dropout rate remains high, though – and some students take longer than the standard two-years to complete the course. Around 77% of students who started their T-level in 2024, and were therefore expected to complete it this year, have received results.
T-levels are among the 300,000 grades for vocational and technical qualifications released today.
That's still much smaller than the number of A-level grades given out (more than 800,000 among 18-year-olds alone).
But there are indications that interest in technical education is on the rise. According to Ucas, engineering and technology subjects saw the biggest growth in university acceptances, up 16% from last year.
Technical education won't be the only thing standing out to Andy Burnham and his ministers today, especially after their recent meeting in No 10 North.
The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing regions in England has grown again.
In London, 32.7% of A-level grades were marked at A* or A. In the North East and the East Midlands, it was 23.1%.
That's a 9.6 percentage point gap – up from 9.2 last year, when the North East alone was the lowest-performing region. It's also the largest gap on record since the A* was introduced in 2010.
In fact, the gap between London and all other regions has widened since last year.
Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said the regional gaps were driven by "persistent long-term disadvantage".
Chris Zarraga, director of Schools North East, said schools in different parts of England were "not operating on a level playing field".
He pointed out that the percentage of A* and A grades in the North East had grown, but London had "moved significantly further ahead", adding: "There is a structural divide in the circumstances and opportunities surrounding them."
But Myles McGinley, managing director of Cambridge OCR, said there were also "severe inequalities within the capital itself" between Richmond and Hounslow, for example, as well as between areas in the North East like Durham and Hartlepool.
More A* and A grades went to girls than boys this year – 137,000 compared to 120,900.
But more girls sit A-levels in the first place, and looking at the percentage of boys and girls getting these top grades suggests that boys are actually doing better.
This year, 28.9% of all grades given to boys were A*s and As, compared to 28% of grades given to girls.
It used to be the other round, and last year was the first year boys overtook girls in this respect since 2018. Now, that gap has widened.
Girls are still outperforming boys when you look at a broader range of grades, though.
For example, 79.8% grades given to girls were marked A* to C, compared to 76.8% of boys' grades.
