THERE were tears of joy as thousands of youngsters discovered whether they had got the grades they were hoping for.

Tens of thousands of teenagers made one last journey back to their colleges and sixth forms this morning to collect results for their A-Levels and level three vocational diplomas and find out if their hard work had paid off.

Many of them woke up to emails from the university admission service UCAS, informing them on whether they had been accepted into the universities they had wanted to go to.

Others had a nervous wait as they phoned clearing hotlines to see if they could negotiate a place on a degree having fallen short of the necessary grades.

Special phone lines had been set up at The University of Southampton, The University of Winchester and Southampton Solent University where hundreds of advisers were waiting to answer calls from students concerned about their results and help them make the best choices for the next chapter in their education.

It comes after a record 64,300 students, equating to one in eight, last year found their university place through clearing, the annual process that helps students sign up for courses that still have vacancies, according to figures from UCAS.

Almost half of those using clearing will have their places by Monday.

How did Hampshire's schools do?

Barton Peveril College: 98.4 per cent pass rate, 76 per cent A* to C

Itchen Sixth Form College: 98 per cent pass rate

St Anne's Catholic School: 98 per cent pass rate

Brockenhurst College: 98.5 per cent pass rate

Richard Taunton Sixth Form College: 98 per cent pass rate, 60 per cent A* to C

Peter Symonds College: 99 per cent pass rate, 83 per cent A* to C

Bitterne Park Sixth Form College: 99 per cent pass rate

Arnewood School: 99.5 per cent pass rate

Hampshire Collegiate School: 100 per cent pass rate

Ringwood School: 99.6 per cent pass rate

Across the country record numbers of students have been offered university places, as the latest A-level results show the gap between boys and girls achieving the very top grades has narrowed for the first time in five years.

Boys continued to earn more A*, with 8.5% achieving the very top grade - although this is down from 8.7% last year, contrary to some predictions.

Girls' results also dropped, with 7.7% getting an A* compared with 7.8% in 2015, meaning the gap between the two sexes has narrowed to 0.8 percentage points from 0.9.

Including A grades, girls continue to slightly out-perform their male counterparts - with 25.9% for girls compared with 25.8% for boys.
The overall pass rate - those achieving grades A* to E - remained at 98.1%. 
It came as early figures from admissions body Ucas showed a record number of almost 424,000 A-level students placed in UK higher education as of midnight - up 3% on last year. Many tuition fees currently stand at £9,000 a year.
The increase in admissions includes a rise of 11% in the number of EU students placed at university - the highest number recorded.