High achieving A-level students offered five-day 'super clearing' to get on better university courses

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The shake-up will affect hundreds of sixth-formers whose schools inaccurately predict their A-level grades, ruling them out of elite universities where tutors usually offer places conditional on A-level grades if they are predicted to be high.

The reforms allow those who do better than expected to hold their original choice while they apply to one with higher requirements.

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Secondary school pupils will have the chance to find a better university if they fare better then predicted in their A Levels

Unsuccessful university applicants will also get written reasons for their rejection for the first time.

The moves are part of a wider shake-up of admissions designed to hand more places to poorer students.

Eventually ministers want to reform the whole system so all places are allocated after A-level grades are received.

But they hope the five-day "adjustment period" being introduced in August next year will go some way to remedy unfairness for candidates who excel in final exams.

Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell originally wanted it to help 9,000 but research has shown the true total will be in the hundreds.

This is the likely number that will better expectations by such an extent they stand a chance of getting into a leading institution such as Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Exeter, Durham or Warwick.

Ministers believe state-educated and working-class pupils will try their luck at elite institutions once they are confident of their results.

A spokesman for the umbrella body Universities UK said: "In a small number of cases, an applicant may achieve better results than required for the firm offer they have accepted and may therefore wish to reconsider their choice.

"So, from August 2009, applicants in such cases will, for five calendar days, be able to look for an alternative course that has places while still holding their original choice."

Professor Steve Smith, vice-chancellor of Exeter University and vice president of Universities UK, said: "A bright candidate from a school with poor results who was expected to get three Cs but actually got three As could in principle go to a more selective university."