Congratulations, you’re coming to Southampton!

The wait is over. Your dedication and hard work (or last minute panic cramming) has paid off.  After months of blood, sweat and tearful late night break downs you’re now officially a student at the University of Southampton.

How you feel about this will depend on which type of applicant you are. There are two options here. The first is that you applied way back in November and put Southampton as your firm (excellent choice). You opened your emails with a mixture of fear, hope and anticipation and discovered, with ecstatic joy, that you’d been accepted. There was screaming. Your mum cried. You cried. It was beautiful. Your mum has proudly announced to all her Facebook friends what a clever child she has. You can’t wait to start your university career at Southampton in September.

The other option is that you got a place through clearing. This one is necessary to sub-categorise (you’re going to uni, you can handle big words now). Either you didn’t get the grades for your preferred uni or you actually did way better than expected and decided to upgrade.

If you fall into the latter category, you deserve an extra well fucking done. Your feelings can be likened to finding a surprise tenner down the back of the sofa: surprise and joy. You thought you were going to be resigned to three years at Hull. But alas! You’re coming to the far more civilised South. The sea is just as grey. And the club dance floors are just as grim (if not grimmer). But at least you can understand what the drunkards are saying when they heckle you from the street at 3am.

If you form part of the former category your feelings are likely to be dominated by relief. Ok so you didn’t get your preferred choice. You’re still going to uni in September and that’s all that matters.

However this is different if you were rejected from Oxbridge. Then you’ll be going through an R ‘n’ R faze: regret and resentment. Your mother will also have cried but not with joy. Instead, they will be tears of bitter disappointment. It doesn’t matter that Southampton is also a Russell Group university. From now on you will always be haunted by the fact that you failed to get into Oxbridge.

However it really doesn’t matter how you got here. Whether you passed with flying colours, or barely scraped through, you all got in.

In fact, we’re sorry to say that your A-levels are now competently redundant. Other than providing a talking point with your fellow Freshers in the first week, you will never need them again.

So invest in some jesters shoes and an overly-expensive mediocre masterpass. The countdown to your student life at Southampton has begun.