Course Vacancies: Persistence sharpens the sights on success

Candidate: Yvette Barber, 19, Daventry, Northants.

Needed: BCC to do psychology at Warwick University.

Results: BCE in sociology, psychology and English.

Now: 1st year BSc sociology, Leicester

University.

'When I got my results I cried. It was really unexpected. I was really depressed, saying 'I don't want to bother now', but my parents said, 'You've got to get in there and try'.

'For a week I went into college (Daventry Tertiary College) every day. It was like a job. I looked at vacancies in the paper and prospectuses, checked them on the computer, then went to the phone.

'It was always, 'I'm sorry we haven't got a place but we can take you next year'. I really wanted to go this year. After a week I thought, I can't take any more, I'm going on holiday.

'Then at the very end of the holidays, Leicester rang and asked why I had turned them down (she originally rejected a place to read psychology).

'They said they might have a place and would get in touch the next day. They rang back and said: 'Someone's dropped out and we've got a place. Do you want it?'. I cried - 'yeah'. It was such a relief. It was only three days before the course started. And it's been a brilliant year; exactly the right course.'

(Photograph omitted)