Desperate A-level students who fail to make the grade are being offered high tech help by the University of Bradford.

The academics think they are the first to offer video conferencing links in a pilot scheme to eight or nine schools across the country.

The link will go live on Thursday when students up and down the country collect their results.

Through the link, those students left in the lurch by lower-than-expected grades can get immediate advice on their options from admissions tutors at Bradford.

Under the clearing system, young people who have not secured high enough grades to take up the university places they have been offered can find others on different courses.

The clearing system is also a godsend to universities as it enables them to fill spare places on many of their courses.

Most universities use the clearing process to chase would-be students in a bid to keep up their numbers.

It is common to make admissions tutors available over the telephone but Bradford is taking that a stage further by setting up the video conferencing link. It will enable young people to speak face-to-face to admissions tutor Dr Roger Ash even if they are at the other end of the country. Two local schools - Salt Grammar at Baildon and Hanson School in North Bradford - are among those who have been offered the opportunity to pilot the video conferencing link.

Last year, the University of Bradford hit the headlines for another state-of-the-art innovation. It had sent good luck text messages to the mobile phones of all the young people to whom it had offered places, on the eve of A-level results day. It is repeating that exercise this year.

"More and more people are accessing information digitally and that's where the conferencing system comes in," said Alison Darnborough, director of marketing and communications.

"Many students are faced with difficult decisions and may feel disheartened, so the last thing they want to do is go home and start phoning round universities. By going straight into schools and colleges via video conferencing, we can take this burden off students."

The video conferencing facilities at the University were used to help a student at the Management centre, who had a video interview with a Paris bank, fulfil the appointment without having to travel to Paris. And one academic used it to deliver a lecture live to an audience in New Zealand.

But applying it for use during clearing is an innovation.