A-LEVEL celebrations were ruined for some students yesterday when an exam board failed to mark their work on time.

It left scores of frustrated students across the region agonising over whether or not they would be accepted at their chosen universities.

The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) apologised after making the latest in a series of blunders by exam boards and said about 2,000 students across the country had been affected.

Many were given estimated grades, but Darlington student Lyndsay Angus tore open her results to find the word "pending" next to her English language A-level, alongside her A in biology and B in German.

It was only after a frantic phone call that the 19-year-old Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form student found she had still been accepted onto her German and Linguistics course at York University.

Lyndsay said: "We were nervous enough anyway and it really took the edge off my getting my other A-levels. I was just so relieved when I found out I still had my place."

Several teenagers at Wolsingham School and Community College, County Durham, were also on tenterhooks when their RE and psychology results failed to materialise.

The psychology papers, marked by exam board OCR, arrived by mid-morning but the RE students, under exam board AQA, were not put out of their misery until late afternoon.

Headteacher Mitch O'Reilly said: "It is frustrating for us and upsetting for the kids. They come in expecting results and are all strung out and, yes, their university places depend on it. But I also understand why the exam boards are having problems."

The exam boards have come under intense pressure since the changes brought under Curriculum 2000 increased the number of exams.

AQA spokesman George Turnbull apologised for the anxiety caused and said they were working tirelessly to rectify the problem.

He said it was a small number of grades issued out of two million and that they expected the missing marks to be processed within days.

But the exam board watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), said it was "completely unacceptable" and demanded an explanation from AQA bosses.

The QCA's head of audit, Bill Kelly, said no student should lose out on their university place.

The news overshadowed some astonishing achievements by young people on a day of record pass rates across the region.

Students at Yarm School, Teesside, and Dame Allan's School in Fenham, Newcastle, were among those celebrating 100 per cent pass rates.

Star pupils included Paul Peeling, of Yarm School, who gained six A-level grade As, securing a place at Cambridge, and Edwin Kite, of St Cuthbert's School, Newcastle, who also gained six grade As.