A-level passes have risen for the 29th year in a row as teenagers face an intense battle for university places. The key website used by students to track their university applications has been taken down because of heavy use. Those who miss out on a university place this year could face tuition fees of up to £9,000 a year. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are getting the results of their A and AS levels. Results released on Thursday morning show the overall pass rate is up slightly, but for the first time in 15 years there has been no increase in the total proportion getting A or A* grades. Just over 27% of entries scored these grades, with a small rise in the proportion awarded A*. The Ucas Track website, where teenagers track university offers, was taken down when demand rose four-fold compared with last year. Ucas said full services would "resume shortly". From 2012, many UK students will face tuition fees up to a maximum of £9,000 a year at English universities, compared with the present level of just over £3,000 a year. In Scotland and Wales, fees will be imposed or raised for students from other parts of the UK, but not for "home" students. Scottish students will continue to pay no fees and Welsh students will be subsidised wherever they study in the UK. Northern Ireland's universities will not raise their fees next year. Science rise Overall, the A-levels pass rate rose slightly from 97.6% to 97.8%. The results show boys have closed the gap with girls at the very top grade of A* and that more teenagers are opting to do science and maths. Entries for maths (and further maths) rose by 7.4%, while there were also increases for biology (7.2%), chemistry (9.2%) and physics (6.1%). But fewer teenagers are opting to take traditional modern languages at A-level - a trend which has been seen for many years. Entries for French and German fell again - this year by 4.7% and 6.9% respectively. Pressure on places With applications at record levels and a drop in the number of teenagers taking a gap year, universities have been raising their entry requirements. The government says 15 of England's universities now want applicants to have at least one A* grade. The new top grade was brought in last year, together with changes designed to make the A-level more challenging to bright students. This year A* was awarded to 8.2% of entries - up from 8.1% last year. But the proportion of entries getting either an A* or an A stayed unchanged at 27%. So far, there have been just over 673,000 applications for undergraduate places in the UK. Last year, there were places for 487,000 people. As teenagers began getting their grades, Ucas said 384,649 people had already been accepted on to university courses for this year and a total of 185,000 were eligible for clearing - the process where students who did not get the grades they needed can apply for places which have not been filled. Last year, 47,000 students found places through clearing. Applications to UK universities are at a record high, after several years of steady increase. Last year, they rose by 12%. This year applications rose by 1.3%. At the same time, the number of candidates taking a gap year - deferring for 12 months - has fallen by 40% to 30,000. Changes ahead Education Secretary Michael Gove has ordered a review of A-levels to see how they compare with exam systems in other countries. He has also said he wants more emphasis on a final exam which stretches candidates' capacity for original thought. Recent changes to the A-level - brought in with the A* grade - involved the introduction of questions designed to stretch the brightest students and the cutting of the number of modules or sections of an A-level from six to four. About 160,000 teenagers in Scotland got the results of their Highers and Advanced Highers earlier this month. The pass rate for the Higher was 75.2%, an increase of 0.5% on the previous year, while the figure for Advanced Highers was 79.3%, up 1.8%.