Residency issue

Hi,

My situation is this:
- Parents left UK for business reasons in 2018 (they haven't returned)
- I completed my iGCSEs abroad because of this in 2020
- Returned Sep 2020, completed A-levels and took a gap year.

The problem:
I returned by myself in the first week of September 2020 on the first flight available and you have to be ordinarily resident for 3 years on the first day of the academic year. I knew this and wanted to return before September, however, due to COVID, there were no flights out of the country until September so I was doomed to return after September. My three years will be completed this September only a few days after the AY start date (if it was by course start date I would be fine).

The question(s):
Is the 1st Sep 2023 cut-off a hard one? Would I still be eligible for any form of support? Are these extraordinary circumstances accounted for by SFE? Is my intent on returning sufficient evidence of being ordinarily resident days before actually arriving in the UK (i.e. informal living arrangements being made before September, tickets booked before September)?

There isn't a lot of evidence I have to show my intent on coming back to the UK apart from messages to friends, there was essentially no contact to banks and the sort back here but I had really made up my mind to come back.