MSc Application & Conversion update
School of GeoSciences, The University of Edinburgh
Prepared by Allie Houghton, Marketing Officer - 1 June 2011
Application Status as at 1 June 2011
Attached is a summary of application statistics for this year’s entry. ‘Blank’ indicates that the application is currently being processed. Otherwise, applicants who have been rejected or who have declined their offer are shown in red, and all other offer holders, conditional or unconditional, are emboldened – highlighting where we need to focus our conversion efforts.
Generally speaking, compared with last year’s statistics, we are on track – but we have already surpassed our number of rejected applications compared with the end of the application cycle last year. There are a number of possible reasons for this, but the admissions team has indicated that the quality of applications in general has been much lower than in previous years. Additionally, this year the admissions team has managed multiple applications differently (when one student applies for 4-5 programmes, they are given one offer – after discussion – and the other applications are then entered on the system as rejections).
School of Geosciences2010 cycle / 2011 cycle / % change YTD:
Unconditional Offer / 170 / 117 / -31.2%
Conditional Offer / 350 / 292 / -16.6%
Reject / 193 / 238 / 23.3%
No Decision / 359 / 286 / -20.3%
Subtotal (Offers): / 520 / 409 / -21.3%
Subtotal (Decisions): / 713 / 647 / -9.3%
Total (Applications): / 1072 / 933 / -13.0%
Remaining recruitment activity for 2011/12 intake:
A highly targeted (geographic and demographic) campaign is about to start, primarily focusing on UK and EU recruitment (based on top recruiting EU countries from previous years). The campaign will include SEM and a variety of highly targeted digital channels – with the aim of attracting potential applicants (progression students and mid-career professionals) who are already actively seeking information about studying the degrees we are offering.
The results of this campaign, along with analysis of our website activity over the past year will be analysed over the summer. This will inform our recruitment marketing strategy for next year’s intake.
Conversion Activity for 2011 intake (discussion)
There are great examples all across the University of organised conversion activity. SRA and the IO recently held a very well received conversion event which stressed the importance of maintaining communication and establishing relationships with offer holders. A few examples of best practice were shared which included:
Informatics:Use student ambassadors to email EU/overseas offer holders (in their own language if not English), and invite them to phone or skype them if they’d like to talk about the programme or anything related to studying at the University. Ambassadors are paid for 2 hours of their time – the results have been excellent from both the offer holders and ambassadors who have taken part. This has happened at UG level, but they are now rolling out for PG.
SPS:Sends a warm email to every offer holder (conditional or unconditional), and provides them with a link to a programme-specific facebook group where they are able to connect with other offer holders, programme administrators and current students. This has so far been well-received and students are building communities / asking eachother questions / sharing experiences before they even arrive. The intent is not to manage the groups, but allow them to grow themselves.
MVM:Distance learning programme Equine Science sends out School e-newsletters (via mailchimp) and sets up twitter feeds, facebook communities and google groups for every offer holder. Distance-learners may never meet eachother so establishing a sense of community is important, and the efforts of Equine Science are appreciated by offer holders. The programme has excellent conversion rates.
Other anectodal:
Engineering/Physics & Astronomy:a number of programme directors invite both prospective applicants and offer holders to join them in pre-planned online discussions (using Wimba or Skype) – which has been received very well by both students and PDs. (It saves the PD responding to multiple different emails, instead addressing a wide range of questions from different people in one go).
Chemistry: one programme director set aside a morning and personally phoned every conditional and unconditional offer holder to talk to them about the programme and let them know he is looking forward to meeting them soon, which was received extremely well.
MVM: is about to hold an online conversion event (9 June). It’s a drop-in event using Wimba, and admissions staff and administrators will be available to answer questions and talk to students all day, as and when they drop in. An invitation has been sent out to all offer holders, and they are expecting a lot of interest from students.
GeoSciences?:
I haven’t been able to establish what activity we’re involved with for promoting conversion, and it would be useful to get a sense of what we all do / at what times of year and any other thoughts or ideas from programme directors and administrators.
Thoughts on an organised plan of conversion activity?
Support/resources needed?