[myamane]

Hi Everyone!

I am considering studying in the UK. I currently live in the United States and am doing research on HE in the UK.

As part of my studies, I need to do some marketing research on how students choose which Uni they want to attend or how the Uni chooses them.

1st question -

How do Universities in the UK attract students? i.e. are they mailing you a prospectus, advertising on billboards or TV, coming to your schools to meet you?

How are they selling their institution to you?


Any information you could share with me would greatly help me in my studies.

Thanks!

[bahjat93]

(Original post by myamane)
Hi Everyone!

I am considering studying in the UK. I currently live in the United States and am doing research on HE in the UK.

As part of my studies, I need to do some marketing research on how students choose which Uni they want to attend or how the Uni chooses them.

1st question -

How do Universities in the UK attract students? i.e. are they mailing you a prospectus, advertising on billboards or TV, coming to your schools to meet you?

How are they selling their institution to you?


Any information you could share with me would greatly help me in my studies.

Thanks!

I read the Daily mail so they give me some information.
I went for the closest one to me AND the University that has a high Girl to boy ratio .
My parents normally had a massive say in which University i put down as my firm

[Justpin]

It was the course vs.

I did my first undergrad degree nearly a decade ago.

I did not compare university rankings. Instead where it put you once you graduated.

So for one of 'the worst universities in the country' graduation gave me exemptions to level 3.

I was most surprised that all other universities only gave you level 2 exemptions for the ACCA.

[EllieRT]

I looked at which one was best for my particular course from asking friends, looking at newspapers, online and support from my college. For example, I'm going into animation, game design, etc. I chose Teesside as it has massive links to that industry, such as the Animex Festival each year (games and animation festival). Additionally, you can get work experience with them relevant to what you want to do. I wanted to do volunteering so I could add to my CV (resume in American terms I think?) and prove that I'm a well rounded person with relevant experience and a brilliant degree. So my advice to you would be look at the universities which are most relevant to your industry, compare them against each other, by making a list of advantages and disadvantages etc. I recommend going on this site and choosing the course you would want to do, it shows what each Uni has scored in that particular subject: http://www.thecompleteuniversityguid...ables/rankings. After that, pick the ones which you think interest you and the scores, go onto their main University website and most of them have an online prospectus that you can look at. That's a starting point though, make sure you do a lot of research rather than taking everything on face value. Oh...and good luck!

[Fward]

I ordered prospectuses for every uni that did my course within a reasonable distance and went on 7 or 8 open days to see what some were like in person....barely used league tables


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

[Ordovician442]

I looked at the university websites whose course I was interested in, checked the prospectuses, saw what the courses offered and then attended their open days.

[The Polymath]

(Original post by myamane)
Hi Everyone!

I am considering studying in the UK. I currently live in the United States and am doing research on HE in the UK.

As part of my studies, I need to do some marketing research on how students choose which Uni they want to attend or how the Uni chooses them.

1st question -

How do Universities in the UK attract students? i.e. are they mailing you a prospectus, advertising on billboards or TV, coming to your schools to meet you?

How are they selling their institution to you?


Any information you could share with me would greatly help me in my studies.

Thanks!

You generally hear about universities via teachers/friends/parents etc. and then start looking them up. TSR probably plays a huge part in making people aware of unis, and then league tables often make people notice other select unis.

Unis generally don't advertise - you can request prospectuses (every uni does a new prospectus each year) but even those are becoming outdated as university websites have so much more information now. Other than that, you can go to open days to see for yourself

Most of the top universities don't really sell their unis, because, well, they don't need to. Unis spread almost exclusively by word of mouth. You get plenty of 'lesser' unis advertising (just look around this website at the adverts and you'll see examples) but that's because people never would have heard of them otherwise

[conniebee]

I found the Universities that did the course that I wanted that were not too far away to travel to, ordered their prospectus' then visited the ones that appealed to me the most. I chose the course that suited me and where I felt comfortable.

My dad came on all the open days with me and he was judging by how good their coffee was.

[StacFace]

I searched the UCAS website for my course and then used the university websites, internet searches and Google Maps to decide which open days to attend. I ended up disregarding 3 unis, including one I spent around 6 months convinced would be my firm, after visiting them on open days. I imagine you'd find it very difficult to attend as you live in the US so would strongly recommend looking at virtual tours where the uni website has them and Google Maps streetview to see the area. However in each case it was because I had forgotten to consider or hadn't found any info on something listed below, so hopefully this is everything or if there's anything else this list will prompt you to think of it. Try to imagine yourself at uni and think what it looks like, what is there etc.

- Which subject(s) do you want to do?
- If more than one do you want a major/minor combination or equal weighting?
- Are there any professional accreditations or exemptions from training courses you can get which you would want?
- Are there any particular modules or subject areas you want or don't want?
- How long do you want your degree to be? Do you mind if it's a bit longer to meet the above or shorter but involves no summer break?
- Whereabouts in the UK is it? Is there a particular region you like or do you want to be close to London, for example?
- City, town or middle of nowhere? What is the nearest city/town like? What is there nearby to do (day and night)?
- How good are the travel links both to town and to get home/have people visit?
- What are the costs of living there?
- What facilities do they have for your subject and how good are they? Is there any particular equipment or any particular books you want access to?
- Is the library good and what are its opening hours?
- What is the Students' Union like? Does it hold regular events and what sort of events does it hold? Good societies?
- Are you guaranteed a place in halls for first year? What about accommodation in second year and beyond?
- What does accommodation look like, how far is it from campus and town and how much does it cost? Is there a free bus service between halls and campus?
- Are you on one campus or spread across? If the latter how do you travel between them? Is it a separate campus or buildings spread out over a town/city?
- Do you like the appearance and layout of the campus and local area?
- Is there anything else that you would or wouldn't want, no matter how small? Eg would you mind if the seminar rooms had 'classroom' tables and chairs?
- Do you have or are you likely to get at least close to the required grades, if not meet or exceed them. They may still accept you if you're close.

[miniteen]

There aren't a million universities for Chinese. There were like 7 or 8 when I applied and since I wanted to go to SOAS since I was about 14, that's what I put down as my firm.

[jus2sik]

(Original post by myamane)
Hi Everyone!

I am considering studying in the UK. I currently live in the United States and am doing research on HE in the UK.

As part of my studies, I need to do some marketing research on how students choose which Uni they want to attend or how the Uni chooses them.

1st question -

How do Universities in the UK attract students? i.e. are they mailing you a prospectus, advertising on billboards or TV, coming to your schools to meet you?

How are they selling their institution to you?


Any information you could share with me would greatly help me in my studies.

Thanks!

mine was closest to my house

[HDBrowne]

I looked about Location and how well they perform but all my ways at look for Uni had a flaw Uni such as Aberystwyth I loved the look of it, how ever employment would of been an issue during my time there... I later saw the course content sucked

so Course content is important I also thought Do I want to be close? (Reading/Winchester are my local Uni's) Oxford/Oxford Brooks and Southampton/Portsmouth/Surrey could be local too... I didn't want that (I did put Southampton Solent down but... I was seriously wasn't looking on going there) I looked around at Uni's Leicester and York I loved but I couldn't get the grades so I looked at Westminster, I mean as a former Londoner who was whisked away to Hampshire at aged 2 I would of loved to go back to my Birth city (although Goldsmiths is actually near my old flat) I also looked at the city life.

So I did look at Bristol/Bath/UWE/Cardiff I did compare rankings I also didn't want to be stuck with loads of people that I know because Bournemouth is a popular Uni for my College for some reason (also kinda local)

I'm going to Plymouth mainly for the Course/Employment Prospects after Uni/The First year Accommodation also to get rid of my weird hatred of terraced housing.

[HDBrowne]

My College had Uni's visit but there wasn't many.

[HDBrowne]

The only posters I've seen in My town are for Solent Winchester advertise in my local paper and Reading also I think Solent did advertise on TV recently.

[Frey]

(Original post by miniteen)
There aren't a million universities for Chinese. There were like 7 or 8 when I applied and since I wanted to go to SOAS since I was about 14, that's what I put down as my firm.

I know how you feel! I only had two options for Sanskrit!

[williamrshore]

(Original post by myamane)
Hi Everyone!

I am considering studying in the UK. I currently live in the United States and am doing research on HE in the UK.

As part of my studies, I need to do some marketing research on how students choose which Uni they want to attend or how the Uni chooses them.

1st question -

How do Universities in the UK attract students? i.e. are they mailing you a prospectus, advertising on billboards or TV, coming to your schools to meet you?

How are they selling their institution to you?


Any information you could share with me would greatly help me in my studies.

Thanks!

I looked at where I could do my course (started in 2009), then looked at distances and went to open days.

I made a list of what was important to me and checked it against the universities.

The Guardian University Rankings, is a good place to look.

Since I dont like big cities I looked for something that had open space and was near enough to places and had good transport links

in 2009 my top 5 were ;

Oxford Brookes
University College Birmingham
Cheltenham and Gloucester
Leeds Met
Sheffield Hallam.

I narrowed it down to 2 UCB and Brookes, but chose brookes because I had lived in area before and it was more open and had everything I needed.

[Podcaster]

(Original post by myamane)
Hi Everyone!

I am considering studying in the UK. I currently live in the United States and am doing research on HE in the UK.

As part of my studies, I need to do some marketing research on how students choose which Uni they want to attend or how the Uni chooses them.

1st question -

How do Universities in the UK attract students? i.e. are they mailing you a prospectus, advertising on billboards or TV, coming to your schools to meet you?

How are they selling their institution to you?


Any information you could share with me would greatly help me in my studies.

Thanks!

The funny thing about it is that in the UK there is an unwritten rule that "good universities don't advertise". You will never ever see a London College/Oxbridge advert. You may see an ad from the other top 20 UK unis for a course that is new/under-subscribed but that is it. I find that in this country you have to search for the universities yourself. They do have outreach events where they visit schools but that isn't really for gaining pupils in the business sense but rather to be seen to be actively trying to include disadvantaged kids so the government won't cut their funding. Eg If King's and Oxford went to a run down inner city school to tell them about their unis and everyone there chose King's, Oxford wouldn't give a ****. Places like Oxford and King's don't need to advertise, especially Oxford. They have their "name" in the world and everyone looking at potential unis will know their name. As an analogy it's like how America doesn't exactly go around handing out immigration adverts to Mexicans. Everybody knows that America is a "big name country" that's great to live in and consequently they have no shortage of immigrants even though they don't advertise. However some people may complain that "too many poor but talented immigrants are being rejected in favour of the rich useless ones" so the government would grudgingly go to Tanzania to give talks about how if you do well at school or on the sports pitch you may get a chance of living in America. That's UK university outreach programmes in a nutshell. On the other hand you have the not so good universities who advertise like crazy all over the place. There are Middlesex, London Met, and Westminster ads all over the tube.