About to become Admissions Tutor...

[PiratePanda]

This time next year I'll be taking over as Admissions Tutor of my department. I've been involved with admissions for many years, some years more closely than others, but this is the first time I'll be in charge in my current department. Not Oxbridge.

We have challenges, like less-than-top-of-the-range facilities (thanks Grade 1 buildings), but generally a good to excellent reputation for teaching and research. AAB offer. Our friendly competitors are running ahead of the pack at the moment though, largely thanks to state of the art new buildings that can accommodate newer (read more technologically driven) approaches to things, which are pretty attractive.

I'm asking for general advice on how, while I can't do anything about our facilities, I personally might improve things.

Parents of prospective undergraduates, colleagues: give me your horror stories and, hopefully, your experiences of good practice - and tell me too if, when your DC finally arrived, the hype lived up to the reality :)

I commend you Panda for getting real-life, tell-it-like-it-is feedback from MN. An open question, like your OP, is so much more useful than a tick-box questionnaire that asks "on a scale of 1-10 how wonderful are we".
Are you asking TSR too?

I think slick marketing is something that should be done at whole-institution level. So expensive videos about libraries, halls, gymnasium - that can be used for years - are fine.
At the department level, keep it human-sized. Added advantage of being more flexible too; can respond to current trends.

Yes! Ask TSR, I think you'll get some good response from there.

I love it when parents and students get separated. Much prefer to leave dd to the talks / conversation, so that I can wander round with a guide or scoff biscuits.

I also like to find tea shops & hunt down a local attraction so I have to confess that I sometimes escape at this point. One university even facilitated this with a map of local attractions and said anyone who didn't want to stay for the talks was welcome to take an hours break / meet up at an allotted time.

The real advantage of this is that the students end up making friends which increases the likelihood of them picking your university.

Exeter split the parents off and they were not invited to this subject session but huge numbers of pushy parents just wade in anyway! I only went to Exeter to provide the transport/hotel room as we went to Bristol the next day. It was a good job DD didn't want Bath. Their open day was the same day as Bristol's! Yes, we went on non open days elsewhere but obviously that is a less detailed experience. There are way more sessions on open days and swapping parents and students round was not done anywhere we visited. It seems parents want to go to everything! Presumably so their questions are answered.

By the way OP, congratulations on your job. The fact you have taken the trouble to ask about experiences of visiting and choosing universities means you will be a success!!!

The Bristol one this year was quite cleverly handled. They started in the Wills Building with students and parents, after which they led the students off to their respective departments. Absolutely no chance for pushy parents to tag along.

At that stage they laid on talks & refreshments for parents, but said they were happy for us to come and go. So I had a lovely lunch in the free museum alongside and saw the fantastic mineral collection. They were happy for me to slip in the back & re-join the guided tour.

I would agree with nomoresleep that an effective marketing strategy that understands a university's and course's USPs, the student needs they are meeting etc and communicates it effectively is very powerful. Marketing isn't about free pens and slick advertisements, they are just minor tools, it is about understanding the needs of your market, knowing how you are equipped or deciding how to equip yourself to meet those needs and communicating it effectively to potential students. We went to Birmingham, though it was not as well ranked as other universities for DD's subjects, lured by an unconditional offer to consider it as an insurance, expecting to be impressed because word of mouth (one of he most powerful marketing tools) had told us it was impressive. The nice campus, library, student union facilities were as we expected but what particularly impressed me was that the presentations on the courses (she is doing JH Humanities) had clearly been thought through to present a consistent message about the universities advantages but also to present the course in terms of it's advantages for the student, with a clear underlying strategy to design courses that are very supportive in facilitating and enabling students to gain the skills necessary to study the subject. The University's Learning Support unit were centre stage as well. Lots of joined up thinking. I gather that Birmingham have been very successful in upping the proportion firming them and I think it is down to a successful marketing strategy of which pioneering unconditional offers (and pens and little fluffy things) are just an element.

Having said that DD found the course structure at Birmingham a little patronising in that she feels that she is on her way to having those skills already. She made her choice primarily on the courses offering modules in her areas of interest and having good academics, so clear websites with information on course content, research rankings, meeting friendly academics who engaged with her in discussing her interests, really engaging sample lectures (which made me want to go and study at at least two other universities myself ) and presentations by charismatic lecturers were what made the difference in her choices which in the end was between two courses that had all those advantages but slight differences in emphasis, one perhaps more theoretical / political (one of the departments run by a famously feminist academic) and the other slightly more focused on vocational skills. She went for the latter but the real tie breaker was the city.

Buildings didn't come into it (I study at the academic world's answer to Kowloon complete with third world loos, they really don't ). She did make Birmingham her insurance, but outperformed her offers.

I can relate to the comments on STEM presentations. My other DD is a Scientist, and those Open Days were bar one devised by mad cloistered scientists. To reinforce what was written before when presenting to STEM geeks do not proudly roll out your homemade powerpoint with a strange cartoon character wondering through the undoubted beauty of your city (the one everyone just spent two hours in the queue off the motorway to drive through). Computer skills your audience mastered aged about 18. And don't offer a scholarship whilst making an offer that is as high as Cambridges, she also made Birmingham her insurance because they made her a strategic low offer. She actually chose the university that interviewed where she met the academics and really got a feel for the ethos which exactly matched her enthusiasms

DD2 is enjoying her course so far, early days but it matches her expectations. DD1 is still there doing her Masters, and set for PhD, so I think it probably matched up

Good luck in your new role. As well as a recent Masters in Humanities I have an MBA in Marketing just to contextualise my comments

Sorry the computer deleted a word, "computer skills your audience developed aged 18 months "

I would add with DD1, she chose the university that contacted her within a week of Oxbridge admissions going in to interview her and made the interview process into more of a charm offensive, over that one (the northern Hogwarts one?) who famously leave their potential students, including her, hanging on until March or April to make offers.

IME going on a non open day is a more spécific and detailed experience. 1. You get a departmental person just for you to answer your questions 2. If you do a trip around several universities over a week, it's really easy to draw comparisons because that's all you think of during that time.

Just remembered that after proudly subjecting the students to his sad powerpoint that same tutor lost his audience even further by admitting in response to a question on UCAS points that he had no control over offers, which were made by a central bureaucrat who just totted up scores based on GCSEs etc. (this was in the days when universities faced a less competitive environment, pre fees hike, relaxed quotas etc.). In all my rounds of universities I have never seen a tutor manage to alienate a room of students like that.

I also wonder whether many of the presentations and sample lectures on Open Days (and maybe we have been unlucky but those I have seen ranged from dull through mediocre through excruciating) wouldn't be more cost-effectively delivered on YouTube.

If you can't do a guesstimate of what the timetable would look like for the next yr, what about showing the one for the current year instead just as an example?

Good luck Pirate

DS has just done 4 interview/open days for his science subject. The days themselves have had a massive influence, changing his first and insurance choices completely from what he'd expected them to be after the general open days. The things that swung it for him were actually the smallest apparently insignificant triggers, but completely affected his 'feel' of the place. (All his 5 choices are pretty equivalent in terms of status and offers.)

• First choice - became his first choice because they did a very good job explaining and selling the course itself - not the city, not the uni. The applicants want to know what makes this course different from studying Xology down the road in the next city.

• Reserve choice - moved up the ranks from just a space filler 3rd/4th choice for two reasons. 1. They sent him a handwritten note on his offer letter specifically saying how impressed they were with his knowledge of something he'd discussed at interview. I don't know if they did that at to all the candidates but it chuffed ds enormously and made him feel very positive about the uni. 2. A practical activity on the interview/open day was challenging and interesting and extended A level knowledge.

Things that put him off other unis - a generic talk and demonstration about the subject aimed at too low a level (think studying Biology and asking if anyone had heard of photosynthesis and what a long word it is).

• an interview where the interviewer clearly was from a different subject area and hadn't heard of things ds discussed in his statement.

It pissed DS off no end that several of the unis do the same ' Why study Xology' talk as they do on the general open days. The applicants hopefully already know why they should study Xology, having applied to read it at uni. Likewise, don't tell us too much about why ds would like to live in your city (including weather maps) . Again, he's already looked into the music scene that.

Finally, as I write ds has just received a handwritten postcard from the student ambassador he chatted to on his most recent open day wishing him luck in his exams. Lovely touch, but I'm afraid it wont make any difference to his slightly negative thoughts on that uni, nor will the travel bursary, nor will the nice lunch!

Blimey! Is this thread being watched? My dd just had a direct message from one of her universities on tsr with links to facebook page & other helpful information.

Watched?! Not by me - but I'll definitely be joining TSR now, thank you for the advice everyone.

For a minute there I thought you had been super quick off the mark! Good luck with your new job.

Universities that trot out the "you too can afford to go to university" mantra without at least acknowledging that for the majority you need to add the magic words "but only because bank of mum and dad are prepared to pay all your living costs for three years aside (if you are lucky) from your accommodation..."

My DD decided her current course was her only choice based on Open Day and if she didn't get in she would reapply another year. This is a common theme and the quality of student ability on the course is rising phenomenally (its creative so we get to see outcomes at exhibitions and historic work online).

The tutors/lecturers were absolutely passionate for their subject and well versed on the industry (it is a commercial course). They absolutely sold it.

Then on looking around we met current students. Being cynical we guessed they had been hand picked but, in reality, that's not the case (which we know as DD is there now). Also, at interview, a large group of current students were there to make them feel at ease and to ask questions that they might not want to ask the staff.

So, despite some disadvantages (which whilst not going into great detail about, they didn't try and hide either) this course is A* when it comes to admissions in my view.