Dear colleagues,
I’m writing to give you an update on student recruitment, following confirmation (the process by which we admit undergraduate students who have applied directly to us during the year) and clearing last week.
As usual, confirmation and clearing ran extremely smoothly. Our excellent admissions team processed all our applications in record time when we received the grades of those students who had applied, and made Queen Mary their firm choice, through the year. On A-level results day (last Thursday), over 200 staff and students had kindly volunteered to help answer the phones to take applications from new students through clearing and adjustment. There was also a significant operation running in Schools and Institutes to call back potential applicants and help them with the process of deciding whether to apply and/or accepting their offer. This is really important as 49% of our home undergraduate students are first in their family to attend university, and all students can struggle with the complexity of the process.
On Thursday, we received 8,345 phone calls from students hoping to come to Queen Mary and 1,314 online applications. We run a very efficient clearing operation: 94% of incoming calls were answered, and 1,310 of the 1,314 online applications were processed. I’m extremely grateful to everyone who was helping out with clearing; it is a very important period for us, and for our applicants for whom choosing a university in the heat and emotion of clearing is a huge decision.
We went into clearing with 1,922 vacancies, and at time of writing we only have 364 places left. We have been working hard over the last few years to increase the number of students who apply to us directly throughout the year, and make Queen Mary their first choice, so that we do not need to rely so heavily on clearing. We have also been working to increase the proportion of overseas students we admit, to ensure we offer a truly diverse and global educational environment for all our students. Attracting students to our University is driven by our reputation relating to our teaching and research quality, and our engagement with prospective students during open days, offer days, and through our outreach programmes. Although we have come a long way, with student applications increasing by 63% since 2017, there is still work to do and it looks like we will not make our targets in some subject areas, but we are in a much stronger position than we were a few years ago. As you know, we are pleased to welcome associate students who join us for a year or a semester from a growing number of partner universities across the world. These students are also excellent additions to our undergraduate classrooms and it looks like, across the year, we will have more associates joining us than ever before.
Students are still applying to our PGT programmes. It looks as though we will increase PGT student numbers compared with last year, but it is unlikely we will meet our targets in all areas. In those areas where we cannot meet targets we will be working with Faculties, Schools and Institutes to see how the financial shortfall can be managed within these areas.
Overall, in relation to student recruitment we are in a strong position and I know everyone has worked incredibly hard to reach this point, not just during confirmation and clearing, but throughout the year which is so important in attracting students to our University. This sits alongside the very positive news about research income that Professor Andrew Livingston, Vice-Principal (Research and Innovation) described in the staff bulletin. You will also have seen the update from Professor Stephanie Marshall, Vice-Principal (Education) about the National Student Survey (NSS) results, which is used externally as a measure of teaching quality, alongside a measure of continuation and completion of students on various degree programmes and employability. Whilst the NSS shows we have a lot of work still to do to improve our position in the sector and ensure we offer all students the experience they expect and deserve, we can see some progress in many areas across the University.
Thank you to everyone for your continued hard work. I will write again when there is a further update to share.
Best wishes,
Colin
Professor Colin Bailey, CBE, FREng, BEng, PhD, CEng, FICE, FIStructE, MIFireEPresident and Principal | Queen Mary University of London | Mile End Road | London | E1 4NS