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Success of virtual open weeks for prospective UG and PG students

23 Jul 2020

Staff across the University have been working together to deliver online events to support student recruitment for September 2020 and 2021

Campus

As prospective students across the world make decisions about where and whether to take up their studies this year, staff across the institution involved in student recruitment, admissions and marketing have worked together to deliver a series of online events to support students to make a decision about study at Manchester.

For a week from 15 – 19 June, a UG virtual open week replaced the usual on-campus open days, with the target audience for this event being 2021 entrants. 160 live sessions were delivered, which included subject-level information as well as sessions on accommodation, careers, sport etc, and a number of sessions for international applicants.

  • 8,868 unique students registered
  • 6,072 unique students attended sessions (68% attendance rate)
  • 17,684 unique sessions were attended (2.9 sessions attended on average)
  • 89% were from the UK, with the remainder from overseas

This was followed two weeks later by a PGT virtual open week. This offered a total of 104 sessions, including general sessions focussing on topics such as employability, our blended teaching and learning offer for next year, and employability. 84 subject-specific sessions also took place, as well as targeted sessions for prospective students from certain countries featuring alumni and current students.

  • 1,097 unique attendances over the course of the week
  • In offering the event online, we were able to engage with more prospective students; 857 students attended the most recent on-campus open day in November 2019
  • 35% of attendees (698) were from the UK, with the remainder from overseas
  • 3,472 people unique sessions were attended (3.2 sessions attended on average)

In line with social distancing regulations, open days in the autumn will again be held virtually. The UG virtual open day will be held on Saturday, 3 October and a combined PGT / PGR virtual open week will be held from 2 – 6 November.

For further information, please contact: