A Clear(ing) Picture of the 2019 Cycle
By Liz Robinson, Projects and Market Insight Manager
In 2019, over 70,000 applicants used Clearing to secure their place at a HE provider, that’s over 13% of all students accepted (a new record), and the number of Clearing applicants was up by nearly 10% on last year (also a record high). Alongside this, self-release was introduced, the changing demographic profile of 18 year-olds continued to evolve, and unconditional offer making reached a record high, with 1 in 4 applicants receiving an unconditional offer.
In order to ensure that Keele programmes succeed in an increasingly evolving environment we need to understand our applicants more than ever before. This post discusses some of the key highlights from the 2019 UCAS cycle.
‘Clearing’ the way for a new type of applicant
Direct to Clearing is becoming an increasingly popular route for students, with nearly 20,000 students applying for the first time, directly into Clearing in 2019. This is more than double the figure for 2011 and a 12% increase on last year alone.
UCAS also gave students even more control of their application in 2019 by introducing an online service known as ‘self-release’ which provides the ability for placed students to release themselves into Clearing, without any form of human interaction. More than 28,000 applicants with a confirmed place used the new online self-release service, of which 73% were accepted onto a course they hadn’t applied for previously.
It is evident that attitudes towards Clearing are changing; applicants have more control, they are making decisions later and later in the cycle, and are using new processes to apply for programmes that they hadn’t applied for earlier in the cycle. How does this influence university marketing activities? Does the 15th January deadline still mean anything? How can we ensure that we nurture our offer holders so that they don’t look elsewhere?
Brand matters
According to UCAS, 35% of Clearing students contacted the university that they wanted to attend within 30 minutes of receiving their results, and 24% did so within 30 minutes to an hour. It’s therefore evident that for students utilising Clearing, the decision on where to go is a quick one. As a result, universities need to ensure that they’re a known brand to avoid being overlooked in such a rapid marketplace.
Keele can’t rely on the fact that we are based in a major city for brand awareness so we must think of other ways to improve our profile with both prospective students and key influencers to ensure that we aren’t overlooked.
Changing the subject
2019 also saw some changes to subject demand.
A record high number of people were accepted onto nursing courses in the UK in 2019. The number of applicants has risen by 7%, to over 54,000, ending a decline that began in 2017. ‘Medicine and dentistry’ acceptances also increased to reach a record 11,360 (+11%). This comes as more medical places were made available in England.
‘Business and Admin Studies’ was also a winner in the 2019 cycle, achieving its seventh consecutive year of increase, with acceptances up by 3%.
In contrast, Mathematical Sciences saw the lowest number of accepted applicants since 2012, and a fall of 10% compared to last year. This could be attributed to the launch of the new maths A Level, which saw nearly 6,000 fewer students taking the subject in the summer of 2019.
Mass Communications also struggled in 2019, achieving the lowest number of acceptances since 2013, and a decline of 8% compared to last year. It is likely that a key catalyst for this is the recently released LEO data, which showed that it is a HE subject with one of the lowest median salaries (five years after graduation). Media/Film/ TV Studies is also one of the A level subject areas that has seen a significant decline in entries in the past 3 years, with a decrease of 19% (Ofqual A Level Entries Report).
