The Access, Participation and Outreach team leads on the development, evaluation and monitoring of our institutional Access and Participation strategy and in addition has operational responsibility for improving access to higher education and delivering outreach.
We focus on key areas which include:
- Access and participation governance and planning, including the coordination and support of our Success for All programme which works towards building a diverse and inclusive educational environment.
- Work in our WP and fair access schemes including our University of Exeter Scholars programme as well as educational partnerships with Next Steps South West, Realising Opportunities and Pathways to Law.
- Building partnerships with schools and colleges across the UK to provide guidance and advice to prospective students to make informed decisions about their future educational pathways.
- Working with partners within our region including schools and FE colleges to support learner attainment and support social mobility within the South West.
- Delivery of summer schools and residentials, providing life changing experiences for students from Year 10 upwards, supporting both widening participation objectives and our internationalisation strategy.
The Admissions team review and process around 80,000 applications each year from prospective students’ applying to the University, whilst providing advice, guidance, and management information throughout the admissions cycle.
Our team is split by different levels of study – Undergraduate, Postgraduate Taught (including Online Programme applications), Postgraduate Research and PGCE – in order to provide dedicated specialist knowledge and support to students as well as other departments across the University including EEG and Faculties.
In addition we have staff who are responsible for Systems and Communications, Admissions Policies, DBS checks and Scholarships. We also have an admissions data team who, amongst many other things, focus on insights into admissions trends and student number forecasting across each recruitment cycle.
The Student Recruitment Operations team supports student recruitment events, enquiries and customer experience across all cohorts, markets and Faculties to support the University’s recruitment strategies.
We are responsible for providing nurturing experiences at key touchpoints in prospective students’ recruitment journeys; whether that is through creation, delivery and evaluation of over 200 in-person and virtual events or managing thousands of individual enquiries and requests for information and advice, across multiple enquiry channels.
We also recruit, train and utilise an exceptional team of enthusiastic Student Ambassadors to support student recruitment activity across the University.
The prospective student experience is at the front and centre of our work. We are therefore undertaking a range of exciting projects to develop this further, including research into which students are most likely to engage with us and which types of activity are most likely to encourage them to convert.
International Student Recruitment
The International Student Recruitment team offers strategic and tactical expertise to support institutional and faculty growth in on-campus international student community addressing quantity, quality and diversity across nationalities, subjects, and levels.
Enriching international student community at Exeter drives revenue generation, internationalisation on campus, teaching and learning enrichment, graduate outcomes, global alumni network, as well as our global impact in research and education through talent development.
Our portfolio contains:
- Global student recruitment with regional focus in East Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, Middle East & North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Europe and UK-based international markets, through overseas and virtual outreach.
- Regional-based acquisition and conversion, including region-based enquiry management for pre-applicants, offer holder/client engagement online/in-country, and INTO Exeter progression portfolio.
- Managing oversea offices in China, India and Malaysia as well as various international focused university official social media channels.
- The operational delivery in international scholarships and sponsorship that are overseen as part of the pricing group. Support international admissions and application processing with decisions on referrals.
- Providing market expertise to various internal stakeholders in the form of international qualification equivalencies, programmes of interest, current and future market trends.
The Market Research team acts as a consultancy for the University, with expertise in both qualitative and quantitative methods across a broad and varied remit.
They provide market insight and intelligence to inform business decision making across the University.
Their work includes evaluating prospectus designs; analysing data from staff, student (new and existing), or decliners surveys; running focus groups and conducting secondary research (using HESA data etc.); and co-ordinating projects with external research agencies in instances where there’s a need, such as a specialist target audience, or when fieldwork is conducted internationally.
