2021: A year for the underdog Universities

An opportunity for lower ranked Universities

Student Admissions in 2021

Deferrals didn’t rise as expected in September 2020. With Coronavirus lockdowns seemingly around the corner and worries over the state of the economy, many experts were expecting student numbers to drop this year.It didn’t happen. In fact, 2020 saw record student numbers across the UK. 

Perhaps one of the biggest factors affecting this were restrictions on travel. Many students who may have been planning to take a gap year were afraid of missing out on travel opportunities, and therefore plumped for the safe option – head to Uni.

So what does this mean for Universities in 2021? Can they expect another record-breaking year of admissions? 

2021 the year of lower ranked Universities

While deferrals were down on average in 2020, that wasn’t the case across the board.

Universities with the highest entry requirements actually deferred a higher number of students to 2021, not through choice, but through necessity. Too many students got into their first choice when the Government u-turned on A-level predicted grades, meaning some students had to be given a place in 2021.

This means that, come next year, top-level Uni spots will be harder than ever to come by, and this could play into the hands of some of the Universities further down the ladder.

With more students being forced to look further down the league tables as competition for the top places increases, this could present an opportunity for some Unis that perhaps weren’t a first choice for many students before.

How are these universities set to benefit?

This new pool of student won’t be easy to convince. However, with the right marketing strategy in place,  lower-ranked universities could see their places fill up quickly.

What everyone should be doing is taking stock of their data and using that to personalise their communications and the ways they’re reaching out.

The way to do so is by focusing your efforts on the students with more potential to enrol in your education centre. Segmenting the prospective students by success profile (likelihood to enrol) instead of by customer profile. 

This segmentation is done with predictive lead scoring tools like Lead Ratings.

Having assessed the UK education market, we have come up with these number one priority for 2021. A lead scoring model creates an efficient enrolment process that churns out consistent results in these times of change.

Predictive lead scoring has allowed a reduction of costs by 20%.