Understanding the impact on students

The Student Room is listening to our students

We are actively engaging students through polls, surveys and onsite content to encourage them to share their needs and worries relating to the COVID-19 situation.

The team at The Student Room will be sharing key research findings with clients on a regular basis, so that we can all collaborate to offer students the most effective and compassionate support. The Student Room is also closely monitoring all user-generated forums, threads and posts about COVID-19 to inform these insights.

Our site continues to provide a safe and supportive environment for students.  We have seen a rapid increase in onsite activity in response to COVID-19 (compared with March 2019), particularly in our university and study help forums.

Our student audience is especially keen to understand how their exam grades, university applications and access to university or college open days will be affected by the current UK safety guidelines. Therefore, we recommend to all of our university and education clients that you communicate regularly with your applicants to reassure them and keep them fully informed on your policies as this situation develops.

For example, students want to know whether applicants who have firmed their university choices will be chosen over those who have not.

Activity on The Student Room site

Our community outreach team has launched a new forum and FAQ content in order to answer questions, provide advice and share resources with students. For example, the support team will be reaching out to help students to process the impact of the recent exam cancellations. 

We have also introduced a pop-up box in which everybody can share data to generate real-time information about the coronavirus. 

Protecting student wellbeing is of paramount importance to The Student Room. To this end, we’ve launched a central discussion thread to help students manage the new challenges this situation brings around mental health.

Community has been working closely with our volunteer team and independent university specialists, to ensure student’s questions are answered as quickly, clearly and helpfully as possible. 

We are publishing regular news and feature articles, collating the information that our student audience needs around school closures, canceled exams and university applications.

University specialists have also been providing guidance to The Student Room’s Official University Reps on the creation of COVID-19 official update threads to keep students informed. 

How The Student Room is helping the wider community

Off-site, our social media team is reaching students to analyse trends and share useful article and forum resources from TSR. We’re also keeping students updated with additional emails focused specifically on COVID-19 updates, for example, offering guidance on what the new COVID-19 policies mean for students who were due to take exams this year.

The Student Room is making every effort to update our network of teachers with information about how The Student Room can help them support their students. 

Finally, our press team is supporting the media by sharing student insights, sentiment and statistics. The world has changed very quickly for everyone and The Student Room will continue to do all it can to help in these extraordinary times.

Insights & Feedback

Our professional market research agency, TSR Insight, has exclusive access to The Student Room community for research purposes.

The experienced team at TSR Insight has worked on projects for higher education, businesses, brands and organisations, so they understand your requirements.

The team can provide the insight you need to inform your strategic decisions, using a range of services and solutions. To know more, visit the TSR Insight website.

Students are asking for more information and support around coronavirus. Here are some of the key topics:

• Students wondering if they should make their firm and insurance choices now
• Some sixth forms have banned students from making firm and insurance choices until they can speak to their teachers in a few weeks
• Students are worried universities will fill places with the applicants who firmed them first