With 39% of A- level students feeling like they don’t know enough about the clearing process, the demand for support and advice around this time of year is high. This led us to raise the bar, with a target of 30,000 registrants for clearing information by results day 2017. With over six weeks still to go and despite starting late in the cycle, we’ve already seen more than 35,000 student registrations, going above and beyond our target.
We’ve particularly noticed a phenomenal increase in students registering for individual subjects, for example, Maths is up 168% for clearing and 160% for adjustment based on the market last year.
Collecting this useful data allows us to work closely with our clients to strategically target students with relevant brand messaging, contributing to a successful campaign. This is great news for your institution and its marketing team but what does it say about the industry and student confidence?
STUDENT CONFIDENCE
Are students feeling less assured about achieving the required grades for their firm and insurance university choices?
Students took to TSR in their thousands to express their confidence or concern about how their exams went. One forum thread about this year’s C1 Maths exam collected poll results from 920 students’, revealing nearly two thirds of them felt the exam went just “okay”. One TSR user commented:
“That paper was OKAY, I have a feeling there were some questions I messed up on!”
Other students on TSR expressed feelings of desperation to pass their exams as well as some already feeling defeated. This is why more and more students (over 7 million monthly users), are relying on TSR to help them research options and gain support around this time to year.
WILLINGNESS TO SWITCH
Student confidence is certainly being considered here, but could it be that more students are just keeping their options open? With students behaving more like consumers and shopping around for the best deal, the willingness to switch is high.
We’ve noticed a similar number of students registering for adjustment as well as clearing information within each subject on TSR. This indicates perhaps there’s more of a balance between students who are positive in their abilities to achieve their grades as those who are lacking in confidence.
However, 25% of applicants placed through clearing last year (2016) missed their results by three or more grades, proving the lack of attaining grade requirements will still contribute to a large amount of this year’s clearing traffic.
DATA SEGMENTATION
This data capture information isn’t evidence, but an indicator into student behaviour and feelings. We’ve been on an important journey with savvy technology which allows us to identify our audience individually and tailor our messages accurately.
So, it could simply be that we’re being smarter with our data and putting the right messages in front of the right people, at the right time.
BE PREPARED
There are less than seven weeks to go until A-Level results day and the start of clearing, leaving you plenty of time to appeal to even more students, and get your brand to the top of their university options.
Want to find out more? Discover how we segment and optimise our audience for maximum results.