Questions from the May event

This update was shared in the Friday 24 May Staff Briefing.

Marketing, Recruitment and Admissions

What is the proportion of Imperial UK applicants?

Proportions of all UK domiciled applicants:

• London: 47.76%
• South East: 18.36%
• East of England: 6.17%
• North West: 6.12%
• South West: 5.02%
• Other UK regions (Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland): under 5%

Many factors impact an applicant’s decision. The cost of living in London and the distance from home are regularly cited as factors against applying to a London-based University.

The Imperial Bursary, combined with the student loan, aims to address the cost pressures of studying in London.

More work is planned to highlight the benefits of studying in London, targeting regions with lower numbers of applicants. An example given of this in the presentation was the concept of ‘Imperial on Tour’.

London location for Maths School

We considered it important that the pupils at Imperial College London Mathematics School were close enough to our London campuses to benefit from regular interactions with our staff, students and facilities. The partnership between Imperial and the Maths School is vitally important for the super-curriculum (those activities/resources which are designed to help students expand their subject knowledge beyond what is taught in the classroom), as exemplified by the recent Research project finale which was hosted at the South Kensington Campus.

Student accommodation offer?

Imperial offers a guarantee to first year undergraduates that a space in a hall of residence will be offered. 

Availability and cost of student accommodation has been highlighted as part of our Widening Participation activity.

Imperial’s key markets?

The Marketing, Recruitment and Admissions team engages with all markets in Tiers 1,2 and 3 (for information on the Tiers, contact the Marketing, Admissions and Recruitment team). 

Tiers are decided on a number of factors including: interest in STEMB, student mobility, price sensitivity, growth potential, qualifications, competitive landscape, and engagement opportunities. 

Each market is weighted by study level and nuanced at departmental level.

Importantly tiers are based on current internal and external conditions. For example, enhanced scholarship provision will present opportunities in more price sensitive markets. Tiers are reviewed annually with the latest data. 

What’s our diversification strategy?

Our diversification strategy for pre-enrolment was funded from August 2022, and the strategy is likely to show true impact in 5-10 years. However, we are seeing a good direction of travel within the first year of data and our 2024 ‘figures (i.e. students who have selected Imperial as their firm choice) are looking positive so far. For example, for our Tier 1 markets, our ‘firm’ or conversion rates are up +29% (undergraduate) and 16% (postgraduate). Our full end-of-year report has more detail on this (staff access only): MRA annual report 2022-23 (pdf)

UG offer holder days?

Many universities hold days for potential new undergraduates who have received an offer to join the course to visit in-person. A number of departments arrange these types of events and the feedback is positive.

Marketing, Recruitment and Admissions supported the Department of Civil Engineering with a pilot offer holder day in the last month with great success, and we are looking into how we could support a number of Imperial-wide offer holder days in 2025. 

Marketing material to promote courses?

The content we use to promote our courses is paramount to recruiting the most appropriate applicants, and so feedback is always welcome. The team reach out to departments when updating or creating copy for courses. If you notice anything that’s not quite right, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team, either via your Faculty Marketing Manager or by the ASK system.  https://servicemgt.imperial.ac.uk/ask Once you’ve logged in, click ‘contact us’, select ‘Marketing’ and then ‘Study website’.  

What are our Student numbers?

Data regarding those who are currently enrolled on programmes and when they are predicted to finish can be found on the Registry reports (link to registry PowerBI reporting)

We are finalising our student number plans in line with the planning round currently. You can speak to your department or faculty team to see the projected numbers for your area. Institutional growth ambitions will be circulated once confirmed.  

How do we deal with workload associated with increased applications?

The planned growth in student numbers over the next few years will impact a range of services at Imperial that support education and the student experience. 

The leadership teams of these services are involved in planning for this growth and highlighting where increased resources may be needed.

Imperial 360

Imperial 360 plays a critical role in supporting our community during the Confirmation period. Given this a confirmation dry run has been taking place between March and the end of May.

Spread across three phases the purpose of the dry run has been to:

• Ensure all staff are confident with the confirmation process and how this will run in Imperial 360;
• Prepare and enable key users of Imperial 360 to deliver their role in the confirmation process and to identify any potential challenges in advance;
• Thoroughly test the technology infrastructure to ensure it is ready to receive the volume of results and transactions expected at confirmation;
• Confirm embargo readiness across all impacted systems;
• Identify any changes and feedback so these can be enacted in good time, ahead of August.

As we near the end of the dry run we have been able to test the above points and ensure readiness. Once the dry run completes on the 31^st May a summary of activity will be shared on the Imperial 360 website to help provide further information on the readiness for August.

Work has begun on the student part of Imperial 360, focusing on two areas; supporting students with disabilities and managing mitigating circumstances. Alongside this activity is underway within the Alumni/Advancement stage of the lifecycle. Graduation is included in this stage.

We know that the introduction of Imperial 360 has caused some challenges during this admissions cycle, although we are outperforming the sector in terms of applications received. We are monitoring the situation through the rest of the cycle very closely and have a particular focus on conversion activity. 

ICT  focuses on our users’ experience as the first step when developing or updating digital products and services. Prioritisation of digital activities and investment is aligned with the Enabling Roadmap and with the teaching and learning strategy to ensure delivery is based on the outcomes Imperial is seeking to deliver.

As with all software development there will always be a number of bugs being raised and being worked on. These range from significant bugs impacting functionality through to minor bugs that align more to preferences for how to display functionality.   

We appreciate there were a number of bugs with the launch of Imperial 360 for the admissions element of pre-enrolment. The focus of the Imperial 360 team has been to remove and reduce the number of significant bugs as a priority.  

With the retrospective conducted in March 2024 that reviewed the learnings from launching Imperial 360for pre-enrolment. A number of areas have been identified to improve. The improvements are targeted at ensuring future releases of Imperial 360 are delivered with minimal impact to teams. 

Second choice MSc applications documents 

For documents - for any second choices going forward these are fixed.  There is a washup activity to fix any of the second choices that were generated pre the fix going in, however, this fix needs to be prioritised so an exact date will be shared with the user base shortly.   

How to hear more from MRA

There are regular MRA townhall meetings where we dive into these topics in more detail, the next event is likely to take place in June. You can also sign up to the MRA newsletter by emailing m.kemeny-ruff@imperial.ac.uk

 

Student experience

Investing in student experience

Imperial has one of the best student-led extra-curricular provisions of any university in the world. We believe Imperial has an underpinning inclusive, and community-minded spirit, and it is OK to have fun alongside studying. 

The Imperial experience project aims to enhance the experience outside of the learning and research environment. The project has received £750k funding over 5 years, and is intended to act as a springboard for seeking additional funding – indeed one of the KPIs for the work is to secure another £2.25M in funding from other sources.

Impact of commute times on students

We do not currently have a complete understanding of this, but as part of the Learning and Teaching Strategy and Imperial Experience work, we are investing in the analytics capabilities to be able to understand this and similar questions.

Support for WP students

Money is not the only factor and we are conscious that all our students need access to a range of services and support in order to flourish in their degree programmes.

In the session we highlighted seven proposed ideas that will be included within our Access and Participation Plan which will provide enhanced support to this group of students. The plan is in the final stages of preparation and when it has been approved by the OfS we will share with the community, alongside information about how will anticipate moving forward with the ideas.

Late end of summer term date

There are no plans to change the date of the end of the summer term. 

Widening participation

Minimum entry requirements

Minimum entry requirements are an academic decision and set by Admissions Tutors.  Admissions Tutors have detailed knowledge of curriculum content of both our degrees and the school qualifications which form our offers.  MRA support Admissions Tutors with expert guidance and relevant data. 

Contextual admissions for PGT students

A working group has met several times to look at opportunities around widening participation for postgraduate students (both taught and research). This work is at an early stage and a dedicated member of staff will be in place for the 2024/25 academic year to develop the ideas further.

Global applicants

Our ambition is to diversify our international student intakes, and element of this work is to reach nationalities and communities of students who have yet to apply to Imperial in significant numbers. 

Widening participation system data

Our admissions system uses data which is provided to us from UCAS at the point at which we receive an applicant’s application for course(s) at Imperial. Ethnicity data is not provided to us by UCAS at this point in the process so we cannot use this in the widening participation determination. 

UG admissions tests fees

UAT-UK fees are in line with other test providers such as the UCAT and LNAT.  The next few years will be extremely important in gathering data to understand any trends and mitigating steps we can take. 

KS4 performance

School performance, and an individual’s KS4 performance, is considered within the eligibility criteria for many of our outreach programmes, such as STEM Potential, and summer schools.  

Using endowment capital to fund WP

A range of scholarships and bursaries are already supported by the endowment, and Imperial has ambitions to increase these. See the scholarship search tool. 

Recruiting students of Black Heritage

Our promotion and advertising activity for scholarships is targeted to attract the brightest and best candidates, from the communities that are likely to benefit the most. We also run a targeted outreach programme for students of Black heritage, a collaborative mentoring programme for prospective students of Black Heritage, and we engage with community organisations and schools to target opportunities appropriately. 

Presidential Scholarship for Students of Black Heritage

Find out more about the Presidential Scholarship for Students of Black Heritage. 

 

Professional Services workspaces  

Risk register

The programme has a risk register. Risks identified include: strategic, people, financial, and operational risks. This will be updated regularly and presented to the Operations and Infrastructure Committee and the University Management Board as part of the programme status reports.

Advisory Group

We have asked teams to identify an individual who can represent the whole team. In addition, there will be one representative from each university representation network group – Able, Imperial 600, Imperial as One. There will also be two nominees representing the Joint Trade Unions.

The Advisory Group is just one forum by which we will engage with colleagues. We have in place a range of channels for hearing your feedback, including:

• Reports to University Management Board and Operations and Infrastructure Committee
• Discussions at Heads of Departments monthly meetings
• Union and representation network discussions
• All staff meetings, newsletters and emails, including the regular Professional Services Discussion event
• Dedicated workshops on service design and specific requirements will be planned.

Professional Services discussions format

Many thanks to the hundreds of staff members who join the Professional Services discussion events in person each month, and who are able to make the most of the networking sessions.

For colleagues who are unable to join, a recording of the session is published on the webpages after the session. We receive many questions at each event. We aim to publish and answer as many questions as we can during the session. We take care to ensure the questions presented are balanced, reflective of everything that has been put forward during the session and of course in line with our values. Questions that are not answered in the session are answered in a future Staff Briefing and published online. Questions are grouped into themes rather than responded to individually. Every submitted question will be read. If there is something specific it would be useful to hear more on, please email internal-communications1@imperial.ac.uk.