Campus Tours: Where, When and Why?

With the 2014 Applicant Day cycle now over (*collective sigh of relief*), I thought it would be a good time to mention our campus tour provision at the Chester and Warrington campuses.

Applicant Days – done!

The Applicant Days have seen upwards of 2,500 applicants - plus associated parents / siblings / friends / partners / babies - pass through our doors over the last few months.  An increase of around 10% on last year’s Applicant Day attendance, this is a great outcome for making our offer more tangible to those applicants who visit us.  We know that conversion rates are significantly higher for people who have attended Applicant Days, and research shows that, however much applicants research into their chosen courses and institutions, the final choice ultimately comes down to whether or not a university ‘feels right’.

Getting a feel for the place 

Providing opportunities to visit the University is therefore a really important part of recruiting students, and booking onto Open Days and Applicant Days is a key call to action in much of our communications with applicants throughout the recruitment cycle.

Despite encouraging attendance at recruitment events, there will always be people who have missed or not been able to attend Open Days and Applicant Days, as well as those who apply late, or are simply slightly disorganised...

Guided Campus Tours

For these applicants, we offer campus tours of the Chester and Warrington campuses.  These are led by Marketing staff, offering a tour of the main facilities at each campus and an overview of services offered to students, lasting around one hour max.

The tours take place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons (2.30pm on Mon and Wed and 2pm on Fri) and applicants can book their place online.  At the time of booking, we advise that a departmental visit is not part of the tour, and visitors would need to contact departments directly if they wish to make an information or meeting request.  If departments are able to accommodate this, it is obviously of great benefit to the applicant’s understanding and impression of the programme they have applied for.

We hope that the structured days and times of campus tours will allow departments to know when to expect meeting requests, which we may see increasing slightly now the Applicant Days are over.

If anyone has any questions, please get in touch with me or a member of the team.

Anna