Universities and colleges around the world are understandably anxious about the fallout from Coronavirus. With campuses, states and countries in lockdown, and restrictions on both inbound and outbound travel, traditional modes of student engagement and recruitment, whether overseas or domestically, are being severely disrupted; and that could have a huge impact on admissions this autumn/fall and beyond.

The situation calls for an online recruitment strategy. Not only does The Access Platform (TAP) provide the keystone for such a strategy, but we’re here for our partners and very keen to support them through this crisis to minimise its impact. We’re helping them to maintain awareness and engagements with prospects and offer-holders, to reassure future students about their plans, and we are creating dedicated Coronavirus pages on their websites where regional recruitment staff can continue to communicate with prospective students whilst travel bans are in place.

Our offer

As a company we are offering new partners the opportunity to mitigate the fallout from Coronavirus by embracing online engagement during the key conversion period from April to September. Using The Access Platform they are able to overcome some of the barriers imposed by the current situation to establish and maintain contact with future students; to stay in touch with and convert offer-holders, and to reassure all prospects that they will belong on campus when they arrive.

During this crisis, in support of the sector, and in recognition that budgetary constraints are a key challenge in the present climate, we’re happy to extend our work beyond our current partners to offer all the features of our platform free-of-charge to new partners from April-June (inclusive). We want to enable new partners to benefit from the platform’s capabilities now, at a moment when it can offer the most immediate impact.

Solutions

Below are two ways that you can use our platform to continue your student recruitment work during this challenging period:

1. Taking regional recruitment staff online

RMIT have used The Access Platform to enable their international recruitment staff to find a new way of continuing to engage with prospective students online.

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2. Converting offer holders

The University of Adelaide have used The Access Platform to enhance their offer holder conversion. They found, on conducting analysis towards the end of the cycle, that 66% of Semester 1 offer holders that engaged via The Access Platform went on to accept their offer.

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3. Running Online Open Days

The University of Bolton used staff and ambassadors pages on The Access Platform to run an Online Open Day to replace their planned, in-person event. Prospective students from 14 countries exchanged 1173 messages with the university over the course of the one-day event.

Next steps

The Access Platform can be implemented quickly, via video call without in-person contact, with limited involvement from your IT team, and can be embedded on your website within minutes. On average, it takes one admin just two working days before it is fully operational, including the training of stakeholders and Student Ambassadors. We have a team of dedicated Customer Success staff on hand to support you, whenever you need it, and our cyber security and data protection protocols adhere to the highest international standards.

15+ institutions have already taken us up on our offer. If you think we can help you too then please get in touch.