College of Humanities and Social Science
Recruitment and Admissions Strategy Committee
Wednesday 6 February 2013, 11.30 to 13.30, Room G1, 55 G Square
Draft Minutes
Present
Suzanne Ewing (CHSS Associate Dean, Admissions Strategy) – Convener
Dr Paul Foster – Divinity
Dr Richard Freeman – Social and Political Science
Alan Murray - Edinburgh College of Art (attending in place of Stuart Bennett)
Donald George – Economics
Dr Neill Martin - Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Dr Alex Weiss - Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
John Cavani – Communications and Marketing
Sarah Colegrove – Communications and Marketing
Rebecca Gaukroger – Student Recruitment and Admissions
Robbie Willis – International Office
Janet Rennie – CHSS Director of Academic and Student Administration
Rick Kiralfy - Head of CHSS Postgraduate Office
Amanda Lund (CHSS Undergraduate Admissions Officer, in place of Cameron
Murdoch)
Anna Conroy (CHSS Academic Support Officer)
Cindy Stubbs (CHSS Deputy Head of Academic Affairs)
Tom Ward (CHSS Head of Student Experience) – Secretary to the Committee
Apologies
Stuart Bennett - Edinburgh College of Art
Sandra Eden – Law
Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones - History, Classics and Archaeology
Mike Lynch - Education
Cameron Murdoch – CHSS Head of Undergraduate Admissions Office
Dr Sarah Cooper / Dr Susan Dunnett – Business School
Dr Graeme Smith – Health in Social Science
FORMAL BUSINESS
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Minute of meeting 3 December 2012
Approved subject to correction of minor typo on p3.
UPDATES ON RECRUITMENT AND ADMISSIONS MATTERS
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Update on recruitment and admissions matters
The Committee noted Paper 12.
Amanda Lund summarised the current position regarding applications and offers for
undergraduate programmes, noting that the College’s applications have increased by
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about 10% on the previous year (compared to a 3.5% increase for the sector as a
whole), with all Schools having increased their numbers of applications.
Rick Kiralfy updated the Committee regarding the PGT Sustainability Review, noting
that he will be presenting a paper to the College Postgraduate Studies Committee’s
next meeting on 20 February 2013.
Tom Ward noted that in the near future Student Recruitment and Admissions (SRA)
will be writing to teachers to inform them of the removal of the College’s standard
entry requirement for a language other than English. He encouraged School
representatives to circulate the briefing document (attached as an Annex to Paper 12)
to their colleagues, so that they are aware of the changes.
UNDERSTANDING PROCESSES AND PRACTICES
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Visiting Student Recruitment in CHSS (Alex Baker, Head of Visiting
Student Office, CHSS)
Alex Baker provided the Committee with an overview of patterns of Visiting Student
recruitment to the College, and of the Office’s recruitment and student support roles,
and its role in supporting out-going students. Alex circulated a paper summarising
these arrangements. She highlighted the following:

The number of UG VS in the College has increased considerably in recent years;

In general, the trend in demand from incoming VS is moving towards shorter
periods of study (eg single semester rather than full-year);

The VSO is happy to work with Schools that would like to increase their VS
numbers (simple actions such as creating more attractive course titles can make a
big difference);

The US remains the College’s largest VS market, though there is increased
interest from China, South Korea and Japan;

There is increased interest in PGT VS.
Committee members asked the following questions:

Do many UG Visiting Students return to the University as PG students? Alex
advised that this does happen, but that it is difficult to quantify. Returning VS are
entitled to an alumni discount.

How does the Personal Tutor system apply to VS? Alex indicated that the VSO
arranges for all VS to have a PT, and that the VSO acts as the student support
team.
The Committee thanked Alex for a very helpful presentation.
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FORMAL AND STRATEGIC MATTERS
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Postgraduate taught student recruitment
Rick Kiralfy introduced this discussion by delivering a Powerpoint presentation
regarding patterns of applications, offers and entrants to the College’s PGT
programmes. The Committee thanked Rick for his presentation and made the
following comments:

Given that a high proportion of applications do not result in an accepted offer or
entrant, it would be helpful to minimise the staff time involved in considering
weak applications. Options include:
o Introducing an application fee (SPS introduced this in the current cycle,
but is not yet in a position to evaluate the impact);
o Helping prospective applicants to make a realistic assessment of their
likelihood of receiving an offer (SRA has tried self-assessment approaches
before, but found it very difficult at PGT level due to the wide range of
different entry qualifications);
o Filtering out applications that do not meet minimum requirements.

The PGO / Schools should do more to nurture offer-holders to encourage them to
accept their offers.

Schools / PGO could focus more resources on engaging with strong applicants
who declined our offers, given that the decliners’ survey suggests that a
significant minority of decliners regret not studying at the University.

Historically, PGT recruitment has been in some respects counter-cyclical (in that
demand increases during economic down-turns). However, this pattern appears to
be beginning to change, possibly due to the unusual nature and length of the
current economic down-turn, and to the levels of debt that the current generation
of undergraduate students have accumulated.

It may be appropriate to consider whether it is necessary to ask applicants for two
references. In many cases, references add little or no evidence to that already
provided in transcripts. Compared to many Universities, Edinburgh is unusual in
asking for two references.
The following Schools then provided overviews of their PGT recruitment and
conversion activities:

Literatures, Languages and Cultures
o Taking account of changes in the market (eg Victorian literature is
currently very popular);
o Various activities to build the community of offer-holders and entrants, for
example active use of Facebook for incoming students;
o Online recruitment chatrooms (more effective for offer-holders than
applicants);
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o Taking steps to enhance the School’s website

Edinburgh College of Art
o Consolidating quality at PGT level rather than significant expansion;
o Launching a new website in August 2013 (this will be very different from
a lot of the University’s websites, in taking a bottom-up approach to
academic content).

Divinity
o Staff invest a lot of time in direct contact with prospective students (eg
attending recruitment events, communicating via email or Skype);
o Scholarship funds are not generating as much income as they had in the
past.

Economics – summarised the points covered in the Annex to Paper 13

Social and Political Science - summarised the points covered in the Annex to
Paper 13
The Committee also noted the summaries of Law and HCA’s PGT recruitment
activities set out in Paper 13.
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Undergraduate conversion activities
 Conversion communications plan
 Guidance for Schools on Post Offer Visit Days
Amanda Lund introduced the conversion communications plan set out in Paper 14.
She emphasised that, while the volume of UG applications for CHSS programmes is
higher in 2013 than in 2012, the College cannot assume that this will automatically
convert into the right number of entrants. It therefore remains important for the
College / Schools to undertake conversion activities. The Committee welcomed the
conversion plan and made the following comments:

Student Recruitment and Admissions is undertaking work on coordinating
University-level communications to applicants and offer-holders. This would
complement the conversion plan that the College and CAM have created.

Communications and marketing work is one part of the roles of many staff in
Schools. Some Schools are developing management structures to help them to
coordinate conversion and recruitment work that many staff are contributing to.
For example, in one School the Head of School convenes a group.

Offer-holders value communications from the subject area. However, there needs
to be some flexibility regarding how Schools approach this, since in some areas
the communication could include ‘School-level’ messages (for example, in ECA),
whereas in other areas it should focus on the programme or subject-level.

College / Schools / CAM face similar issues in converting offers into entrants at
PG level. However, while the UG admissions cycle has clear phases defined by
specific dates and gathered fields, this is not the case at PG level.
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The Committee was content with the draft guidance for subject areas regarding Post
Offer Visit Days, though it noted that the POVs were being coordinated by Anna
‘Conroy’ not ‘Conway’.
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Summer Schools
Alex Baker introduced Paper 15, which set out various issues that Schools should
consider if developing plans for Summer Schools. She noted that there was definitely
potential for income generation from Summer Schools, and that Summer Schools
could also encourage students to return to PG study at the College. She emphasised
the importance of Schools developing strong QA and business plans for Summer
Schools, since they could have a significant positive or negative impact on the
University’s reputation.
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Results of 2012 Entrant Surveys
The Committee agreed to postpone this discussion until its next meeting.
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Postgraduate Taught Visiting Students
Janet Rennie reported that senior University staff were proposing that the University
expand the number of incoming full-fee single-semester (probably semester one)
visiting PGT students. She asked Schools representatives to consult with their
colleagues regarding these proposed developments, with a view to discussing the
issue at the Committee’s next meeting. Janet agreed to circulate a brief paper to
Committee members to assist them with their consultation.
FOR INFORMATION
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International student recruitment – upcoming International Office
recruitment trips
The Committee noted Paper 17.
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Contacts in Colleges and support services
The Committee noted Paper 18.
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Reports from Schools (oral item)
There were no reports.
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Dates of future meeting:
Wednesday 13 March 2013, 11.30 to 13.30, Room G1, 55 G Square
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