Big announcements about Unistats
As previously noted there is no shortage of information available to prospective university students. Unistats was intended to enable better decision-making by students but, whilst it is not without merit, it is no substitute for effective advice and guidance. Unfortunately this shiny website seems to be pretty much all that’s on offer. Still, the good news is it has been updated to help students make even better choices:
The updated and improved Unistats web-site includes even more course information than ever before, and will make it easier for users to search and compare courses by location, as well as on the go via a new mobile phone version.
Unistats is one of the most widely used higher education course comparison web-sites in the UK for prospective students, their parents and advisers. Over the past year, it has attracted more than 250,000 unique visitors and over 5.2 million page views, helping to match students to universities and colleges.
Anyway, the Universities Minister David Willetts is a big fan and credits Unistats with students getting into their first choice universities (and I thought it depended on their A level grades):
‘We are empowering people by publishing unprecedented levels of information on their options.
‘It is making a real difference and more students than ever before are now getting their first choice university place.
‘The next stage is to let people access Unistats on their mobiles, at a time and place of their choosing.’
Times Higher Education, reporting on the launch, include a quote from Rachel Wenstone, Vice-President at the National Union of Students who seems really keen on all this:
“Deciding what to study and where to go to university is a big decision and it is crucial that prospective applicants have relevant, impartial information in an easily accessible format,” she said.
“I’m really pleased that the improvements to the site have been made with students, parents and carers in mind and I hope it will contribute to helping even more students make the right application choices,” she added.
(Indeed, NUS seems surprisingly enthusiastic about many government initiatives these days.)
Anyway, it’s all very exciting news. Even if it does make it all sound a bit like a dating site…
It wasn’t all sweetness and light from an NUS perspective. When Toni Pearce took to Twitter in August to talk about clearing, she wasn’t happy about the timing of the Unistats relaunch: “Really excited to hear that @UnistatsUK are relaunching their website in September. Great planning! #NUSclearing”
More about it at Times Higher Education: http://bit.ly/18oOl2n