Northern Ireland Applicant Day

On Saturday 2nd March, LJMU held its annual Northern Ireland Applicant Day in the Hilton Hotel Belfast.  Co-ordinated by the outreach team within student recruitment and admissions, this event saw over 50 LJMU staff and students fly out to Belfast to deliver the Applicant Day in one of LJMU’s key markets for student recruitment. Delivered over two sessions, the event was attended by over 650 visitors including applicants and family members.

Sharon Roden who organised the event commented: “the University has held an Applicant Day in Northern Ireland for over 10 years. This event gives students who may not be able to get to Liverpool for one reason or another the opportunity to speak to academic staff and professional service teams to support them in making their final Higher Education choice.  The event is really beneficial in reassuring parents about their children moving away from home, providing information on Liverpool as a student destination and the associated support LJMU can provide when they arrive.”

As a conversion event, the Northern Ireland Applicant Day traditionally results in positive enrolment figures, in relation to last year’s event 119 students out of 225 who attended the Applicant Day enrolled at LJMU in September 2018. Outreach Manager Peter Dolan said: “This event is just one component of LJMU’s innovative outreach strategy in Northern Ireland which has been established over a 20 year period. The strong relationships with schools in the region means the LJMU brand is promoted to prospective students by the outreach team throughout the year via school based presentations, supported by a summer residential and events for teachers. 

This sustained activity ensures a consistent stream of applications from Northern Ireland come through to LJMU each year.  The Applicant Day is a brilliant example of how professional service teams, academic staff and current students work together in partnership to deliver an event critical to the LJMU’s undergraduate student recruitment”. LJMU continues to outperform other Higher Education providers in terms of student recruitment in Northern Ireland.  The Northern Ireland Applicant Day coincided with a news article on the BBC Northern Ireland website on 2 March confirming an increase in NI students studying in England, Scotland and Wales. 

Figures from the DfE show 17,440 NI students were studying in England, Scotland or Wales in 2018. Of those 5,335 were at universities in the north-west of England – the most popular region. Liverpool John Moores University was named the most popular provider with 1,985 students from Northern Ireland.  The full news story is available here

For further information about the University’s outreach activity contact outreach@ljmu.ac.uk