I was thinking about how students make decsions to attend universities in Ireland: subject choice (if you want to be a vet, you have to go to UCD) and geography (I reckon that the proportion of non-Munster students attending UCC is small, even though the research side has blossomed recently) play a part.Tradition, proxied by parents' and older siblings' behaviour, might come into play: TCD attracts a lot of Northern Irish students, particularly from mainly Protestant grammar schools, while DCU & UCD simply don't.
Given that the education market is quite inflexible in Ireland, there's an interesting point about the benefits to be gained from highlighting the benefits of one particular university. The amount of easily digestible and impressive info in US universities is amazing: the link will take you to an easily-sourced web page on the University of Virginia website, where its quality is immediately apparent and comparable. Here, facts and figures become the advert. I heard that UCD were very happy with the advertising for the Horizons programe, and they believe it drew in extra students. Would any Irish university stand to gain by copying the format of Virgina?
1 comment:
The link in your post wouldn't work for me Ken.
very interesting thoughts on how decisions are made about which third level institutions to attend. Family background and social reference points would surely play a huge role here too.
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