What is EXACT?
EXACT is a bespoke data service which reports on historical data and live cycle deadline data across the higher eduction sector. Whether you have tactical, strategic, planning, or research challenges to solve, EXACT is home to the answers for almost any question you might have, whether you need to know:
- What does the full landscape really look like at course level for each provider, including applications, offers and accepts?
- Do all further Maths A level applicants apply to study Maths degrees?
- Where do AAB students apply and accept to study Humanities?
- Has the gender split changed for Engineering acceptances since 2006?
Simply brief us on where you want to see growth in market share or offer to conversion rates by subject area. Whatever your query, we can help answer your strategic, planning or research questions.
How does it work?
- Decide your question and define your data
Speak to our experienced data account managers about the challenge you’re trying to solve. Together we will construct a tight question, and define the data required to answer it. - Select the variables
Next, you need to choose your variables. These will be the rows in your exported data, and include fields like course name, degree type, entry year, and predicted grades.
Variables available:
undergraduate (70.54 KB) | conservatoires (25.15 KB) - Choose the statistics to calculate
Finally, choose the statistics you want to report on. Among the options are applicants or applications, number of offers & replies, and accepts.
Statistics available: undergraduate (23.94 KB) | conservatoires (14.71 KB)
How EXACT can solve your marketing challenges
At UCAS we help you define your question by listening to the problem you want to solve and the action you want to take.
EXACT delivers bespoke raw data in CSV format - with pivot tables on request - so you can manipulate and blend in with other data sources, filter to a particular subset of applications, and access more bespoke data than that which is supplied on our website.
Here are some examples of the ways you can use EXACT to inform your recruitment strategies and solve your marketing challenges, complete with example pricing.
Please note that specific pricing depends on the course, volume and depth of data required. If you do not intend to share the data with anyone outside of your organisation, you will only require an internal licence.
Your marketing challenge
“We have developed a series of taster days for a new Biology course. We want to promote it and that includes reaching out to schools. Which schools and colleges and regions should I target for this campaign? Where is this course likely to be of most interest?”
How we translate that into a data request
For the last recruitment cycle, for courses containing the following keywords, which schools had students who achieved the entry requirements and had also studied an A level that they have to have done, in order to study this course?
The data fields we would use
Applications, offers, accepts
A level Biology achieved point score, achieved tariff point score
Filtered to C1: Biology and all courses with ‘Biology’ in the title
Pricing
This data request would cost from £965/£772 for a standard/internal license.
Your marketing challenge
“We want to inform our marketing strategy around targeting schools and colleges. We want to understand which ones we should:
1. Maintain relationships with
2. Proactively target to grow share of applications and acceptances
3. Stop targeting because they don’t have the students we tend to recruit
To do this we need to know how many students have achieved ABB at A level or the equivalent at each school or college within 110 miles of where we are based over the past three years. We want to use the data to calculate our market share of applications and offers.”
How we translate that into a data request
For the last recruitment cycle, how many students were there who achieved ABB or above at A level (or equivalent) at each school or college with 110 mile radius of our institution? And what are the trends over the last three years?
The data fields we would use
Specified cycles
Applications, offers, accepts
ABB flag, postal district, drive time, apply centre
Pricing
This data request would cost around £16,500/£16,500 for a standard/internal license
Your marketing challenge
“We have some subjects which have seen declining numbers of applications over the past three years, but we believe that’s not the case sector wide.
Our Marketing Director has asked why this is. We have some internal insight but need to compare our performance to our competitors.
Are they experiencing declines? And if so, is there a way of finding out why? Exploring things like location and tariff.”
How we translate that into a data request
For the last recruitment cycle, for the following subject areas and the last three years, for us and our key competitors
- What are the recruitment patterns (both the actual and percentage growth or decline)?
- What do the patterns look like by location and tariff?
- Are there any other factors it would be useful to look at?
The data fields we would use
Specified cycles
Provider name, course name and applicant tariff
Applications, offers, accepts
Pricing
This data request would cost from £9,041/£7,233 for a standard/internal license
Your marketing challenge
How we translate that into a data request
For the last recruitment cycle, by subject area and/or by course title/keyword, what do offer to firm acceptances look like for us and our competitor set.
Are there any other fields it would be useful to have, such as; tariff on entry, entry qualifications or type of school?
The data fields we would use
Specified cycles
Applications, offers, accepts
Accepted applicant tariff band by course name and provider, based on 10 competitor providers.
Pricing
This data request would cost from £1,808.28/£1,446.63 for a standard/internal license
How universities are using EXACT
Using data to punch above its weight
The North West of England is a challenging place to do business for higher education thanks to competition from Liverpool and Manchester. Discover how the Univeristy of Chester uses EXACT data to make informed business decisions, identify opportunities, and calculate and verify potential for new programmes:
University of Chester
Solving strategic challenges
Find out how the University of Sheffield is using EXACT’s premium service to steer their strategic direction data to support decision-making throughout the recruitment cycle, so they can make decisions about admissions, open days, new courses, portfolio reviews, marketing campaigns, and more.
University of Sheffield
EXACT subscription packages
Access EXACT throughout the year, with no need to wait for your planning team so you can make the most of the data at your fingertips, exactly when you need it.
With our EXACT subscription packages, you can change your questions each time, so every department gets the answers they need:
The Daily
A new question answered every week day
£46,200 +VAT
The Weekly
A new question answered every week
£23,100 +VAT
The Bundle
10 individual data outputs
Ad-hoc over the course of a year, however you see fit.
£14,700 +VAT
One-off requests
If you have a single question to answer, get in touch and we will provide a bespoke quote for you.
Get in touch
What does an EXACT output look like?
See an example EXACT report.
EXACT for business
There’s nothing quite like the student market. With EXACT, we can help you uncover its patterns, its trends, and the answers to your commercial questions:
Ask us: What do they plan to study? Is it vocational or academic?
Find out: The potential market for customers who want your product/service.
Ask us: Where do they plan to study? Will they stay at home?
Find out: The regional or geographical potential for tenants and homebuyers.
Ask us: What kind of background are they from?
Find out: Whether your campaigns are pitched right for this market.
EXACT isn’t just for the higher education sector. We’re trusted by charities, NFPs, professional bodies, private and commercial businesses to help them understand the data behind the 700k+ applicants applying to Higher Education every year.
If you are…
- An employer recruiting apprentices – discover potential skills gaps and reveal cold spots by location, helping you to determine the right number of roles to create for your graduate scheme, and to identify the right locations in which to promote your graduate roles. You can also identify specific schools to target in your outreach activity.
- A professional body – understand how many sixth formers are studying a subject relevant to your profession, or discover the universities which offer courses that you don’t accredit.
- An accommodation provider – understand migration into your priority towns and cities, or help you identify new locations based on demand.
If you have a question that needs answering, or something unique that you’d like to explore in a deep data dive, we can help. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you make the most of your data.
Being ISO 27001 certified means we adhere to the highest international standards for information security management. At UCAS, this certification underscores our commitment to safeguarding the sensitive data entrusted to us. It assures our clients that their information is handled with the utmost care and protection. Our certification not only ensures compliance but also signifies our dedication to maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of data.