At a high level, there are two data sources available to aid with your strategic planning, including the Situation Reports published in the providers’ section of ucas.com, and in level 1 of Application Tracker.
When using these, please note that the standard convention of reporting figures from Monday compared to the nearest Monday from last year means the figures for this year are two days further away from the deadline than the comparison figures. With applicant volumes around 8k to 10k a day at this point, this can make a substantial difference. The trends in demand for a cycle typically do not become apparent until the deadline itself, exemplified by the October deadline earlier this cycle, where the last Situation Report prior to the deadline showed applicants down over 25% compared to the nearest Monday from the previous cycle. Yet when the deadline arrived, applicant numbers showed a small increase.
The differing pattern of holidays, weekdays and other factors, makes it difficult to create a comparison point ahead of the deadline which is truly equivalent. For providers wishing to undertake close scrutiny of daily totals, we have introduced a new data product, the Daily Domicile Reports (DDR). These reports (provided weekly) detail the number of new applicants received day-by-day from different domicile groups, together with weekly moving averages. They offer an opportunity to compare, at a sector level, the trends in applicant numbers this cycle from day-to-day. A full set of historical data is provided, coded with day of the week, days until deadline, etc. They are intended for providers with a data analysis capability, who want to make their own assessment of the evidence on applicant trends – they can do so using a method, such as ‘days to deadline’ or ‘day of week’, as they see fit. For more information, or to sign up to these reports, please contact UCAS Media on 01242 544 881.