How universities can boost their application-to-enrolment conversion rates

The success of a university is fundamentally linked to high quality students progressing from the application phase through to enrolment. Various factors such as an effective recruitment strategy, a positive applicant experience, and a competitive offering come into play for optimising conversion rates.  

Maintaining a healthy conversion rate can be a challenge, but at IDP we have repeatedly seen how a data-centric, student-first approach can make all the difference.  

In this article, we speak to Leo Cutting, Client Director at IDP, about what universities should be focusing on to achieve a high and consistent conversion rate, what impact policy changes have on conversion rates, what role peer-to-peer engagement plays, and more.  

Monitoring and strategically improving your university’s conversion rate are essential for meeting enrolment targets, ensuring financial stability, and maintaining an engaged student body.  

Let’s dive into more detail with Leo.  

There are a wide range of factors that influence conversion rates in international student recruitment. These include: 

1. A smooth admissions process: The admissions process itself and how straightforward it is for a student (or their counsellor) to move through the enrolment journey. Simply removing administrative and technical barriers that prevent students progressing to enrolment can make a huge difference.   

2. Turnaround times: Fast admissions decisions provide students with certainty and have a substantial positive impact on conversion. Since the pandemic universities have increasingly developed the capability to make decisions on applications within a few days. This has gone from a competitive advantage to standard practice and is a trend that only the very top ranked universities can afford to ignore.  

3. A warm welcome: From the moment an offer is made, universities should consider how to make applicants feel welcome and valued as future students. A robust communications plan that strikes a balance between practical information and softer content that helps applicants to picture themselves at the university can make a big difference. 

4. Price competitiveness: Price-conscious students may well change their final choice of university at the last minute if an attractive scholarship or fee reduction is offered that significantly reduces their overall costs.    

Theoretically the ideal conversion rate would be 100% with every application resulting in an enrolment! In reality, the optimal conversion rate will vary by institution based on their individual strategies and processes. Rather than have a single target conversion rate it may be more helpful to break the process down into stages with a target conversion rate at each point in the application journey, for example application to offer, offer to deposit and deposit to enrolment.   

It’s perhaps not inevitable but it is very likely. In my experience where application volumes grow significantly in a short period of time, this growth is often accompanied by a lower conversion rate. This is because, as a university becomes better known, its applicant pool grows and within that pool will be students who may be more inclined towards another university choice. As a result, it may sometimes be better to think of a declining conversion rate as a cost of success and growth rather than as something that always needs to be fixed.  

An increasing number of students applying to universities in more than one destination country will inevitably have a negative impact on conversion rates for individual institutions. Within this context universities should keep this trend in mind when planning conversion activities, ensuring that both the attractiveness of their destination country as well as their individual institution are highlighted.  

The varying factors that influence conversion can make it challenging for universities to identify the changes that will have an impact for them. Where a university is seeking to improve its conversion rate it can be helpful to conduct an audit of common factors that may be having a negative impact on conversion. IDP’s IQ Consultancy Team can help institutions to diagnose barriers to conversion through counsellor and student focus groups and by helping to identify competitor universities which are driving lost enrolments.  

Studying abroad is a daunting prospect for many international students and the opportunity to speak to other students from their home country can help to provide reassurance, generate excitement and might make the difference between an applicant choosing one university over another. Fortunately, services like The Ambassador Platform are available to make building these connections as easy as possible.  

International students are very sensitive to changes to student visa policy and even a narrative that is less welcoming to international students can result in them reconsidering their study plans. When this happens mid-cycle the impact on conversion rates can be considerable.  

The University of West London was able to significantly improve its application to enrolment conversion rate with IDP in the 2024/25 cycle. Through close collaboration, conversion with IDP improved by more than 3% on the previous cycle. A contributor to this was the university’s decision to join FastLane. Applicants that applied through FastLane converted at a rate that was a huge 7% higher than the institutional average in 2023/24.   

IDP can support universities to improve conversion rates in various ways. Our IQ Consultancy team can help partners identify barriers to conversion and competitors which may be capturing market share, FastLane can help universities filter out unqualified applicants before they apply and The Ambassador Platform can support with creating opportunities for peer-to-peer engagement. Of course, our teams in market are also on hand to help universities attract the right students and converting them to enrolment, so supporting them is paramount too!  

With international student recruitment facing so much uncertainty, consistent conversion may be difficult to achieve, but there are steps universities can take to ensure conversion is as high as possible. I would suggest institutions regularly review their applicant journey to identify where conversion could be improved. Is the institution receiving too many applications that do not meet the relevant entry requirements? Are offers being made quickly enough? Is some part of the process discouraging offer holders from paying deposits or enrolling, or are they being tempted to join a competitor through last minute scholarships? A good understanding of these questions can make it much easier to improve conversion and increase enrolments.  

If you’d like to explore actionable ways in which to boost your institution’s conversion rate, get in touch with us today.