Have a quick look around the average college library or sixth form common room and you’ll see shelves full of thick prospectuses from universities around the country shouting about what makes them stand out from the crowd. But this year, there’s one university missing from those shelves as the University of Chester strives to reduce waste and make its prospectus personal to you!
Getting personal
Sarah told us: “Our 2021 prospectus included more than 230 pages of course information but we asked ourselves, how many prospective students are really interested in all the courses we offer?” This wasn’t just a rhetorical question; we asked our student prospects panel who overwhelmingly agreed that they weren’t interested in reading the detail about courses they weren’t considering. That’s why we’re giving prospective students the chance to tell us which courses they want to include in their personal prospectus. But the personalisation doesn’t stop there. If you live close to Chester and you won’t be staying on campus, you can choose not to include pages about our accommodation. Do you have children and think you might need to make new childcare arrangements? Ask us to include our “studying while parenting” pages.
Prospective students can download an electronic copy of their prospectus, or they can choose to have it sent to them in the post. Whichever they choose, they’ll get a taste of the personalised experience they can expect throughout their degree when they choose the University of Chester.
Sustainability
Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do at the University of Chester, and that starts before our prospective students even choose us. We asked Sarah, why is the University making these changes to its prospectus now? “We’ve been thinking about how we can make our prospectuses greener for a few years but it was the COVID-19 pandemic that really spurred us into taking action.” The majority of our prospectuses are given away at UCAS fairs or sent to colleges and schools but all that changed last year when the fairs were cancelled and there was no one in school to read what we sent. “When we saw how many prospectuses we had printed that went to waste, we immediately committed to reducing the amount we printed and we wanted to start straight away.”
A digital download will be immediately available to anyone who requests a prospectus which will further reduce waste. But we know that a lot of prospective students like to have a “proper” prospectus that they can hold in their hand and refer back to whenever they want, and that’s fine! Our prospectuses will be printed on responsibly sourced, FSC accredited paper and we carbon-balance the whole process. And when you’ve finished with it? The prospectus can be completely recycled, included the packaging it arrives in!
Discover Chester
So, will we be travelling empty-handed to UCAS fairs when they restart? Not at all! We'll be bringing our 2022 undergraduate guide, an introduction to living and studying at the University of Chester. Read what our students have to say about their time at the University, what makes Chester, Warrington and Shrewsbury such great places to spend your student years, and get our top tips for starting your university application.
And the best bit is, you don’t have to wait to get your hands on your copy of your undergraduate guide. You can download your copy today and start your journey to university in 2022.
