Page 20 - Mansfield 2019/20

Access Report 2020
South London Application Conference
Having had to cancel all our school events during lockdown, we instead organised and hosted virtual school visits via Microsoft Teams and Zoom. We delivered over 30 sessions during the initial lockdown period on the application process and personal statements for year 12, as well as more general sessions about university and Oxford for some of the younger pupils.
Our fabulous student ambassadors have continued to support these events by joining the meetings to take part in a Q&A section.
Although it is not the same as being able
to show off all the wonderful things
about Mansfield in person (especially our lunches!), we have found that this new way of working has allowed us better to connect with schools and colleges that may have been reluctant to travel all the way down
to Oxford, such as those in our link areas of Hull and East Riding. It has also been very important for us to continue offering as much support as we can to our schools and colleges during these uncertain times.
The College Open Days are usually a major event in the outreach calendar, giving prospective students a chance to get a
feel for Mansfield by meeting our current students, taking a tour of the College and asking questions about the application process and life at Mansfield. In May it was announced that the University would
‘ While it has been a difficult year overall for outreach, the restrictions encouraged us to find new and interesting ways to engage with young people across the country and around the world.’
be holding Virtual Open Days for the first time at the beginning of July, and from that point it was a race to try and put together material that could capture the spirit, energy and ethos of Mansfield for a prospective applicant.
We recorded and edited 21 videos, including ‘Ten things you should know about Mansfield’ (did you realise that the Eleanor Roosevelt statue is one of only two statues of women in Oxford?), a 360° tour of the College, and three demonstration interviews. On the day, we had hundreds of visitors to the page and 11 helpers (nine of them pictured on page 19) on hand to answer questions via the chat function. Although we could not provide doughnuts and ice creams for the student helpers as usual, we did have a Teams call running in the background to keep each other entertained. Our JCR Access Officer, Fran Rigby, even created some Mansfield-themed ‘TikToks’ – though we are not sure how many prospective applicants these convinced!
While it has been a difficult year overall for outreach, the restrictions encouraged us to find new and interesting ways to engage with young people across the country and around the world. The coming year will doubtless bring more challenges, but we shall continue to provide as much support as possible, in as many different ways as we can think of, to anyone who is considering studying at university.
Lucinda Rumsey speaking to the Croydon Children’s University group
York Application Conference
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