However appealing a program might seem on paper, the final choice for this or that study or institution is often made only after a visit to an open day. But suppose it's crunch time and you are living hundreds of miles from the university you have in mind?

Specially for students from abroad, Radboud University Nijmegen held a virtual open day for the first time last week. Thousands of students from more than a hundred countries had registered for an online visit to the campus, reports news site Vox. Between nine a.m. and five p.m. they were able to attend live presentations, enjoy a virtual tour of the campus, and chat to students and staff.

The Radboud is not the first university to offer an online open day. This phenomenon has been around for some time beyond Dutch borders, and here in the Netherlands the first to do so was Wageningen in 2015. This university has a long history of drawing a great many internationals and has long been a regular exhibitor at university fairs held abroad, giving interested individuals the chance to get to know the institution, spokesperson Simon Vink tells us. “Wherever your target group is, that's where you have to be.” And these days that's online.

TU/e’s webinars

For the past three years now, in the month of November, TU/e has held a program webinar for all its Bachelor's and Master's programs. “This has been set up to offer the international prospective student an interactive opportunity to find out more about our programs, as well as to give Dutch school pupils an early glimpse of what's on offer before they perhaps go to an open day,” says Tina de Rooij, who is responsible for the webinars on behalf of Communication Expertise Centre.

All TU/e’s webinars follow the same pattern. In the first part, the presenters (which may be two students or a lecturer and a student) give information about the program in question. In the second part, the participants can ask all their questions via a chat program. These questions are answered live.

De Rooij is pleased with the results. “The number of registrations continues to rise every year. In November 2018 we had roughly 4,400 registrations; the year before, 3,500.” The webinars remain on line for a year, available to be viewed at a later date. “With the webinars we find that about 20-25 per cent of those who sign up watch them live. The majority watches the recording after the event.” During the last academic year the webinars were watched a total of 7,500 times.

Old school open day

Until now TU/e has held six open days every academic year. A maximum of 2,400 visitors are welcome on any given day, and often this many participants do in fact attend. Last year the CEC worked with a sounding board group of high school students intending to go to university to examine this approach, and it was decided to change the form the open days take. “We would like to offer an introductory open day twice a year, and an extension open day twice a year. The introductory open day is intended for prospective students at the start of the decision-making process, and the extension open day is for prospective students who have already narrowed their choice to one or two programs. This day will take the form of a group 'sitting with Nellie', as it were,” says CEC staff member Liesbeth Castelijns. “What exactly these open days will involve is something we are currently working on together with the project group. We want to introduce them as of September 2019.”