why did students choose university of hertforshire

The University of Hertfordshire came into existence in 1952 when Hertfordshire County Council contracted a 90 acre land in Hatfield to be used for educational purposes. It first originated as the Hatfield Technical College and was later awarded university status in 1992, from when the University adopted its current name (University of Hertfordshire). Having been the center of the local community for 60 years, University of Hertfordshire (UH) has developed extensively and has been able to include itself in the top 100 Universities less than 50 years old. According to Times Higher Education magazine, UH has a student body of 24,500 students including more than 2,000 overseas students. The University received a score of 82 out of 100 for overall student satisfaction as reported by National Student Survey. The official website of the UH provides five reasons suggesting why students make it their first choice, with those reasons being employability, teaching excellence, flexible study routes, study facilities and a great location.
The core aim of conducting this research was to determine what the main aspects were which encouraged students to choose University of Hertfordshire as their next academic stop of life. The research hypothesis was that the location, teaching excellence and the facilities (both related to studies and extramural) provided by the university influence the decision of students in preferring University of Hertfordshire. The second hypothesis was that there is a significant difference between local and International students’ level of satisfaction from the university.
The research project was conducted by a group of four students. It included a survey to understand the views of students currently enrolled in the university. The questionnaire revolved around the factors that influenced their decision of selecting University of Hertfordshire as the next step in their academic career. It consisted of twelve questions, the form started with demographic queries such as age of the student, the school they were registered in, and their area of study. This was followed by the financial queries of how much they paid for the courses and whether their expenses were equivalent to the facilities provided and their expectations from the universities. The questionnaire also inquired regarding the role of the UH website in their decision, their association with the university prior to their admission and any other universities they considered.
The subjects who took part in the survey were University of Hertfordshire students chosen at random on the basis of their availability. The volunteering sample consisted of a set of 40 students, thirteen local residents of Hertfordshire and seventeen international students coming from variant backgrounds. Each of the four members of the research committee interviewed 10 students each to minimize the chances of obtaining a biased result. The ages of students ranged from under twenty years to over 30 years. The participants originated from three different schools within the university (Business school, Engineering and Medical sciences). Half of the volunteers were males (12 local and 8 international) and the other half were females (11 local and 9 international). The data collected was recorded according to overall preferences by local and foreign students. 34 (24 local and 15 international) out of sample of 40 volunteers (85%) were paying more than £6000 for their degree. When asked if they believed whether they were getting their money’s worth, thirty students (80%) responded positively. The reasons they provided for their satisfaction were incredible facilities offered by the university and the support they received from teachers. These findings supported the first hypothesis as true. However, 80% (8 out of 10 students) of the students who were unsatisfied by the money expenditure were international students. This is against the second hypothesis.

Additionally, 33 (82.5%) students found the UH website useful in helping them to make their decision [decision in what?], whereas 17 students had relatives and friends studying at the university before they joined. 85 percent (34 students) of the students said that the University met up to their expectations, and those who were disappointed were mostly international students (5 out of 6 students). This paragraph doesn’t make sense because your points don’t relate with each other, so link them so they seem together and explain them properly :p

Moreover, the facilities the students preferred were predominantly education based. 18 students chose ‘study net’ to be the most important facility, 13 students favored all the academic services provided by the university, whereas only 5 students favored other facilities provided by the university such as Bus services, the sports clubs and Hertfordshire sports village. This finding further supports the first hypothesis.

37.5% of the students chose UH because of its location, 37.5% because of the courses offered by the universities and 25% of students had the future opportunities provided by the university in mind. 75% of the student body did consider other universities too before selecting UH.

Furthermore, 33 (82.5%) students found the UH website helpful to make their decision, where as 17 students had relatives and friends studying at the university before they joined. Your repeating this :p
The current research project indicated that majority of the local students (92%) were satisfied by expense they were paying where as almost half (48%) of the international students thought that money expenditure was not worth it. The overseas students who claimed the university was worth their money had relatives and friends who had previously been a part of university prior to them. This result suggested that the students (most of them) were aware of the running and framework of the university was before they began attending, as they knew what they were paying for they believed their money to be more valued. On the other hand, international students, who did not have any prior knowledge of the university structure, expected more from the institution in the same amount of money. The students reasoned their dissatisfaction by pointing out that first year repeated a lot of A Levels syllabus. This suggested that the unsatisfied students might have had little or no exposure to universities’ over all course agenda for the four years, hence they did not know that most of the universities repeat some of the high school syllabus in the first year.
The research suggests that the students’ satisfaction depends on whether they had any kind of association with the university prior to their enrollment or not. Whether it was because of being from the same area as the university or having acquaintances at the university, it provided them with more insight about the university then the website was able to. The website though helpful, might have raised the expectation of other students who later found the university not up to their expectation.