When we did user research with international students we found things we could change to improve their experience of applying for courses.
Adding more examples of how to enter international grades
When a candidate adds an international qualification to their application, they’re asked to enter a grade.
If a candidate enters ‘42’ as their grade, a provider may think this means ‘42 out of 100’, when it could mean something different (such as ‘42 out of 60’).
We’ve now added another example grade to the hint text, to help candidates give providers more context about what their grade means.
Explaining the difference between GCSE English and an English as a foreign language qualification
Some participants tried adding their English as a foreign language qualification to the English GCSE section.
We decided to add some hint text to explain that a GCSE equivalent should be a school qualification and that its different from an ‘English as a foreign language’ qualification.
We’ve also updated the list of examples with school qualifications from the non-UK countries that submit the most applications.
At the time of writing, these countries were France, India, Spain and Nigeria.
