It’s Open Day. A prospective student walks into a lecture theatre they’ve never ever seen before, trying to picture themselves sitting there in September. They don’t care about tech: they want to get a sense of their experience will be, what would it be like to go here?
Every university investing in digital learning, modern campuses and new ways of teaching is, at the end of the day, trying to deliver an amazing student experience and Open Days are where they can show the art of the possible: a nursing simulation ward where mannequins respond in real time to treatment, a robotics lab running a live demonstration, a VR headset that drops a prospective geography student straight into a field site they’d otherwise wait two years to visit. That’s when a university’s investment transforms from a strategy document to something that gets a young person engaged.
For a prospective student visiting three or four universities in short succession, those moments are the evidence for everything the prospectus promised. That matters more than it used to.
UCAS has found that 79% of applicants attended an Open Day in person in 2025, and 96% of those who did found it useful – with a third saying the quality of teaching facilities influenced where they ended up choosing.
Open Day isn’t a formality anymore. For a lot of students, it’s the moment the decision actually gets made.
For a CIO, Open Day is the chance to underpin a great first impression through an engaging digital experience: a visitor app that has welcome day integrations; the welcome to site prompt when they arrive; wayfinding around campus; even discounts codes as they walk past a coffee shop. Keeping people engaged while on campus sells the campus. That’s where the wow factor lives.
And that’s why the real test for a CIO is whether the institution is leveraging its digital infrastructure into moments a prospective student actually remembers – because in a market where most universities are investing in similar technology, that experience is the only differentiation left.
Read more in our Student Lifecycle series:
Pre Sales Architect
Kevin Mortimer is a Solution Architect with 25 years in technical leadership roles across varied cyber and infrastructure domains. Evangelising technology is a passion especially around sustainability outcomes and community engagement. Kevin is an avid volunteer focussing on supporting young people including; Cub leader, Chair of School Governors and a youth rugby coach.
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