Open Days That Reach the Right Students 

For many prospective postgraduate students, an open day or recruitment event is the moment a university moves from an “interesting option” to a “serious choice”.

When students are researching where to study, they’re comparing courses, thinking about campus life, and trying to imagine themselves at a particular institution. At that stage, the opportunity to attend an open day, webinar or virtual event can make all the difference - and reaching the right students at the right time and place is key. 

The data shows just how powerful that moment can be.

Open days remain a crucial part of the decision journey

Across the sector, open days play a huge role in helping students decide where to apply. Research from UCAS shows that 79% of applicants attend open days during their decision-making process, with most attending more than one before choosing a university.

For postgraduate providers, this presents a valuable opportunity: if students can easily discover your event at the moment they’re actively researching courses, you’re far more likely to capture their attention.

That’s why visibility and targeting at the right point in the student journey matters so much.

What happens when open days are placed where students are already searching?

We’ve seen exceptional engagement with open day listings across our FindAMasters and FindAPhD platforms. By combining event listings with geo-targeted promotion, universities can connect with students in the regions that matter most to them. This includes international recruitment activity, such as events delivered in partnership with agents. Because our Open Days calendar is optimised by student location, in-country events can be surfaced to relevant audiences globally - helping universities maximise visibility in key markets. 

Between November 2024 and March 2025:

• Master’s Open Day pages drove over 72,000 sign-up referrals, a 1,085% year-on-year increase.
• PhD Open Day pages generated nearly 35,000 sign-up referrals, a 2,978% uplift compared to the previous year.

In 2025, FindAUniversity promoted 1,508 university Open Days and referred 248,417 prospective students - an average of 165 referrals per event. 

These numbers tell a clear story: when event information is surfaced directly to engaged, high-intent students - and when campaigns are targeted geographically or by interest - student interest is strong.

Rather than searching across multiple university websites, prospective students can immediately see upcoming opportunities to connect with institutions, in locations that are relevant to them.

Why this approach works

Open days perform best when they appear in context, alongside the course or research opportunities students are already exploring - and when the audience can be geo-targeted or segmented by interest. 

For example, when events are integrated directly into an Institution Profile or course listing, they benefit from:

1. High-intent audiences
Students browsing postgraduate courses are already considering their next step, making them far more likely to engage with an event listing.

2. Immediate calls to action
Clear booking links allow students to register for an event while their interest is fresh.

3. Timely, location-aware discovery
Geo-targeted campaigns ensure students see webinars, virtual sessions, or campus visits that are convenient for their location, giving them an easy way to take the next step.

4. Broad search visibility
Our Open Day calendar listings appear not only within our websites but also in organic search results and LLM-powered queries, ensuring students discover relevant events wherever they’re researching courses. 

Extending the reach of your recruitment events

Alongside event listings, universities often choose to amplify their recruitment activity through targeted campaigns that put their events directly in front of the prospective postgraduate students they most want to reach.

For example, Paid Social campaigns can help universities reach highly targeted audiences across platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. These campaigns allow institutions to promote upcoming open days, virtual events or subject-specific webinars to prospective students who may still be in the early stages of exploring their options and can be focused on students in specific regions or countries.

Similarly, Spotlight Emails provide a way to place an event directly into the inboxes of engaged postgraduate prospects. These campaigns can highlight a specific open day, virtual session or recruitment event and encourage students to take the next step by registering or learning more.

It’s not just open days anymore

While traditional on-campus events remain popular, many universities are expanding their recruitment events to include:

• Virtual open days
• Subject-specific webinars
• Online Q&A sessions with academics
• Campus visit days
• Offer-holder events
• In-country recruitment events with agents

Making sure these events are visible to prospective students can help universities build relationships earlier in the recruitment cycle and keep applicants engaged.

Connecting universities with engaged postgraduate audiences

At FindAUniversity, our mission is to help universities connect with the right postgraduate students at the right moment in their journey.

Across our platforms - FindAMasters.com and FindAPhD.com - we generate more than 3.2 million annual student enquiries and referrals for our university partners, helping institutions reach an engaged global audience actively researching their next step.

Open day and event listings are designed to put those opportunities directly in front of students while they’re exploring courses and institutions, with the option to geo-target and segment audiences to maximise engagement.

Promoting your next recruitment event

Open days and recruitment events are often one of the most important moments in the postgraduate decision journey. When students can easily discover and attend an event, it gives them a clearer picture of what studying at your university could be like and helps turn early interest into real applications.

Making sure those events are visible at the right time can make a real difference. Listing your event alongside postgraduate course searches ensures students already exploring their options can find it quickly, while additional promotion can help extend that reach even further.

Many universities choose to combine event listings with targeted activity such as Paid Social campaigns or Spotlight Emails. These approaches help introduce events to new audiences, drive registrations and keep prospective students engaged throughout their research journey.

Whether you're running an on-campus open day, a virtual event, or a subject-specific webinar, promoting those opportunities to a relevant postgraduate audience can help maximise attendance and build stronger connections with future students.

If you’re planning upcoming recruitment events and would like to reach more prospective postgraduates, in the locations that matter most, our team would be happy to help.

Get in touch to find out how we can support your next open day or recruitment campaign.