2016: A year of glorious achievement

As 2017 approaches and our sights remain fixed upon the calendar’s end, we prepare to meet the next year with enthusiasm, pride, energy, and – of course – joy.

In the service of students

This year, we undertook a major initiative in our core values and devised our very first manifesto. The Studyportals manifesto outlines our company’s vision and overall principles, guiding our day-to-day work and long-term vision. It is with great pride that we share the first line of the manifesto: We choose to put students’ interests first.

This line presents us with the foundation to make company choices, and upon which to innovate. We hold ourselves to this principle every single day, and we have held it closely as an indispensable part of Studyportals’ immense success.

• It is by no accident that, in such a year, we also reached a historic landmark: we have, for the first time, more than 1 million registered users on our Studyportals platforms. Having such a high number of subscribers only enhances our commitment to creating the best global education search platform, and we are sure to continue our devotion into the future.
• Alongside an expanding community of subscribers, we have also noticed an astonishing increase in traffic to our portals. Since last year, we have noticed a +70% yearly increase in users to our portals, averaging over 20 million unique visitors in 2016. Clearly, with a growing interest in international education comes a growing need for transparent, searchable information.
• Having both an increase in visitors and subscribers also ensured a widespread boost in the number of students who have enrolled in international education. In fact, we estimate that this year alone, there are approximately 240,000 students enrolled in universities all over the world whom we’ve guided to their dream education destination and degree programme.

Global coverage

Furthermore, as we strive to grow our listing of university degree programmes around the world, we have recognized the widespread interest in the top-ranking universities in the world. Therefore, this year, we have made sure to list every English-taught programme offered by the top 1,500 universities in the world. Now students can be sure to have comprehensive information about the top schools in the world that they would hope to attend.

Inspiring students

This year, in our aim to encourage students to choose international education, we are proud to say that we are now entering the third round of candidates for the Global Study Awards. Along with the British Council and ISIC Global, our goal is simple: continue to recognise and support inspiring students who have chosen to study abroad, and make their mark on the world.

The League of Students, our own student ambassador project, has also assured that one of our most ambitious goals came true this year: building a platform where students can share their experiences with a global audience and community.

A year of innovation

In the age of speed, our platforms have been outperforming and outpacing: with the help of our cloud search feature, our search speed alone has improved tenfold in just one year. We have also been developing better tools for students to compare their study options, and we have also focused on enhancing our content to help guide students in the right direction.

The most significant victory of all for us, though, is having expanded our university listing, boosted our registrations, and generated a dramatic increase in traffic…without frying our servers. Whew! An astonishing achievement, indeed!

Looking forward to 2017

We are always impressed with how much we are able to grow and accomplish in a year’s time, and we guarantee that 2017 will be no exception. With new partnerships, and great clients and students, as well as innovations on the horizon, we are sure that the next year will not disappoint.

We are thrilled and honoured to have so many loyal clients and like-minded partners who share our vision for global education, in the hope of helping students gain unrestricted access to international education. Of course, we owe a great deal to our partners, clients, and friends, and would not have had such an extraordinary year without them.

We wish you all a great holiday season. Let’s make 2017 epic together!