RIVAL Bangor University attracted over 2,500 more applications and 500 more students than Aberystwyth in 2015, as the institution continues to lose out in recruitment, the Cambrian News can reveal.

Aberystwyth attracted 2,195 new students in September according to figures from UCAS – the fifth year in a row the intake has dropped.

Just 8,315 applications were received by prospective students for the September intake at Aberystwyth, the fifth fall in a row since 2011 when the university had 12,475 applications.

The number of new students at rival Bangor University has risen year on year in the same period since 2011, attracting 2,700 new undergraduates in September’s intake.

Bangor received 2,500 more applications to study there in 2015 than Aberystwyth, back in 2011 and 2012, more students applied to Aber­ystwyth than Bangor but now those roles have been reversed.

The Aberystwyth figures mean that, since 2011, new student numbers and applications have fallen by 33 per cent – leaving numbers exactly two thirds of the figures from five years ago.

Despite the attraction of overseas students being a key plan of the university’s oft-altered and downgraded Strategic Plan which runs until­ 2017, applications and accepted students from outside the EU both fell, with 26 per cent fewer students beginning studies in the town in 2015.

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