Having recently delved into ApplyBoard and Study Portals it was Yocket’s turn to go under the computer mouse. Reportedly, started in 2012 with $136USD (less than £100GBP) the company claimed over $1m revenue in 2020 and a plan to get to over $10m in three years. Various internet searches have not found references to other external funding in support of the company, so it looks like the founders are backing themselves.
Described as a ‘one stop study abroad solution’ Yocket focuses on candidates from India and suggests it has registered more than 400,000 since 2015. The company name is a word play on the company being a ‘rocket’ for students to meet their aspiration. It claims to have ‘tied-up’ with over 100 universities in the UK, US, Canada and Australia although the nature of the engagement and the split by country are not transparent. Yocket is part of Avocation Education Services Private Limited (Avocation) which also owns Stupidsid** which was also started by the founders.
Yocket’s model would appear to be focused on being a ‘student aggregator’ making money by selling added value services rather than an ‘agent aggregator’ trying to attract recruitment agents. There is a clear attempt to build a revenue stream from universities but this appears to have had limited success with only 42 in the ‘Apply through Yocket’ list and limited institutional activity on the site. Before universities go rushing in to fill that void they may want to consider some features of the site and what their brand will be associated with.
Data Management and Use
One of the emerging concerns about aggregator sites is their use of data and Yocket’s site demands an email as the price of doing any search and engages the user in giving more personal details at every opportunity. An email, phone number and other details allows you to set up an account and “By creating an account you agree to Yocket’s Terms of use and Privacy policy. Attempts to click on the links to read these take the user on a circular route back to the initial sign on page which may be a glitch but is unhelpful.
However, the Privacy Policy is available through an internet search and is the same as that of Avocation in giving broad opportunities for the use of data, such as making it available to ‘third party service providers’ as well as to advertisers including financial services. It notes that ‘Avocation Educational Services Private Limited’ reserves the right to update, change or modify this policy at any time.’ The Terms of Use can also be found and note that, “It cannot be guaranteed that the material, information, links, and content presented on and by this website is comprehensive, complete, accurate, sufficient, timely, or up to date for any particular purpose or use.”
Given that students going to the site are expecting accurate and comprehensive information about any country that they hope to study in this seems problematic. The information provides the basis for the potential student spending money on other services, such as Yocket Premium or finding a loan, so there should at least be some sense of responsibility. As the test searches outlined below suggest, there is some way to go before the information available provides full confidence.
In Search of Substance
A search for universities in the UK provided a list of 124 institutions – well short of the number of degree-awarding institutions in the country. The opportunity to search by private universities only provided information on Ecole de Management de Normandie, Oxford and Arden University. There was no mention at all of sector notables such as BPP and the University of Law (one of Arden’s siblings in the Global University Systems family).
Oddities in the UK public university listings included:
– Northumbria (Amsterdam) listed as one of the three for the institution.
– Nottingham Trent, Aston and Birmingham each having two locations listed
– University of Buckingham, a private university, appears in the list of public universities
The listing of each institution comprised a fuzzy photo of something that looks like a university with the university logo superimposed on top of it. Adding to the general sense of low-resolution and compromise on detail is that 12 of the universities had no logo shown and 47 of the universities had no indicative tuition fee shown. That might be a blessing for anyone interested in accuracy and quality of information.
There is a feature which allows a search by Low, Medium or High Price and this has several anomalies. The most obvious shows Kings College London as having an international tuition fee of £9,250. A fee of £20,790 for classroom based international undergraduate students appears to be the starting point at this venerable London institution.
Thirty institutions are listed in the Medium price sector but only one makes it to be shown as High Price. The University of Bristol occupies this category with a tuition fee that the site suggests is £72,000 when the university’s published undergraduate classroom based BSc is 20,100 and an MSc in Management at £26,500.
The low-priced list did not include the University of Chester which has a rate of £12,750 for international students which is lower than the £13,000 shown (correctly) for Teeside University. All of this suggests that AI or machine learning is being used to find information on university sites it needs some fine tuning. If it’s human research then the quality control needs to be stepped up. It’s currently misleading to students and potentially damaging to university recruitment hopes.
Going to North America
The search for top universities in the USA offered up 242 universities with Harvard, MIT and Stanford at the top but one for “popular universities” listed 659 with Northeastern, Texas A&M and University of Texas at Dallas at the top. The first two are among those among the 42 listed on the Apply to Universities via Yocket page which suggests there may be a closer relationship between institution and aggregator.
Perhaps surprisingly given the world rankings, Canada has 194 ‘top universities’ listed which is exactly the same as the number shown as ‘popular’. The University of British Columbia Vancouver and the University of Western Ontario are at the top of both lists but there is no description of how a university gets on one or the other list. Neither university is on the 42 listed on the “Apply to Universities via Yocket” page.
Generally speaking, the pictures and the logos for the USA and Canada are in better shape than those for the UK. The site also provides further counselling if you are “Confused about which country to pick?” but this requires upgrading to Yocket Premium. The paucity of filters to offer comparisons make it difficult to make any sort of well-informed choice without taking that step.
Clicking through to the university page from the search does give the added information about how many ‘Yocketers’ have applied and how many have been accepted as well as their average GRE quant score. There’s also some information on scholarships available. Just out of interest the claim is that 99 have applied to Harvard’s School of Engineering with 17 admitted and 222 have applied to MIT’s School of Engineering with 14 admitted. Whether or not they chose to use Yocket’s other services or counselling is not made clear.
Further Insights
The application to universities service is currently limited to 42 institutions with only the universities of Wolverhampton, Sheffield, Huddersfield and Essex listed for the UK. These universities do not appear to receive special treatment in other search facilities on the site and the nature of the relationship is unclear. A 5 May 2020 blog post on the site in the Applying to Universities section indicates a session with University of Essex where participants may receive an “on the spot offer” depending on eligibility.
In answering the question Why Should I Choose Yocket? the company says that it has “..been a helpful companion to 300,000+ study abroad aspirants since 2016. Through a powerful network of students and machine learning algorithms, yocket empowers you to make informed decisions to your educational pursuits.” The critical question for many observers might be whether or not the platform and its current capabilities is enabling sufficient information for an informed decision.
An interesting feature and highly relevant given the power of peer-to-peer recommendations is the ‘Trending Yocketers’ section which allows direct connection to a candidate who is looking to study at a specific university. This is supplemented by a Discussions thread where candidates can pose questions in the hope that a peer will respond.
Yocket may be planning to upgrade the site in the near future. A blog on 27 April invites interest from users willing to participate in the Yocket Hydrogen Beta version. It is described as “an upgraded platform that is better in design, experience and features”. With the anticipated growth in India students travelling abroad to study this would seem a reasonable investment.
Some Thoughts
Yocket’s story is well known and it has recently announced plans to recruit 300 more staff in 2021 and a further 1,000 over three years. It has presented itself as enhancing student services in a disorganized market dominated by agents, where students were often misguided. It is reasonable to believe that the development of an online service provides access to more people but this, in itself, does not mean that students are better advised or informed.
It is difficult to know how the information about universities is being gathered and the extent to which it is verified to allow reasonable comparisons. Whether the other Yocket services – such as premium service at a reported £500 per student – gives well-founded counselling is also hard to know. The company’s 7th Annual Virtual Meet Up in March 2021 claims to have gathered 40 universities from the US, UK, France and New Zealand and over 4,000 students, so the demand would seem to be there.
From the point of view of institutions news stories have indicated that universities can get directly involved for between $1,000 and $10,000 dollars. This gets access to services that reach out to students in a growing market and may be tempting. Institutions who choose to engage might consider learning how data is used and the terms under which additional services, particularly loans, are being offered.
There are also questions about the levels of transparency, the comprehensiveness of coverage and the quality of information available. For universities who have not given permission for their brands to be used it may be time to consider whether the format and presentation is acceptable and they should certainly check the details given about them. Aggregators are using university names and logos as bait for students and then selling other services so it would be reasonable to take an assertive stance.
The overall impression is that Yocket started as a page allowing students to exchange information about universities and has become a business operating in one of the fastest growing student recruiting markets in the world. The founders have commented extensively on their desire to ensure a more accessible and better organized service for students than they believe many recruitment agents have offered. These are fine principles but operationalizing them probably requires more attention to detail than is currently evident on the site.
NOTES
1. *For those unfamiliar with popular music “Brass in Pocket” is a 1979 single by The Pretenders. Apparently, lead singer Chrissie Hynde overheard someone enquiring if anyone had, “Picked up dry cleaning? Any brass in pocket?” Brass is Northern English slang for money but is used idiomatically in several other ways including “brass neck” to mean showing a lot of nerve.
** Stupidsid.com started in February 2010 as a college review website with students’ opinions on colleges, courses and universities. It has developed to provide Study Resources (including solved question papers, university syllabuses and previous questions) and Knowledge Hub (claimed to be the “largest database of engineering-related information you’ll ever come across.”)
2. Searches were carried out on various browsers over the period from 13 to 17 May.
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay