Know anyone who would make a great Commercial Manager and want to be part of the fast-growing, Brighton-based team behind the phenomenon that is The Student Room?

They’d be responsible for our sales strategy and growing revenue through our sales partners. It’s a key role for us, so if you know anyone who might be interested please do encourage them to check out the job description and get in touch.

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So, recently we announced a new TSR intern, and he’s speaking to you now. That’s right, it’s me, Jonah Ramone, now just JR. Why I couldn’t have my own account to make this little blog? I don’t know, but hey ho.

It seems like a long time ago now that I found an announcement saying there was an internship available with TSR, the site that I’ve spent (read ‘wasted’) so much of my life on. I guess that’s because I kept waiting and waiting to be told I had been successful. I jest. After the inital application was sent of I was optimistic I must say, hoping that my knowledge of TSR would set me above other candidates, but my history on TSR could have served against me! :$ Anyway, a quick task, a phone interview, and ANOTHER task later, and I get a phone call when I’m lying in bed from the office’s very own J, telling me I’d been successful. Which I have to say was most excellent news. Finally I was going to make my post-graduation time count for something, and get some useful experience along the way.

I’ve been down in Brighton now for almost a week, and I think I’m just about settled. The guys in the office are all pretty cool (believe it or not) and they’re not working me too hard (just yet). They all seem really busy atm, and it’s quite eye-opening to realise just how much there is to do. They’re in an out of meetings all the time while I sit here with my two computers (that’s right, count them, one, two ). So far I’ve been looking over the academic forums and the wiki, correlating all the information that’s there, and working out what could be added in the very near future…

Those hawk eyed people among you may well have noticed a couple of threads I’ve started in the General Secondary Education forums as I look to get the userbase involved in the project. That makes my work easaier. You may also have noticed my announcement (I’m pretty proud of that I have to say) and my brand spanking short username, which seems to be getting more thumbs downs than ups, but at least I look like one of the gang. Almost. I need a red name but they won’t give it to me because I’m not cool enough. Actually it’s because I’m not a moderator so it would be naughty of me to have their privileges

Anyway, it’s a really good atmosphere, the guys all seem to have a great sense of comaraderie and have been very welcoming to me – they must be scared of my negative reputation power – but whatever the reason, I’ve enjoyed the first week and am looking forward to being involved in developing a lot more stuff on the site.

Not really sure what else needs to be said tbh, so I guess I’ll leave it at that and go and get CJ to read over this and to put it up. It’s been nice knowing you all. Just imagine I’m signing off with the sexface smiley which seems to be covering the forum atm. Great addition to the team. The smiley, not me.

So that’s the lot. Goodnight, New york! – Glen/JR

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Due to an impressive array of applicants, the time and thought taken over deciding our latest intern position was somewhat greater than we anticipated. In the end it came down to anonymously comparing tasks completed by the applicants, in which we ended up with a clear choice, incorporating their own writing style as well as suiting TSR’s needs.

Joining us in the office sometime later this week, is long term TSR’ian known to many users as ‘Jonah Ramone‘, or Glen to those that the Tetris wizard personally.

So watch out for Glen’s input on the site and wish him all the best. No doubt we’ll be updating the blog with his input as and when.

- CJ

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To mark the relaunch of The Student Room’s sister site Coursework.info TSR members can win a PSP GO and a years subscription to both sites!

Find out how to be in contention for the goodies

Coursework.info is THE definative resource for essays and coursework in the UK.

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Ever wondered which the most popular forums are on TSR? Well it varies depending on whats going on in any given month…

In total 641, 881 posts were made on TSR in August, schools, colleges and universities were on summer break and exam results came out. Below are the top 10 forums on TSR for August based upon posts made into those forums.

1st    Chat    96778 posts
2nd    Health and Relationships    63795
3rd    General Discussion    33599
4th    Fashion and Beauty    22395
5th    A-Levels, ASs, A2s, VCEs    21404
6th    Society Chat    18727
7th    Football    15917
8th    Clearing, Applications and UCAS    14028
9th    Medicine    12373
10th    Music    10430

Of course this top 10 is based on members posting, it doesn’t take into account Guests and Members ‘lurking’. We’ll cover which forums get the most views another time….

It’ll be interesting to see how things change next month when everyone goes back to school

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Following the summer internship undertaken by yours truly, we are pleased to announce the opportunity for another, more editorially orientated intern to work at our office in Brighton for approximately 3 months, from sometime in September.

We’re looking for anyone with an interest in writing for the web and managing web content, to be involved in the reworking of the TSR FAQ’s, developing a series of new site sections as well as some editorial content in the wiki. An ideal candidate would be a graduate, perhaps in journalism or a related field wishing to gain valuable experience. Although all applicants will be considered.

Also, as Acumen has a partnership with The Guardian, we would be able to offer some time to spend working with them, being involved and gaining insight into their web content areas at their HQ in London.

We will pay for your accommodation during the three months as well as a living allowance. Also, after having to house hunt for rooms myself I’m sure we’ll be able to lend a helping hand in finding a place to stay should you need it.

It should be a great experience and something that will look good on many a CV, as well as the general awesomeness that is Brighton and TSR HQ.

If you are interested or require more information, then get in touch by email at chris.mcnair@acumenpi.com with a CV and covering letter by mid-day, Monday 14th September.

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26.7% of A-level entries for England, Wales and Northern Ireland were awarded A grades yesterday just as records were also being broken on The Student Room…

Site traffic surged as students came to the site to share their result successes and to seek advice and support if their grades weren’t as hoped.

We received 206,844 visits, 1,456,919 page views and the average time on the site was 7:25 minutes

Best of all members made a whopping 32,000 posts yesterday!

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We’re very pleased to offer one candidate a full scholarship to do a masters qualification with BPP Business.

The closing date for applications is pretty tight – August 31st, so get applying!

Postgraduate Scholarship details

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So far, according to the SQA results thread

39% of scottish students did ‘Really really good’, 33% have done better than expected, but 11% did worse than expected

The trends could all change as more people post up their results, we hope if you’re getting results today that they exceed your expectations!

Official SQA discussion thread

Results day other courses

UCAS Track on results day

After results day

Clearing

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Members of TSR have created an excellent Guide to A Level results day it covers everything you need to consider on the big day of the 5th (Scotland) or 20th (rest of UK) of August.

Lots of TSR members have contributed to the guide over the years, Vazzyb, Juno, PQ and most recently Minerva updated it. Good luck on results day!

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The past few weeks have been interesting in TSR HQ. With the clearing content stuff having only just gone live, the build up continues to results day – August 20th.

In the background there have been other little projects going on, and a meeting with The Guardian helped to highlight what exactly the partnership would bring, with TSR due to make the most of quality content and The Guardian making use of specific traffic the site brings.

It was also decided that more could be made of useful resources on the site. An example being the Graduate Employer Profiles as previously mentioned in the blog. We employed recent English graduate and resident TSR’ian Jonah Ramone to fill in many of the blanks, and a sterling job he’s done  SEO work has also been looked at, meaning various types of TSR resources are easily found via Google and not just the general forum threads, some of which are more colourful than others!

Another meeting was had with the Commissioning Editor of Channel 4 education, to get a feel for whether a potential partnership could benefit non-profit campaigns aimed at young people. Although early days, there most certainly seemed a crossover and one that could potentially bring great benefit to the users of the site. So watch that space.

Channel 4 HQ - Umbrella Logo

The testing on the vB3.8 has also gone really well. At the end of last week a document was built up consisting of testers comments, suggestions and finds. These will be discussed in about 10 mins time, along with some suggestions from mod’s and their requirements that need a bit of dev’ time. I’ll hopefully get round to updating the testing team and thanking those that have tested to date. All very much appreciated (and I hope you come back for more when we have it!). Feedback regarding new features has also been really positive, so fingers crossed this is representative of TSR in general…

And finally, a little while ago members were asked for their input into moderator nominations. Since these closed, people have been working closely behind the scenes to get discussion going regarding bringing in new mods, and we’re pleased to say these will start being announced in the very near future. So keep your eyes peeled in About, and welcome the new guys in (just  before the busiest time of the year!!).

Until next time, you stay classy TSR

-CJ

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If you’re an A-level student in Scotland you’ll be getting your results this week on the 5th, for the rest of the UK results will be landing on the 20th of August. Good luck to everyone!!

In preparation we’ve launched our annual ‘Results & Clearing‘ section on the site to help out those that perhaps didn’t get the grades they expected. The section has our  Introduction to clearing and Guide to clearing as well as an updated Clearing directory for those looking to contact universities. Several TSR members who went through clearing themselves have posted their experiences of clearing into the wiki, anyone else that wants to, please edit the page and add your experiences also.

Finally we have a number of clearing advisors from top universities that will be on the site for the next few weeks in the Applications and UCAS forum giving impartial advice to members, say hi if you see them on the site:

Alan from Aberdeen university
De Montford university
Hertfordshire university

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We’ve had a growing postgraduate community on TSR for some time – Postgraduate forum

So a few months ago we did some research among all TSR users to find out how interested in postgraduate study and resources they are.

Of the 830 people that filled it in…

• 88% said they we interested or were possibly interested in persuing postgraduate study

• 82% said they’d like more information about postgraduate study
• The subjects faculty areas people were most interested in were:
• -  Science and Engineers – 40%
  - Arts, humanities and languages – 29.7%
  - Social sciences – 21.3%
  - Business, finance and management – 18.8%
  - Education and teaching – 16.3%
  - Law – 14.2%

As a result of this research we’ve launched a new postgraduate study section at the top of the site. It brings together the articles that postgraduate students on TSR have written giving tips and advice to others considering a postgrad qualification of some sort. It incorporates the postgrad forum, postgraduate study tips, postgraduate personal statement tips and other shared experiences. The resource launched this weekend and will be growing and evolving over time, if you have suggestions or want to get involved please post comments here or into the postgrad forum with ideas.

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