7 UNITE STUDENTS | APPLICANT INDEX REPORT | 2023 About a quarter (24%) of applicants are lonely most or all of the time, and this figure is similar to the level of loneliness among students (26%) according to the 2023 Advance HE/HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey. This suggests that going to university neither worsens nor improves loneliness within the cohort as a whole, though individual applicants may find themselves more or less lonely at university. In fact, a demographic breakdown suggests some students are more likely to be lonely after going to university (Black students, Trans students) and others experience a decrease in loneliness (students with a disability or health condition). A new finding for this year is that a third of applicants are going to university with a history of missing education due to their mental health, and this proportion is higher still among LGBTQ+ applicants. Not all of those who missed school for their mental health consider themselves to have a mental health condition. While it was most common to miss a week or less, 1 in 14 of all applicants had missed over 20 days of school because of their mental health. Most applicants from the UK will have had some kind of personal, social and health education from their school or college, but under two-thirds rated this as excellent or good. Applicants with mental health conditions and LGBTQ+ applicants tend to be more negative about how well it has prepared them. Nonetheless, applicants are open to schools and colleges sharing personal data about their health and wellbeing with universities as part of the application process, with around four in five comfortable with at least some of this information being shared. And yet applicants themselves are cautious about sharing data with universities. Only 58% of LGB+ applicants had shared this information as part of the application process, which has implications for the validity of national data as well as individual institutions and students. Just over half of applicants with a disability or health condition have told their university already, but 18% do not intend to share this information at all, potentially depriving them of reasonable adjustments and support. The only index theme that has seen a decrease in score since last year is Sustainability. Applicants this year are more likely to have been careful about their use of electricity and water, probably due to pressure from hard-pressed parents, but less likely to recycle or to have made sacrifices in order to live more sustainably. A factor may be their perceived lack of agency – just over half believe that their actions have an impact on climate change.