2024 2025 2023 6% 6% 5% 20% 19% 19% 26% 27% 29% 14% 14% 16% 25% 9% 10% 6% 25% 26% Figure 8: How often do you feel lonely? 2023-2025 All the time Most of the time At least once a week At least once a month Only rarely Never Loneliness Overall, international applicants are less likely to be lonely compared to UK applicants, 28% of whom feel lonely all or most of the time. Chinese applicants are most likely to say they are never lonely (34%), which may be due to cultural factors. Similar to 2024, loneliness is also linked to socioeconomic background, with 35% of applicants who qualified for free school meals being lonely all or most of the time. Sexuality and gender identity also has an impact: almost half of trans and non-binary applicants (47%) are lonely most or all of the time. Furthermore, around half of all applicants with a mental health condition (49%) feel lonely all or most of the time. This year, we invited applicants to comment on the reason for their loneliness and used sentiment analysis to identify recurring themes. This chart sets out the number of comments linked to each theme, providing a snapshot of the most common reasons given for loneliness. International applicants mentioned reasons relating to missing family, or not being understood, suggesting that it was linked to studying away from home prior to university. UK domiciled applicants were more likely to mention a lack of friends, and too much time spent indoors. However, overall there was a remarkable consistency in the themes raised by applicants regardless of their nationality. Being affected by mental health conditions, family issues including past trauma, and not being understood or difficulty relating to others were common themes. THEMATIC ANALYSIS FINANCE Figure 9: Sentiment analysis of “Why do you feel lonely?” (number of comments) Lack of support 170 163 Few / No friends 82 Feeling misunderstood / Not fitting in 65 Negative / Disordered thoughts 53 Struggle being by myself 47 Miss family 45 Distant / Poor friends 36 Isolating self / Difficulty opening up to others Unite Students | Applicant Index Report 17 BACK TO THEMES INTRODUCTION THEMATIC ANALYSIS SOCIAL METHODOLOGY TOPICAL ISSUES