Chevening
An application and selection platform for a global scholarship programme, replacing a system that had run out of room.
The problem
Chevening came to us through their design partner, Webb & Webb. The existing site could not carry what the programme had become: an annual intake of thousands of applications, each one read, scored and moved through several rounds by assessors working to a fixed calendar.
Everything that mattered happened after submission, and almost none of it was supported. The application form was the visible part of a process that ran on exports, spreadsheets and email.
What we had to solve
Volume without a queue
Thousands of applications arrived in a matter of weeks. Assessors needed a work queue that assigned itself, tracked progress and could be rebalanced when someone fell behind, rather than a shared folder and a naming convention.
Scoring that had to be defensible
Selection decisions affect people's lives and get questioned. Every score, comment and change of status needed an author and a timestamp, held in one place and readable years later.
Applicants on any connection
Candidates apply from everywhere, on whatever device and bandwidth they have. A long form had to save reliably, survive a dropped connection and be finishable across several sittings.
A calendar that cannot slip
The programme runs to published dates. Rounds open and close on time, which meant load at deadline was a design constraint rather than an operational hope.
What we built
One platform holding the public site, the application, the assessment workflow and the reporting, with a single record per candidate running through all of it. The content side stayed in the hands of the programme team; the workflow side was built around the assessors' actual sequence of work.
Webb & Webb led the design of the public-facing experience. Our work was the architecture beneath it and the interfaces nobody outside the organisation ever sees, which is where most of the hours went.
Application, documents, scores and correspondence in one place, from first visit to final decision.
Work distributed by round and criteria, with progress visible to the programme team as it happens.
Every action attributed and timestamped, so a decision can be explained long after it was made.
Programme staff open and close rounds, change guidance and publish updates themselves.
The outcome
The programme runs its own cycle. Rounds open and close to the published calendar, assessors work in one system, and the reporting the team needs comes out of the platform rather than out of a spreadsheet someone maintains.
Ask the client for a quote and two or three measurable results to sit here — application completion rate, assessment turnaround, or hours saved per round.
A sentence from the programme team about what changed for them.
Got a process like this?
Applications, assessments, panels and deadlines. Thirty minutes on the phone is usually enough to tell you whether it is a six month job.
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