The purpose of this study was to determine factors that influenced decisions of undergraduate
students’ choice of a university to study at. Botho University was used as a case study. Studies
show that universities are currently confronted with both the decrease in student enrolments
and high competition for those students between institutions. As a result of these twin
challenges, it is of critical importance that factors that influence students’ choices of
universities are investigated to enable effective planning of student recruitment strategies. The
study employed a descriptive survey design that employed a structured questionnaire for data
collection. Simple random sampling procedure was used to select a sample of 300 participants
from a population of 1240 Botho University undergraduate students. Collected data was
analysed using SPSS version 22. Results of the study showed that factors that include academic
programmes offered, image and reputation of the institution, advertising, career fairs, quality
of staff, employment prospects of graduates from the institution had a very high influence on
the decision by students to choose Botho University as an institution to study at. Factors such
as tuition fees, chance of getting scholarships and campus visits did not have a very high
influence.