Supporting students to overcome their fears with Community

There are a few moments in life when you realize everything is about to change. Maybe it’s signing the contract for a new job, or paying the deposit for your first home.

For thousands of students around the world, that moment often arrives in their inbox, when they get accepted to their university or college of choice. 

It’s a moment that triggers joy, pride, excitement. You only have to look at the viral online reactions of teenagers finding out they’ve been accepted into their dream school.

There’s smiles, shrieks, tears – as they realize their lives are about to change.

Student fears creates doubts

Without a doubt, recent events have propelled student well-being into the spotlight. Student anxiety and doubt are more prolific than ever – connectedness, belonging, confidence and friendship drive success.

For most, if not all of them, student fears will creep in.

Will I make friends?

Am I going to keep up? 

Can I afford this?

Will my room be OK?

And anxiety leads to doubts. 

Am I doing the right thing?

It’s a natural reaction to an enormous change. Whether it’s the new house, or the new job: we can’t help but have doubts and fears.

Related: The melt dilemma: what are Gen Z’s doubts all about?

But we know that, for many, student anxiety can build up and become overwhelming. 

For some young people, the higher education journey ends there and then. They decide their fears outweigh their hopes and abandon their place.

And who can blame them? There are a million and one things to worry about, and no amount of welcome brochures or induction courses or email flows can address it all. 

But so many people are missing out on the incredible opportunities that higher education brings because their college just couldn’t do enough to reassure them. You can’t help but feel they’ve been let down.

Related: What is Higher Ed Success? It Starts with Successful Student Recruitment

As higher ed professionals, you’ll know that you simply can’t provide the personalised reassurance every student wants – there isn’t enough time, there aren’t enough staff. So what can you do?

Going together, not alone, with Community

At Unibuddy, it’s a challenge we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. How do you scale reassurance and support? How can you give every single student the confidence to feel excited about going into higher ed? 

When I think about the times I’ve been nervous to take a step out of my comfort zone, I know what reassures me. It’s not being alone. Having people alongside me, taking the same steps. They might be just as scared or unsure, but I can trust that they’ll be by my side, and we’ll get through it together. 

Your students feel the same way. 

If they  could meet their classmates, roommates, even sports teammates… those on the same journey they’d feel less alone. They could put their heads together, support each other, get through the obstacles, overcome their fears. 

This is how we think about Community. It’s bringing together people who are on the same journey, and giving them the tools to go on it together. To feel less alone, less anxious, more confident, and more excited.

Related: How digital learning communities help prepare students for higher ed success

Unibuddy’s Community platform lets your incoming students come together and support one another – providing the reassurance and the support and the camaraderie that your existing channels can’t. 

This isn’t a trick for one stage of the funnel. It’s a total step-change in approach, that focuses on uniting students through their whole journey, giving them confidence and belonging from the get go. Not only does it improve conversion throughout the funnel, but this ongoing reassurance, student engagement and confidence results in better academic outcomes, too.

And Community does something else: it levels the playing field. Those young people who might be the first in their family to go to uni, or who don’t have access to the same support networks, or who are underrepresented in higher ed. Community gives them access to support and insight, giving them that leg-up that their peers might’ve enjoyed. 

Boosting enrollment at the University of Leicester

One person who has seen the impact first-hand is Elliot Newstead, Head of Student Recruitment at the University of Leicester. 

He saw how worried the incoming cohort were about accommodation. The newspaper headlines in the UK were shouting about a lack of rooms for students and a crisis in the rental sector. Couple this with all the usual fears about starting uni, and it’s no wonder they were worried.

A reassuring email wouldn’t have been enough to quell these concerns. But Elliot and the University of Leicester were believers in the power of Community, and had set up a virtual space – with Unibuddy – for students to connect with one another in dedicated channels. 

The accommodation group  shot up in membership – the incoming students were reassuring and supporting one another, finding roommates and reminding themselves that they weren’t in it alone. Meanwhile, University staff were on hand to set out the facts on accommodation. 

The result? Since using Unibuddy Community, the University of Leicester has seen a 23% increase in undergraduate enrollment compared to last year. Those are the students whose doubts would have stopped them from taking that big step, who are instead getting to enjoy the educational experiences they deserve. 

Learn more

On Thursday 2 February at 11am ET, I’ll be speaking with Elliot about our Community tool – and how it’s helped the University of Leicester reduce student anxiety. 

If you’d like to learn more about how they did it – and what Unibuddy could do for your institution – save your seat here. 

• Emma Froud, Head of Business Development (ROW), Unibuddy