Engaging first-gen students at USC Dornsife
Challenge: Connect prospective students to student ambassadors outside in-person events
The team at University of Southern California (USC) Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences was looking to reach more prospective students. They wanted the ability to enable connections with prospective students at-scale and outside traditional in-person events.
Prior to adopting Unibuddy, email was the main channel for prospective students to connect with Dornsife’s team of student ambassadors. The school recognized this was not ideal and wanted additional ways for prospective students to “find their people” and connect with the right ambassadors in a seamless manner.
Solution: Leverage Unibuddy to help connect prospective students with the right student ambassadors
USC Dornsife decided to use Unibuddy to help connect more prospective students with student ambassadors.
“Unibuddy Chat was a really effective way to take all of the disparate avenues for prospective students to chat with current students, and just funnel them into one place that was intuitive,” said Mark Kveton, Senior Assistant Director of Admission and Student Success at USC Dornsife.
Dornsife liked the light user experience of Unibuddy which made it easy for their team of student ambassadors to adopt. Through custom filters available through Unibuddy Chat, students could be directed to an appropriate student ambassador according to their hometown, whether they were a transfer student, a freshman, spring admit, or a first-generation student. With a team of 80 ambassadors (and counting) these customizable filters were a major convincing point for Dornsife.
“Unibuddy checked a lot of boxes for us around accessibility, as well as being just a really user-friendly interface,” said Kveton, noting that USC Dornsife continues to leverage the power of Unibuddy Chat to meet students where they are and foster peer-to-peer connection at scale.
“It’s a simple yet elegant answer to a problem that we had. Our current students wanted to be helpful to seniors in high school, who also wanted to get in touch with current student ambassadors. This used to require a form and many steps, and Unibuddy completely removes all of that. It puts the onus on the student rather than staff. Students just have a way of relating to each other that’s very honest and clear.” – Jessica Castaldi, Assistant Director of Admission and Student Success, USC Dornsife
Results: Unibuddy enabled prospective students to connect with student ambassadors from their community
The customizable nature of Unibuddy Chat enabled students to find and connect with student ambassadors from their community. The platform, for example, helped connect Dornsife’s 17 first-generation student ambassadors with the 22% of prospective students who indicated they too were first-generation higher ed applicants. This helped create a sense of belonging among those who they engaged in chats with.
“First-gen students are asking questions about the transition to college, what the move was like and what resources are available. So, they can directly talk to a student who’s utilized those resources, who can speak to what they found useful, someone who’s been in their shoes,” said Kveton.
Use Cases
USC Dornsife wanted to reach more prospective students outside on-campus events – and connect them with relevant student ambassadors.
Results
USC Dornsife used Unibuddy to help prospective students start conversations with the right student ambassadors at-scale, helping to create a strong environment of belonging.