Fordham Gabelli School of Business Unlocks Student Insights with Unibuddy

Challenge: boosting conversion through personalization in a digital landscape

Understanding how graduate students think and feel are key elements in tailoring their academic journey, and ultimately helping them choose which program to attend. Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business is widely recognized for delivering a transformative educational experience, shaping grad students into accomplished business leaders. Focused on enhancing the student experience and fostering funnel growth, Christina Sakowski, Associate Director set her sights on a significant initiative. This involved the re-launch of their student ambassador program, a project currently spearheaded by Assistant Director, Tenzin Palkyi. 

Fordham University Gabelli School of Business had been using student ambassadors to a small extent, primarily relying on email to reach prospective students. However, they found email quite unreliable, lacking clarity into their audience. “A significant portion of our engagement was through emails and virtual campus tours. There was occasional outreach from student ambassadors, followed by arranging a one-on-one call. We would also provide a physical handout featuring various ambassadors and their backgrounds, but all these efforts lacked insights into our grad student population, leaving us without a dependable source to better understand or nurture these individuals,” Sakowski shares. 

Sakowski and her team recognized the need for a digital transition and a streamlined way to track and engage students, “prioritizing virtual connections and getting to know our students at scale became a key focus for us.” As a result, Fordham University Gabelli School of Business set out to find a tool that could serve as a bridge between prospective and current grad students, while simultaneously providing insights and analytics on the backend

Solution: comprehensive student insights and analytics

Unibuddy was introduced to Sakowski by her Senior Assistant Dean, who was aware of other Fordham grad schools already benefiting from the platform. Together, they delved into research on various peer-to-peer platforms, asking themselves questions like “What’s the best fit for our business school?” and “How does it compare in terms of features, pricing, and offerings?” Ultimately, they concluded that Unibuddy had exactly what they were looking for. Sakowski highlights, “What really impressed me was the presence of ambassador profiles, the user experience was straightforward, and Unibuddy provided more insights into students than other platforms could offer.”

During that period, there were significant cuts to travel and recruitment budgets. “We weren’t physically travelling as we used to be, which in turn, worked in our favour for budgeting and adopting Unibuddy.” So when it came time to onboard, the process was described as easy and straightforward, with Sakowski receiving helpful documents and support from the Unibuddy team. “It was essentially a matter of copying and pasting; once I had all the ambassadors inputted and access to the backend, it ran really smoothly.”

Result: optimizing pipeline by tailoring the student experience

Following three successful years with Unibuddy, Sakowski and Palkyi decided to elevate their experience by upgrading to the premium plus package. This decision aimed to deepen their understanding of grad students and further enhance and personalize the student journey with more precise insights. Palkyi highlights, “What really convinced me was the analytics. The insights into conversations and understanding their position in the funnel offered us incredible value.”

Sakowski and Palkyi highlight that Unibuddy serves as a guiding beacon, effectively showcasing student data to faculty, staff, and other stakeholders. The platform allows them to draw insights that can be easily shared with senior leaders on their teams, helping them further strategize and plan for future recruitment and enrollment. Sakowski explains, “we can see the topics students are engaging with, we can see the questions they’re asking our ambassadors and we have it all documented. It’s like having a direct source into their thought processes.” Palkyi adds, “requesting information from prospective students and conducting endless surveys can be overwhelming for them and more work for me, so we use the analytics side of Unibuddy to get a non-intrusive peek into the prospective student body.”

Since implementing Unibuddy, Fordham’s graduate ambassador program has flourished, expanding beyond admissions efforts to also include academic advising and student success offices. Palkyi‘s mission to grow and better support ambassadors has been especially successful with the help of Unibuddy’s funnel stage data. “We can provide our ambassadors and advising offices with insights into where each student is as in their journey, whether they’ve just started their application, been admitted, in the waiting phase or have officially enrolled. It helps our ambassadors guide the conversation in a specific way and get better results.” As a key indication of this, for every 20 students who have chatted on Unibuddy, twelve have progressed in Fordham’s pipeline. 

“We’ve witnessed instances where students express, ‘The reason I chose a grad program at Gabelli is because I connected with a student ambassador on Unibuddy, and it made me feel like there was a place for me.’ That, in itself, is the true return on investment,” says Palkyi. Moreover, Palkyi has received requests from students to become ambassadors because they used Unibuddy as applicants themselves. “It’s heartening to hear they want to be part of the program due to their positive experiences, and that’s all thanks to Unibuddy.”