NYU Tandon School of Engineering increases likelihood to enroll by 85% with Unibuddy

At the 2022 NAFSA Conference (National Association of Foreign Student Advisers), New York University Tandon School of Engineering’s Senior Assistant Director of Graduate Enrollment Management & Admissions Cory Cottingim presented results that he and his team had seen from the school’s Unibuddy implementation.

The challenge

NYU Tandon wanted to be able to engage students digitally in a way that they couldn’t through traditional methods of outreach. They already had a program for advocates whom they called “Global Outreach Ambassadors,” made up of current international students who made themselves available to chat with prospective graduate students from their home country or region.

NYU Tandon held events across the world, bringing these ambassadors to the prospective students, but the pandemic deterred these efforts in 2020. NYU Tandon then sought the ability to reach these students remotely to provide them with the personalized connections that they had been finding so impactful. 

The solution

NYU Tandon decided to integrate Unibuddy Chat into its admitted and prospective student webpages, communications, campaigns, virtual university profiles, and more. Even now that we are past the pandemic, NYU Tandon continues using Unibuddy Chat to connect Tandon ambassadors with prospective graduate engineering students across the globe.

Tandon Unibuddy Ambassadors are selected from each academic program across each year of study. The school aims for a diverse group comprised of students from different regions, ethnicities, languages, and gender identities.

Ambassadors are trained on best practices for platform usage, common admissions questions and resources for connecting admits and prospects with more info. They agree to a maximum of 5 hours per week, responding to messages within 24 hours from Monday through Friday. As compensation for their work, ambassadors are provided scholarships each semester.

The main focus of Tandon Unibuddy Ambassadors is to share their student experience and allow prospective students to gain insights that help them determine their fit. In this way, the platform is a supplement to, and not a replacement for, existing university resources and programs.

The results

Because the Unibuddy platform is integrated with their CRM Slate, NYU Tandon is able to create records and track the interactions that take place, easing up the process of lead and data collection for the team.

Cottingim reported a reduction in inbox inquiries for FAQs, and highlighted that the platform is a standing resource for prospective students to speak to a current student from their program or region.

He also found measurable improvement in application and enrollment rates for prospective students and admits, respectively, and that the platform drove additional organic lead collection.

For Unibuddy platform users, 39% of admits enrolled as opposed to the 21% of admits who enrolled but did not sign up with Unibuddy. This means that there was an 85% increase in the rate of enrollment with Unibuddy.

Additionally, 16% of admitted Unibuddy platform users deposited, while only 12% of non-user admits did.