Unibuddy Community drives admitted student engagement at Imperial College Business School

Challenge

Imperial College Business School, renowned for inspiring brilliant minds to be the world’s future leaders of business and society, annually recruits an impressive 2,500 students across more than 20 competitive business school programs, including four MBA programs, 15 MSc programs, and a brand new pioneering undergraduate program. Committed to delivering a seamless and captivating student experience, the admissions team is focused on engaging their admitted students in a creative, meaningful and scalable way.

Like many institutions globally, Imperial College Business School has seen a recent drop in application numbers over the last year and faces the perennial issue of last-minute drop-outs among their admitted students. “There hasn’t been an officially established system in place that focuses solely on engaging and nurturing students between the offer acceptance and program enrollment stages,” says Ollie Waite, Candidate Experience Manager at Imperial College Business School. The team tried many different ways to engage students, such as Facebook and LinkedIn groups, but, as Waite puts it, “The engagement on these platforms dropped significantly over the last few years.” With the team working across such a diverse portfolio of programs with thousands of students, they recognized the need for a scalable method to engage with admitted students while ensuring a personalized approach.

Solution

Imperial College Business School was naturally drawn to the ability to keep students connected and engaged using one platform that spanned the entire recruitment and admissions pipeline. “We were aware of the issues we needed to address, and conversations with our Executive Director of Marketing, Recruitment & Admissions and Associate Dean of Education were already underway to discuss how we can more effectively engage with our admits using new technology like Community.” In fact, Waite’s role was created specifically to focus on this critical part of the student journey.

Unibuddy’s familiarity with students, existing ambassadors and staff using the platform made it an easy decision for him and his team. “It’s easy, you’ve already got ambassadors set up on the chat platform, bringing them onto Unibuddy Community takes mere seconds.” 

A highlight for Waite was the ease and speed of setting up Community. “I did my prep, got the group names ready and set it up in less than a day,” shares Waite. Unibuddy Community is providing students like those coming to study at Imperial College Business School the space to network with their peers and connect on a deeper level, increasing their confidence as a result.

A notable part of Waite’s communication and engagement strategy is the introduction of gamification into their recruitment pipeline. As admitted students progress along their journey to business school, they unlock a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), in the form of commemorative digital badges, by completing essential tasks, attending certain events, or interacting with various higher ed teams. “We are excited to be pioneering this kind of technology-driven engagement strategy,” says Waite, adding that he hopes one day to see NFT wallets displayed on CVs to further demonstrate a person’s achievements.  

Results

In just three months, Waite and his team have seen nearly 1,000 student sign-ups on their Unibuddy Community app – resulting in 14,000 messages exchanged. “We’ve never seen this level of engagement,” says Waite. “Not even on LinkedIn or Facebook Groups.”

“With Unibuddy Community, our enrollment rate has skyrocketed. 82% of students who used the platform went on to enrol, making it a far more effective tool than anything else we’ve tried,” says Waite. “Community has played a pivotal role in this result by enabling meaningful connections between students and giving them the confidence to join us at Imperial.”

Community analytics continue to help Waite and his team understand which groups are the most popular throughout the year to help support planning for future student intakes. “We can see that the majority of students are direct messaging with one another,” says Waite. “Getting to know each other creates excitement to know they’ll be studying with such brilliant minds. Seeing this happen in real-time with limited work needed from us is a huge success.” 

A popular group in their Community this year has been the ‘Accommodation & Find a Housemate’ group. “We had one student create a spreadsheet for people who were looking for accommodation in London to help them buddy up and make those connections based on their interests and personalities, which was really nice to see.”

“Unibuddy Community has transformed the way our admitted students connect and engage with each other and our team. Using the platform has helped alleviate their anxieties and helped create a supportive environment for students to hit the ground running when they start their programs. Unibuddy has become an important partner in the enrollment journey, significantly enhancing how we engage with candidates pre and post-application” – Aram Karakashian, Executive Director of Marketing, Recruitment & Admissions.