Admissions offices are slowly integrating generative AI into their toolboxes to manage ballooning application pools while also easing staff burnout and other workload issues.
The pandemic and this year’s botched FAFSA rollout exacerbated admissions teams’ challenges. But the runaway growth of application pools is a fundamental issue many institutions also now face. “As the surface area of an admissions officer’s job has doubled, tripled or quadrupled over the last 20 years, it isn’t the case that universities have brought on four times as many admissions officers or enrollment office staff members to help with that load,” says Vinay Bhaskara, co-founder of CollegeVine and a former private college counselor for high school students.
Common App applications have risen over the past decade, and colleges can now reach more prospective students through high-touch digital marketing campaigns. While this has increased students’ exposure to more schools, it has also required institutions to respond to more applicants via instant messaging, email and other communication outlets.
Students with a deeper awareness of the higher education landscape are also more likely to ask about affordability and other more detailed matters. Post-pandemic high school students are especially keen to ask about mental health services, says Nathan Ament, vice president for enrollment and dean of admission at Knox College.
“It’s an overwhelming industry and process, but it’s all about people and relationships,” he says. “The one thing that hasn’t changed is our industry is built on relationship building and relationship maintenance.”
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Ament is looking forward to employing CollegeVine‘s AI Recruiter, an AI-based admissions assistant, that can shave off admissions teams’ workload at the top of the funnel. Beginning this fall semester, the service will pair one-on-one with prospective students to guide them through what a Knox education has to offer and assist them with getting forms submitted in time for a scholarship deadline or financial aid applications. It can provide information about Knox’s different departments, such as its athletics program, academics and study abroad programs, across video calls and messaging.
Ament hopes the service will help the admissions team preserve time and energy for the highest-impact work, such as assisting with paperwork complexities and ensuring the most promising applicants are receiving the kind of help they need to ensure they enroll. “In a competitive marketplace, I don’t want to be a year behind if other competitors are leveraging [AI] or teaching the tool about their college.”
South Carolina State University used AI this past fall to build a customer support system that handled nearly 12,000 inquiries from current and incoming students in eight months. By doing “more with less,” the HBCU welcomed its largest class of the past five years and scored a 32% enrollment uptick from the year prior.
CollegeVine expects nearly 100 schools to enroll by the end of the month, Bhaskara says. “Twenty-five years ago, the way that students learned about universities and the job that admissions officers were asked to do looks night and day [compared to] what they’re asked to do today.”
Why some teams may turn a cold shoulder to AI
Despite the huge upswing of this innovative technology, many enrollment management teams are reporting underuse. Paul Dieken, director of financial aid at Pomona College, notes that his office has yet to implement any AI technology due to the college’s sub-2,000-student scale. “Having an AI-based product that can answer questions and reduce the workload would be a game-changer,” he said in an email. “But for my small college, I wouldn’t be able to justify that expense.”
Dieken is also concerned about students potentially distrusting a bot responsible for providing accurate information regarding their forms. In the case of Knox, however, CollegeVine’s AI Recuirter has spent the past few weeks “learning” about the institution by analyzing the college’s website and all public-facing documents. Admissions staff are also training it through role-play: The AI calls as a prospective student asking staff questions about Knox, and it takes notes of their responses. Moreover, CollegeVine employs multiple AIs at once: one to assist the student, another to fact-check and one more to evaluate whether the question being asked is within the bot’s standardized parameters to answer.
But at the end of the day, Ament was able to win over support from senior leadership because of his stress in the bot’s role as a supplemental technology rather than a replacement. “I’ve gotten a couple of comments about what they find very interesting, and they’re proud that we’re helping pioneer this and being innovative.”
