Through the Covid19 pandemic there has been a greater emphasis on how new student entrants meet others and build friendships in the critical formative weeks of their new university life. 

Connections made in an informal context in those few weeks before and after enrolment are vital to new students as it’s often during this period that lasting interpersonal relationships are formed.

Those applicants given the opportunity to develop connections and friendships have:

• An increased sense of belonging to the university

• Increased student satisfaction

• Better engagement with the institution

This is particularly important during the first year of study when most decisions to drop out are made.

Applicants need to find, connect and interact with peers to know that they belong and that they are valued members of the university community, even prior to enrolment.

Alongside the virtual events you’re already running, create a readily accessible real-time messaging service, an ‘always on’ digital platform where applicants can informally chat and connect.

This can take the form of an app, an existing social network, a simple forum plugin, or a page on your website.  It can be cheap (or free) and quick to set up, but tricky to get right.  

Here’s some advice, things that we’ve learnt over that past 5 years of building and maintaining engaging pre-enrolment and early student communities: 

1. Decide on purpose - be clear in the purpose of your applicant community spaces. Is it a place to form connections, get answers to process question, arrange events etc.

2. Get the tone right - you decide the formality of the digital space, just as you would in physical meetup.  Explain what the aim of the community is to users, let them know how they can get the most out of engaging with it. Remember, the community is not a marketing tool, the power and authenticity of the connections being made will naturally positively impact on conversion, retention and student experience. 

3. Transformational, not transactional - you’re giving applicants the opportunity to build lasting connections and relationships, a support network that will stay with them throughout their degree and beyond.  While some discussions will veer toward the transactional, focus your energy on creating authentic interactions and genuine engagement.

4. Areas of commonality - bring users together based around their connectedness.  We’ve had success linking applicants, current students and alumni up based on their study programme, where they’re from and their social interests.  Create discussions/chats that allow those with commonality to find and connect with one another.

5. Moderation and analytics - does your chosen platform have this functionality included?  The platform should be self moderating as far as possible.  In terms of analytics, decide what metrics you want to measure (user engagement, last active, no. of interactions etc.)

6. Unlock more value - by adding additional teams and faculties to the platform, applicants will have access to a deeper pool of connections.

7. Peer promotion - is so powerful. Including current students and alumni in the community will have a profound impact on applicants and their decision making. It’s also a tremendous opportunity to produce impactful content.

8. No integrations - integrating with current university systems slows execution and creates user experience issues. If you need to authenticate users build in access constraints that enable the right folk to access.