AI and Push Learning for Student Guidance and Advisory

It’s true. The stress and confusion surrounding applying to college is real. Yes information is more easily accessible, the resources exist, but the shift to digital didn’t change much of how the admissions systems, processes and registration work.
The issue is compounded when you realize that nationwide there is a 500:1 counselor to student ratio, postsecondary institutions spend $7 billion on admissions systems, while 15% of admitted students are not matriculating.

One solution is being led by AdmitHub, creators of Oli.
Oli is a chatbot that combines artificial intelligence with human experts to provide college guidance. This SMS push admissions and guidance platform for colleges and universities provides students with anywhere anytime support with machine learning that improves performance over time. The essential goal of the platform is to nudge students to progress through the admissions process according to a timeline.
This bot is a game changer for colleges in guiding their prospects and admitted students on the path to and through college. With support from Oli, repetitive admissions tasks are avoided, as it engages students at scale with deep insights into student populations and preferences. Colleges and universities like Smith, TCU, Suffolk and CUNY have already partnered with AdmitHub.
Here is an example of the custom “Pounce” Bot offering for Georgia State that is used to send reminders, field FAQs and gather information.

While technologies like this are changing how colleges and universities engage and retain students, the real need is to bring Oli to high school guidance systems.
High school can be a confusing time with increasing options for students due to the rapid expansion of digital learning. eAdvisory that meets students and Smart Parents where they are needs to be the spine of the next generation high school. Sustained guidance can help students navigate decisions.
In high schools, the shuffle of a discipline-based, big-catalog master schedule can lead to a lack of sustained relationships. Important outcomes get little attention with the lack of an advisory spine.
For high schools, next-gen advisory technology will coordinate functions such as:

• Academic monitoring and counseling with daily or weekly progress reports that facilitate conversations with face-to-face advising
• Homework help that includes online support
• Developing self direction that promotes character development and habits of self management that are reinforced with curriculum and productivity tracking
• Academic mindset and culture building
• College awareness, application and admissions support
• Transcript management and course selection guidance that helps students build a thoughtful path and a collection of personal bests
• Career awareness of available options that are local and correlate to student passions
• Connection to community services that refer students to opportunities in their local community

When we asked AdmitHub Co-Founder and CEO Drew Magliozzi about the application of Oli in high schools he said:

We definitely have an eye toward WeChat and WhatsApp as platforms for our chatbot in the future, but that’s not likely until additional funding. As for high schools, we already offer counselors a dashboard they can use to track their students for free.

High school students and educators deserve platforms that learn and adapt to the needs of students, while pushing information that is timely relevant and useful.
For more, check out:

• The Role Of Advisory In Personalizing The Secondary Experience
• Push Learning: How Smart Notifications Will Change Education
• 8 Ways Machine Learning Will Improve Education