Unibuddy enables prospective students to interact with your current students, allowing them to ask questions and develop a sense of connection with your university or college whilst they do their research.
What is Unibuddy?
Unibuddy is the peer-to-peer chat facility hosted on ucas.com.
It enables potential applicants to step into the shoes of your current students, gain an authentic feel for your university/college, and discover what life at your setting is really like - early in their research.
How does it work?
UCAS is the most recognised brand in the education sector and the first port of call when a student is considering higher education.
Each year, 1m+ people register with UCAS, providing an unrivalled pool of potential applicants who could make a direct personal connection with your university or college very early in their research, before they’ve attended an exhibition or open day.
UCAS is renowned as a go-to place for impartial student guidance, while peer-to-peer engagement offers an authentic source of information - so you can build trust and credibility with highly relevant potential applicants.
78% of prospective applicants want and expect to connect with university students during their search process.
Benefits of Unibuddy
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Give prospective students an inside view
Give prospective students an insider's view of what it's really like to study, live, and socialise at your university or college. Students like to chat via online messaging and communicating this way boosts confidence and empowers them to speak openly – let your best student ambassadors do the talking for you.
Through Unibuddy on UCAS, students receive trusted insights from your current students, in a familiar and supportive environment.
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Valuable engagements
Our student audience is higher up the decision-making funnel. We are driving new and valuable engagements with providers - engagements that potential applicants don't typically obtain through research on providers' websites alone.
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Join a seamless service to gain organic ROI
We help you sign up to our Unibuddy partnership quickly and easily.
You select current students who receive training from Unibuddy, and they will act as ambassadors for your university or college on ucas.com.
Plus, you’ll have the technology and moderation to ensure chats are appropriate.
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The data you need, the leads you want
With 84% of leads from ucas.com coming from first-time Unibuddy users, combining Unibuddy on UCAS with your own Unibuddy license delivers greater engagement and increases the likelihood of students choosing you.
Communicate, connect, convert
Gain valable insight into the student mindset
Understand what, when, and how students are making decsions throughout their application journey.
Get immediate access to student leads
Find out which students are interested in your institution and the courses you offer.
Maximise your presence on ucas.com
Don't miss out - position your instituion alongside competitors who are already leveraging Unibuddy
Work with your UCAS Customer Manager, or email educationservices@ucas.ac.uk to choose whichever package best suits your recruitment needs.
65% of students who chat with an ambassador convert into an application choice for that ambassador’s institution.
Discover and Discover Lite packages
With competition increasing, student expectations changing, retention rates declining, and economic uncertainty, student recruitment is more challenging than ever.
That's why accessing rich insight into the student mindset, along with relevant quality leads, is crucial.
To help you get the most out of our Unibuddy on ucas.com offering, we have two packages to suit your recruitment needs – Discover Lite and Discover.
Key benefits of these packages include:
- Searchable and filterbale ambassadors on ucas.com
- Downloadable leads
- Access to the data dashboard
- Contextually present ambassadors to students searching on popular pages of ucas.com
- Conversation, message, and engagement tracking
- Performance and insight reports
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Discover Lite
Discover Lite includes everything you need to get your started on the Unibuddy on ucas.com platform.
You can connect your current best advocates with potential prospects who could go on to become your future students.
Your own ambassadors will be hosted on the main Unibuddy platform on the ucas.com ‘Chat to uni students’ page and you will have full visibility of sign-up volumes.
Students will be able to filter and search for you ambassadors via subject of interest, university and domiciled country.
You’ll receive access to a data reporting dashboard, including conversation tracking, number of messages sent and number of students that have engaged with your ambassadors.
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Discover
The Discover package includes everything you’d get with Discover Lite but offers a more personalised way to connect with students and generate authentic, relevant leads.
As well as having your ambassadors on the main Unibuddy ‘Chat to uni students’ page, you can now benefit from increased exposure across ucas.com on pages like our subject, region, and city guides as well as many more.
Discover allows you to obtain direct and relevant leads by communicating with students via our new matching service.
Discover allows your ambassadors to be presented to students researching across popular pages on the site. Students and ambassadors are matched based on subject and university of interest, providing a more personalised experience for prospective students.
You’ll receive a detailed performance report as well as enhanced elements to your dashboard including instant access to the students who engage with your ambassadors.
This allows you to follow-up and nurture leads, providing a much clearer sense of ROI.
Let's talk Unibuddy
If you’d like to explore how Unibuddy can support your recruitment strategy or you’d like to arrange a demo, contact your Customer Manager or email
educationservices@ucas.ac.uk