Using AI to transform university admissions processes
While human insights remain central to university admissions, AI can provide valuable support to enrolment teams. Speaking at the 2025 THE Digital Universities US event, Ashish Fernando, founder and CEO of EDMO, highlighted the urgent need for universities to find alternative ways to engage with prospective students. He emphasised it as a necessity in the face of headwinds such as financial challenges, demographic shifts and the looming enrolment cliff.
During the panel discussion, titled “Beyond the hype: how AI is quietly revolutionising enrolment at scale”, he said: “The important thing to understand is that today’s student is not your traditional student. If they don’t get personalised attention within the first few seconds of interacting with your institution, you could lose that lead. That is where you have to think beyond traditional human-driven approaches.”
EDMO offers AI-driven solutions that help institutions simplify their admissions processes. It supports universities with personalised messaging for prospective students and document processing and analysis to fast-track admissions. “It’s about meeting your customer or the student where they are today,” Fernando said.
The traditional enrolment process, which takes several months, does not resonate well with students nowadays as they’re accustomed to faster and more modern customer service, said David Morales, chief information officer and senior vice-president of technology at Western Governors University (WGU) in Utah.
WGU is looking at how AI can optimise the digital student enrolment journey. “We understand that AI is an enabler,” Morales said. “Through AI, we can enhance self-service capabilities for our students. We can start creating probabilistic models that will enable our students to better understand what’s in the future for them. We understand how to make decisions based on data faster and we are capable of providing services to those students who may not be traditional.”
Darren Upham, senior vice-president of enrolment and outreach at National University in California, spoke about using AI to reduce transcript evaluation time from hours to minutes, enabling students to receive real-time updates. “Students want an e-commerce experience. Speed is quality in our environment because of that,” he said.
“We want to set up our students for success in the beginning,” Upham said. Once students enrol, they are often overwhelmed with information packets. With automation, students are given a clear stream of information that explains the next steps and what’s required of them. “We’ve set it up so that it’s accurate and timely. Once they hit a certain step, they’re able to get that automated communication.”
Upham highlighted the benefits of AI for enrolment advisors, including streamlined workflows, better use of time and improved student engagement. “Everybody wants improved conversion. We’re all asked to do more with less every single year,” Upham said. “But with the right technology in the right place, we’re now seeing improvement in conversion.”
The panel:
- Ashish Fernando, founder and CEO, EDMO
- David Morales, chief information officer and senior vice-president of technology, Western Governors University
- Darren Upham, senior vice-president of enrolment and outreach, National University
Find out more about EDMO.
