Making the Application Process Personal
A central place for prospective students to start the application process, learn about activities and monitor their status.
Rebuilding MyRoc
The college admission process can be an incredibly stressful time for applicants. In 2016, the University of Rochester Office of Admissions faced the challenge of easing that stress by rebuilding its application portal to serve over 17,000 new applicants every year. We worked with their team to strategize and design a new MyRoc for applicants to easily submit application materials, register for events, schedule a campus visitor interview, and check their application status.
Class of 2020
Applicants need a clear and concise overview of their advancement through the application process. So, we learned first everything prospective undergraduate, international and transfer students need to know about applying to the University of Rochester. Together with the Admissions team, we identified how to best communicate essential information on each applicant’s progress within distinct and flexible content panels. Our focus was to increase and maintain students' engagement with the university and continuously move them closer to enrollment.
Features
For students, the time between submitting an application and receiving a response can be long and nerve-racking. We designed a way for Admissions to continuously engage with applicants by promoting events, scheduling interviews, and providing updates to the status of each application. An interactive checklist for applicants gives them peace of mind that the necessary materials they uploaded have been received and are currently under review.
Event calendar
The University of Rochester hosts a number of events on and off campus for applicants to attend throughout the year. We designed an interactive calendar to help applicants register for these events, see deadlines and plan for their future. Beyond tracking their application status, prospective students also can join the Hive to interact with other applicants and share their story.
The grid
A responsive web platform such as MyRoc requires flexible layouts to be designed for development across all digital devices. Behind the scenes, an 8-pixel grid system was the foundation for all page layouts and provided structure for the size and placement of elements within them.
Design guidelines
The official University of Rochester colors are “Rochester” blue and “dandelion” yellow. We worked within their existing branding guidelines to ensure consistency across existing Admissions webpages. Creating pixel-perfect design mockups is great, but users will see only the end result, which is the front end and an interpretation of the design. Our designers worked closely with their developers to guide them through our work and created basic specifications to ensure a smooth handoff after completing the design phase.
Summary
Since 2016, the new MyRoc has helped over 17,000 new applicants apply to the University of Rochester and enabled Admissions to operate on a more accessible and personal scale for every student. In such a competitive environment, MyRoc has become one of the most decisive and important tools in their selection process as they seek to enroll a diverse and talented class each year.
Testimonial
Our experience with Dwaiter was great. We worked with their team to turn a complicated idea into a streamlined, user-friendly engagement tool for our audience. They listened to our needs, incorporated our feedback, and delivered creative solutions. Along the way, they were always responsive, clear, and professional. - Lale Calisir | Associate Director of Marketing | University of Rochester
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