A Mobile App for your School’s Next Big Event

The fall semester is in full swing. Orientation and club fairs are all wrapped up and now it’s time to start preparing for spring semester events. Those April showers and May flowers will be here before you know it. So, start planning early and learn how a mobile app can support events like Admitted Students Day, career fairs, and commencement ceremonies.

Mobile App for Admitted Students Day + Tours

It can be challenging to keep track of everything going on during Admitted Students Day. Events and tours happening all day, and some are happening simultaneously. It’s essential to have an easy-to-use resource that helps students and parents know where to go. A mobile application is a simple solution with robust capabilities to support events. 

Go beyond a static list of events and tours with a branded app that enables personalized schedules. Students and parents can select events they want to attend and receive notifications about the event. Receive a reminder a few minutes before a session starts. Or, get an update if there is a last-minute location change. Within an app, the full schedule and custom schedule are just the beginning. You can set up a meeting time and place on campus for guided walking tours, enable self-guided tours, and offer virtual campus tours for those who are unable to make it to campus or who want to see the campus again when they get back home. 

Michigan State University and Rutgers University each created an app for Admitted Students Day. Their apps included a full schedule, custom schedule, and tours. Michigan State’s admitted student’s day app had a standard resources section and social links. Plus a space to interact and build community with their peers. Rutgers chose to add a to-do list, campus map, virtual tour, and parking information, and even included restaurants and things to do in the area. 

With Guidebook, campus mobile apps are created with organizers in mind too. Session Verification enables designated staff to scan in attendees to a session, view a log of attendance records in real-time, and evaluate attendance data post-event.

admitted students day app

Going virtual and pivoting during the pandemic

Centre College hosts spring visit days each year. They open up the campus to admitted students to participate in tours and learn more about life on campus. These events are opportunities for the College to wow accepted students. And, of course. encourage them to make Centre College their choice. As the coronavirus pandemic evolved, it was clear to admissions staff that campus events could not go on as planned. Centre College sought an alternative approach to connect with prospective and admitted students. With quick action, Centre College moved from live admissions events to engaging virtual campus tours using Guidebook in less than two weeks. 

 

“Mobile really is the way to reach these students. A majority of students come from out of state, they aren’t local. So, making a virtual campus tours app available makes students feel like they are exploring campus from their couches”

— Lauren Samuelson, Admissions Staff

 

Spring Career Fair App

Career fairs can be overwhelming for both the companies and students attending. Building a career fair app is the simplest way to bring order to the chaos – and it’s easier than you might think. For example, the University of North Florida created an app to support its Government, Education, and Non-Profit Career Fair. And it included the basics like a map of the career fair, a list of all companies, and a place to take notes. Bringham Young University – Hawaii (BYUH) made its career fair mobile application more robust, including places to register and check in, webinar schedules, dress codes for each event, and a conference to-do list. BYU-Hawaii also featured locations of food, a section to share photos, and a schedule by track section which houses 6 different schedules for employers, faculty, students, and more. 

mobile app for career fair

Ultimately, the goal of any career fair is to get students and alumni connected with potential career opportunities. And a mobile app makes it easy to see what companies will be attending and who has a booth. Attendees and companies are able to interact with each other through the app to schedule 1:1 meetings or send direct messages. The app can also keep general information like dress code, maps, or company bios organized and easy to find and a note-taking feature can be enabled as well. 

 

“Attendance and engagement are two major currencies on campus, and mobile apps contribute to both. We see Guidebook as a massive packet of information available in a very accessible space at your fingertips. And with so much out there competing for attention, the app lets us deliver the most pertinent info directly to users, so they don’t have to dig through a bunch of information.” 

— Cole Wrampelmeier, Web and Student Systems Manager for the Office of Campus Life at American University. 

Commencement Ceremony Mobile App

Commencement ceremonies are for celebrating the accomplishments of all the new graduates and it’s important to be in the right place at the right time. With a commencement mobile app, parents can easily access info about the schedule, parking info, accessibility & special needs support, local dining, and more. Students can find info like graduation checklists, cap and gown info, and tickets for their loved ones. 

Take the College of Charleston, for example. They host a spring and winter commencement. Before going mobile, it was a challenge to keep things organized and efficient with their main resources being a website and a printed booklet. Their app is now a much better resource for students and ceremony attendees. It includes parking information, a campus map, a schedule, and general information about commencement traditions.  

campus map on mobile app

Loyola Marymount University and Spelman College take a more in-depth approach to their apps. Loyola Marymount University’s main goal was to improve communication. They enabled push notifications that alerted people when commencement was about to start. Loyola included unique features like a section for safety and first aid. They also had accessibility and special needs information, local dining and hotels, FAQs, and a space for networking. 

Spelman College wanted an app to host the schedule of activities for graduation weekend. Their app would co-exist with their printed program and send real-time alerts for any last-minute changes or updates. Spelman’s app is the most robust out of these three, including a section for guest info, graduate info, the commencement program, tickets and seating, speaker bios, and even a live stream link. 

No matter the size of your college or university, commencement means welcoming a lot of guests on campus. Provide friends, family, and graduates with all the information they need in one convenient place – a mobile app. Your guests will appreciate the convenience of having schedules, venues and locations, and parking details available at their fingertips.

 

“We have been very pleased with having Guidebook as an addition to our event services. We have utilized Guidebook for Commencement Weekend, Senior Week, Reunion, and New Student Orientation. We have gotten great feedback, especially from parents and family members. We find that students can become overwhelmed with the deluge of activities and information coming their way during these hectic seasons, and Guidebook has been an integral resource for family members to stay informed. And the checklist feature is helpful to keep students on track.”

— Janae Bryant, Sr. Administrative Assistant for the Office of Events Operations at Spelman College 

Start building your app

Take advantage of some of our most loved features in your app:

  • Notifications – Send out quick updates that appear as push notifications to Guidebook App users
  • My Schedule – Parents and students can select the specific events they plan to attend
  • Gallery – Upload pictures throughout the event enhancing the community feel for the college
  • Program PDFs – share documents digitally and reduce printing, saves money, and is environmentally friendly
  • Trends, Engagement, and Metrics – Get detailed insights on usage

 

Want to learn more about what we can offer? Request a demo and schedule a meeting with one of our representatives.

request a demo

 

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