How the University of Tennessee welcomed students with mobile

(Part 3 of a 3-part Blog Series)

You’ve learned how to create an engaging Welcome Week app and how to promote your app. Now we’re going to take a look at how one university successfully welcomed students with their mobile app.

The University of Tennessee ushered in their new class of 2017 with an eventful Welcome Week. Their guide is an excellent example of a well-organized app designed with student needs in mind. Branded in their signature orange; there is no mistaking this app for anywhere else but the University of Tennessee.

Welcome Week at the University of Tennessee

The university utilized many features like My Schedule which allowed students to easily plan sessions to attend. Learning to stay organized and follow a schedule are skills that all college students will learn to tackle during their tenure. A Welcome Week app can help ease them into that, by allowing them to stay on track with activities throughout the week on their own mobile devices.

They also highlighted Safety & Emergency Contact Information which is not something people usually think about until an emergency actually occurs. Anticipating student needs ahead of time not only can prevent problems but helps feel them feel especially welcomed.

A wonderful thing that technology has the power to do is to bring people together before they’ve met in person. By connecting their Social channels, the University of Tennessee brought students together by sharing streams of branded hashtags that enabled students easily connect online. Having students engaged and feeling part of a larger community is, perhaps, one of the most important things to a first year student’s social health.

Pro Tip from Guidebot: The app can potentially pay for itself with relevant sponsorships. The University of Alabama offered sponsorship perks in their app and welcome week event and successfully saw a 75% increase in vendor participation since using Guidebook.

University of Tennessee Welcome Week 2017 Key Stats:

• 5,500 downloads from active students.
• 64,000 Guide sessions shows that students were engaged and found the app useful.
• 26.7 days spent in Guide tells us that students utilized the app well before and beyond welcome week.

Pro Tip from Guidebot: Go green! Columbia University’s School of General Studies saved $15,000 by eliminating printed schedules and boosted their orientation session attendance year-over-year by going mobile! 

Ongoing resources

Although Welcome Weeks will continue to grow and change throughout the years at every university, it is clear that having a mobile app is a modern and effective way to engage students during a vital point in their lives. 

Would you like to start creating a Welcome Week app for your school? We have a template ready to guide you! Start building by clicking the button below!