UpperClass + Unibuddy

Unibuddy is the category leader in peer-to-peer chat, deployed at hundreds of institutions worldwide. It has built a mature, established peer chat layer that excels once a prospective student has already discovered the institution and landed on its admissions page. That's a valuable conversion surface — and it stays exactly where it is.

Gen Z, however, increasingly uses TikTok, Reels, and Shorts as their primary search engines, running discovery queries on social platforms long before they ever type a university URL. UpperClass distributes compliant, brand-approved student content directly onto those open channels — capturing attention at the top of the funnel and routing warmed prospects toward the Unibuddy chat experience your team already operates.

Unibuddy's hourly chat ambassador model works well for structured, scheduled on-site engagement. But producing ongoing short-form video content is a different motion — one where hourly payroll quickly becomes a compliance burden, especially for international students operating under strict visa work-hour limitations.

Case Western Reserve University's Office of Graduate & International Recruitment ran into exactly that ceiling. Their answer was to add a structured creator track alongside their existing ambassador program — built on professional portfolios, community events, and public recognition rather than timesheets.

UpperClass automates that non-payroll creator track out-of-the-box. It runs in parallel with your Unibuddy hourly chat ambassadors, turning every contribution into points, status, and portfolio assets — and giving international students a compliant way to participate.

Unibuddy reports on chat engagement on the admissions site — a clean bottom-of-funnel signal. What it can't tell you is which social touchpoint actually drove the prospect to arrive at that chat in the first place.

UpperClass ships a native Lead Attribution Engine and API layer that interfaces directly with admissions CRMs like Slate and Salesforce, connecting organic student video campaigns to clear application numbers and enrollment yield. Pair it with Unibuddy's on-site reporting and you get end-to-end visibility: which TikTok or Reel created the lead that later chatted on Unibuddy and ultimately applied.