Auburn's applicant pool has more than tripled since 2019, going from 19,000 to 63,000. The enrollment team hasn't grown to match it, by choice: leadership has spent the growth years pushing process and technology further rather than adding headcount.
What they've protected is the campus visit. Enrollment probability jumps from 13% to 50% after one visit, and to 70% after a second. On a peak event day, Auburn welcomes 1,200 to 1,500 visitors, and a lean team can't staff up for it. So Auburn brought in an agent to handle the first few minutes families struggle with most: is the lot full, am I late, where do I go now.
Meet Aubrey
Aubrey is built to read as an extension of Auburn's own staff, not a logo with a chat window. She's trained on Auburn's traditions and culture, wears the same orange and blue rugby shirt every tour guide wears, and takes her name as a nod to Auburn itself.
She handles the operational, like rerouting a student from a full parking lot to the welcome session in real time. But she also catches what a script wouldn't: when a touring father dropped a "War Eagle" into the conversation, Aubrey answered War Eagle back and recognized another Auburn alum in the family.
The results
Across pilot events, Aubrey reached 202 prospective students with a 31% engagement rate, and 88% of post-visit responses expressed positive feelings about the visit. Every question families ask her also becomes data: a running list of what Auburn's pre-event communications are missing.
What's next
Auburn is layering Aubrey into daily tour operations, not just signature events, adding self-guided tours and rewriting pre-event communications around what families actually ask her.
As Dr. Joffery Gaymon, Auburn's Vice President for Enrollment Management, put it: "That 'show me you know me' has to extend into those specifics."
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