A survey published by College Atlas found that, while 70 percent of Americans will attend a four-year college, fewer than two-thirds of them will graduate.
Ordinarily, schools attempt to flag potential dropouts by monitoring class attendance and grades. However, Carolina and Claudia Recchi say this method is ineffective at getting to the bottom of what’s really going on and, ultimately, does a disservice to students. So, the sisters co-founded EdSights, which provides a machine learning-enabled chatbot designed to flag at-risk students and improve retention. The tool officially launched Tuesday.
“Typically, by the time a student has failed three exams in a row, chances are it's too late,” EdSights co-CEO Carolina Recchi told Built In. “Those are usually symptoms of a larger problem that the student is facing.”
For example, if a student is a parent and has to work two jobs to support themselves, they may be sleep deprived and, consequently, struggle with their exams or skip class. At the end of the day, the issue isn’t that they are failing or truant, it’s that they aren’t getting enough support to juggle everything. EdSights’ tool was created to catch those kinds of issues early.
The EdSights chatbot aims to accomplish this by using natural language understanding to converse with students about their college experiences, creating an open channel of communication with students to collect meaningful data in real time and at scale.
Throughout the semester, the EdSights bot sends text messages to students who sign up, asking how they’re feeling about upcoming exams or work-life balance. Depending on the student’s response, they will be directed to specific advisors or resources to help them cope with whatever issues they may be facing. If a student’s response reaches a certain threshold, an alert will be sent to the school so it can follow up directly with the student. Students can reach out to the bot to get answers to simple questions — like when class scheduling opens up or where a club is meeting — as well.
EdSights shares the trends and outcomes of its communication with the school through an administrative platform, allowing institutions to monitor things that are typically hard to measure like students’ sense of belonging or home life — common underlying catalysts for dropping out. The platform also provides specific “next steps” to help schools assist with student wellness.
According to the Recchi sisters, their model shows promise. In one pilot program, the school saw a 12 percent increase in retention from freshman to sophomore year. Another school saw a 4 percent retention increase after just five months. This solution, Claudia Recchi says, could have an even larger effect down the road.
“I think solving the retention issue would be huge because it's a problem that impacts not only the students and universities, but also society as a whole,” Claudia Recchi told Built In. “Unfortunately, it is a problem that disproportionately affects low-income, first-generation students. I think even a relatively small improvement in retention will have a huge impact on our society.”
Going forward, the Recchis say this idea has the potential to go beyond just retention. They hope to apply EdSights’ platform throughout a students’ academic journey, from the moment they apply in high school and into their careers, to address other concerns like mental health.
