Washington, D.C.-based education company EAB has acquired Wisr, a Cleveland-based education technology company that specializes in building affinity between prospective students and colleges. The acquisition is the latest step in EAB’s efforts to help schools and students find, learn about, and interact with one another.
Wisr has grown rapidly since the company began building private, online communities for colleges that enable students to connect with peers and campus leaders. Prospective students use the platform to get a sense of what life is like at a given school and to find friends and mentors with similar interests. The technology also enables faculty to offer guidance on majors and classes, while giving institutions a direct channel for delivering personalized content to interested students.
“Wisr’s innovative peer-to-peer engagement channel complements EAB’s broad portfolio of marketing and enrollment solutions and further strengthens our ability to serve institutions looking to connect with prospective students in meaningful ways,” EAB CEO David Felsenthal said in a statement.
“The Wisr platform will provide a huge boost to EAB partner institutions as they continue to overcome recruiting challenges that have intensified over the past year,” added Chris Marett, EAB’s President of Enrollment Services. “Even in a post-pandemic environment, colleges will need to provide a mix of virtual and in-person touchpoints that deliver the college exploration experience today’s students demand.”
Since its launch just over one year ago, nearly 75,000 students have used the Wisr engagement solution to explore and select a college as well as navigate their first days on campus.
“We are excited to join EAB and accelerate the rollout of new digital communities to the more than two thousand partner institutions with whom EAB works,” said Wisr co-founder and CEO Kate Volzer. “EAB shares our commitment to building better interactive channels that give all students a more equal opportunity to make authentic connections with colleges in a virtual-first world.”
