Product overview
Admissions CRM software for student recruitment
Every inquiry gets an owner, every conversation lands on one record, and every applicant moves from first message to enrollment while your dashboards keep count. Custom roles, single sign-on and audit logs decide who can see and change what.
- New WhatsApp inquiry arrives at 9:12 PM
- The admissions bot replies with its options
- Amara picks Talk to a counselor; the bot hands over
- A new lead is created with Source: WhatsApp
- An assignment rule gives it to Daniel Brooks
- The dashboard counts it: New Inquiry 1241
Every capability, grouped by stage
Eight stages, from the first campaign to enrollment, on one applicant record. Start with the gap that costs you applicants today, such as slow first replies, inquiries nobody owns or a funnel leadership can't see.
Group 1 of 4
Attract & capture
Campaigns reach your segments by email, SMS and WhatsApp. Forms, website chat, WhatsApp, Messenger and chatbots turn interest into inquiries with the source attached.
Group 2 of 4
Manage & counsel
Stages, scoring rules and assignment strategies decide who follows up. Counselors work from a daily task panel, one inbox and a browser softphone, with every exchange on the lead.
Group 3 of 4
Apply, enroll & measure
Application stages, documents and recorded payments carry each applicant to enrollment. Workflows handle routine steps, dashboards show the funnel, and the AI Assistant points to who needs attention next.
Group 4 of 4
Platform
Custom roles and page permissions, campuses, single sign-on and audit logs, plus the integrations and API your IT team will review.
That journey is what we mean by a higher education CRM: built for admissions offices, not adapted from a sales pipeline. See how it works for colleges and universities with one campus or many, and for graduate, international and online programs.
Routing and ownership
New inquiries get an owner the moment they arrive
- Six assignment strategies
- Soft or hard capacity limits
- A fallback when no rule matches
- Weights per counselorHigher-weight counselors receive more leads in each rotation.
- Hard capacity limitsCounselors at their limit are skipped. If everyone is full, new leads wait unassigned.
See routing set up for your offices.
In a demo we set up your offices, regions and capacity limits, then send a test inquiry through the rules. Or click through the product tour first.
Fits your stack
How it fits with your SIS
higheredcrm.ai handles recruitment and admissions up to enrollment, and your student information system stays the system of record for enrolled students. There's no packaged connector for a specific SIS, so your IT team connects the two through the API, webhooks and files.
- Create inquiries from your application portal or website, and read lead records back, through the REST API
- A scoped API key for each integration, with quotas and an IP allow-list
- An inbound webhook trigger so your portal or SIS can start a workflow
- Template-based CSV and Excel import, and exports with a history of each file
Inquiry sources
- Forms and chat widget
- WhatsApp and Messenger
- Manual entry and imports
higheredcrm.ai
One record per lead: stages, conversations, follow-ups, documents, recorded payments and history, until the student enrolls.
Your SIS and other systems
- REST APICreate and read leads with scoped API keys
- Inbound webhook triggersLet another system start a workflow
- Import and exportCSV and Excel, with export history
Security and privacy
What your IT security review will look for
Do-not-contact and opt-out checks on every send, role permissions, masking and audit history help you meet FERPA, GDPR and similar obligations. Your own policies and processes cover the rest.
- MFA for staff accountsAuthenticator-app codes with backup codes. Make it mandatory for every staff member or leave it optional.
- Page-level role permissionsCustom roles for counselors, team leads, directors and IT, with view, create, edit, delete and export rights set page by page.
- Contact masking by roleRoles you pick, such as student callers, see partial phone numbers and emails yet can still call, text and email applicants.
- Audit trailStaff activity with old and new values, plus a history on every applicant's record.
- Field-level encryptionAES-256 for custom fields you mark as encrypted, such as passport numbers, and for stored provider credentials.
- Single sign-onStaff use their institutional account through your OpenID Connect identity provider.
Where to go next in your evaluation
Solutions
Colleges and universities, graduate, international and online programs, and the enrollment leaders and IT teams who choose a CRM.
ExploreWhat is an admissions CRM?
What an admissions CRM does, how it sits next to your SIS and how to evaluate one.
ExploreDevelopers and API
Create and read leads, scoped API keys and the inbound webhook trigger.
ExploreFAQ
Questions from admissions and IT teams
What does higheredcrm.ai cover, and what doesn't it?
It covers recruitment and admissions: campaigns, inquiry capture, lead management, counseling by WhatsApp, email and calls, application tracking with documents and recorded payments, admission and enrollment stages, and dashboards. It doesn't cover student success, retention or alumni relations, and your SIS stays the system of record once a student enrolls.
Does higheredcrm.ai replace our SIS?
No. higheredcrm.ai covers recruitment and admissions up to enrollment, and your SIS stays the system of record once a student enrolls. There's no packaged SIS connector: your IT team can create and read leads through the REST API, start workflows from an inbound webhook, and move records with CSV or Excel import and export.
Can undergraduate, graduate and international offices share one account?
Yes. Each office can be a team with its own targets and dashboard, and custom roles decide which pages and actions each group can use. Assignment rules route inquiries by source, country, state or city, stage or priority, and a workflow can assign a named counselor based on a custom field such as program.
How does higheredcrm.ai handle several campuses?
Your account is an organization with campuses underneath. Staff switch between the campuses they work with, each campus can carry its own logo, and the organization dashboard shows the combined picture for the institution.
Which channels can counselors use?
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, email, SMS and calls from a browser softphone. Connect your own accounts: the WhatsApp Business Platform (directly or through a supported provider), an SMS gateway, an email service or any SMTP server, a cloud telephony provider and your Facebook Page for Messenger. You can also start with built-in channels and free sign-up credits where they're offered. Inbound SMS replies aren't supported: email and SMS history shows the messages your team sent.
Where does higheredcrm.ai use AI?
In the AI Assistant, built on Anthropic's Claude: a daily briefing of who needs attention, leads that need a follow-up and your conversion rate, answered in the language you ask in. It never saves changes or sends messages. Lead scoring, routing and chatbots run on rules your team sets and can read, so every score and assignment can be explained.
What will our IT and data protection review want to see?
Custom roles with page-level permissions, OpenID Connect single sign-on, MFA, audit logs, contact masking by role, AES-256 encryption for stored credentials and for custom fields you mark, and IP allow-lists on API keys. The trust center collects these for your review, and we can walk your IT team through each one.
How is higheredcrm.ai priced?
The pricing page sets out the launch offer and what you pay for messages and calls.
See your admissions journey in higheredcrm.ai.
Bring your stages, programs and channels. We'll map them onto the eight stages above in one session, with time for your IT team's security questions.