Student Advising

The Challenge

Northeastern — a nationally ranked university serving 27,000+ students — knew students were struggling with its advising experience, but existing surveys showed the symptoms—not the underlying causes.

Our research revealed an ecosystem fragmented across dozens of applications, disconnected workflows, and separate systems.

Students navigated multiple tools and logins to accomplish basic advising tasks, while staff pieced together information across systems to understand and support each student.

Our Solution

Rather than evaluating applications in isolation, we mapped the entire advising ecosystem because the friction lived in how tools overlapped and operated in silos—not in any single application.

1. Applied Research: Reviewed 15+ internal reports and ran student and staff interviews and surveys to uncover the root causes behind the numbers.
2. Ecosystem Mapping: Built a subject-matter map legible to deans and department heads — showing data flows, functional domains, and every app sitting outside the university’s identity manager.
3. Strategic Roadmap: Synthesized findings into a 120+ page research report, reframing app-level issues as a structural diagnosis of institutional fragmentation and pairing 55 recommendations with actionable solution concepts.

Key Results

• 27,000+ student advising experience evaluated through ecosystem-wide research and recommendations.
• 55 improvements identified across systems, sites, and applications.
• $500K+ in follow-on research contracts generated from the engagement.