Customer Stories
How the Pacific Summer High School Institute Manages 1,800 Students and 60+ Programs with Jumbula?
1,800
Students
60+
Programs
100% increase
in on-time payments via auto-charge
About the Pacific Summer High School Institute
The University of Pacific (UOP), California’s oldest university, hosts the Pacific Summer High School Institute, directed by Dr. Balint Sztaray, the Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Strategy. The Institute is a residential two-week-long summer pre-college program catering to rising freshmen through rising seniors (students currently in 8th to 11th grade). Participants spend two weeks living and learning on campus, engaging with actual university professors and coaches, and participating in academic or athletic programs. This is a massive operation, serving close to 1,800 students across two sessions and offering more than 60 different programs that students can choose from.
Dr. Balint Sztaray, Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Strategy and Institute Director
The Challenge: Managing Scale, Complexity, and High School Needs
Managing an institute of this size, which incorporates attributes of academics, after-school programs, and a two-week camp, presented several distinct enrollment and execution challenges prior to using Jumbula:
- Financial and Enrollment Complexity: With 1,800 students enrolling in distinct academic programs, the Institute had to navigate numerous enrollment scenarios. This complexity was compounded by various funding models, where students might be self-funded, or funded by their school, school district, county, or other sponsors, each having their own unique tuition category or price.
- Need for Robust Management Software: The Institute required “a really robust enrollment management software” to manage registration follow-up and process the various forms and waivers involved.
- Executing High School-Specific Features: As a university, UOP typically serves undergraduate and professional students. However, managing high schoolers meant implementing processes they normally wouldn’t, such as attendance checks. Balint noted they needed added flexibility to see if a student was simultaneously on campus and in class.
The Solution: Custom Tailoring and Deep Integration
Jumbula provided a solution that was specifically suited to the Institute’s hybrid structure, offering integration that goes beyond simple enrollment management. Balint recognized that Jumbula filled a crucial niche:
“Jumbula is very much tailored to quite a narrow and nice niche when it comes to you know after after-school programs and summer camps”.
Real-Time Tracking and Execution
Jumbula’s utility extended beyond the initial enrollment phase, being used “a lot” during the actual execution phase in the summer.
- Attendance and Safety: The attendance check features were found to be “very, very useful”. The system was essential for tracking students on campus.
- Matching Institutional Complexity: The platform’s flexibility allows it to handle the sophisticated needs of the Institute, which is “quite a complex institute incorporating all 10 of our colleges and schools”. The features “very nicely match” the complexity of their organization.
- Integrated Financials: Jumbula serves as the program’s payment processor by incorporating “all the monetary features” needed, including registration fees, add-on fees, and flexibility with payment plans.
“The flexibility that Jumbula offers to track the students in real time when they’re with us, which is super important, you know, for the parents and for us, broken down into individual programs, but at the same time also being able to track them on an institute basis.”
Operational Efficiency and Custom Service
Jumbula’s implementation improved efficiency for both administrative staff and faculty, while the responsiveness of the Jumbula team ensured continuous support for custom needs.
- Staff Autonomy: Giving access to staff members outside the central institute team, such as those in student health, proved to be an important feature. After just a brief introduction to the system, staff were able to work independently:
- Communication Improvements: By using Jumbula for mass communication with parents, the Institute ditched a competing platform, leading to significant cost savings. Staff can now set up timed communications and utilize merge fields within Jumbula, making scheduling and targeting messages much easier.
“It’s been very nice working with Jumbula on custom features that we need, for you know, for our size and complexity… to be able to directly talk to your engineers or the bosses of your engineers… has been a very good experience.”
Recommendation and Advice for New Customers
Balint confirmed the Institute would recommend Jumbula to other organizations.
- Strong Recommendation: Balint noted that he has already recommended the platform to others who called seeking advice.
- Onboarding Advice: While Balint stated the initial onboarding was “quite efficient”, he advises new customers to carefully plan their structure.
