Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: University of California, Office of the President

Title of entry: The application is open! Apply to the University of California

About this entry: The University of California undergraduate application is open from August 1 to November 30 every year. For the fall 2025 application cycle (for fall 2026 admission), UC faced significant negative scrutiny and a media drumbeat questioning whether a college education is still worth the investment. While simultaneously building and executing a systemwide campaign to defend federal research funding, we carved out a niche of our resources and channel bandwidth to look ahead and focus on one of our most important audiences, future students.

The goal of this campaign was to prevent a drop in applications to the University of California. The strategy sought to cut through the negative noise and reach the future generation of students with fresh multimedia content on the channels where they and their champions are most engaged, and to offer robust but relatable resources on how to apply.

The editorial and multimedia teams created content with practical information about the application geared to students, as well as parents and college counselors, who are key influencers in admissions. The social media team utilized these resources to create youthful, trendy content likely to resonate with high school and community college students.

Delivered organically through social media and email, the content achieved success with target audiences. Across social platforms, this campaign achieved over 10 million impressions, over 255K engagements and over 2.25K comments. According to the latest data, UC undergraduate applications for fall 2026 likewise surged to a record high of 252,000.