The Higher Ed Geek Podcast Episode #319: How to Use AI in Admissions Without Losing the Human Touch
Mar 4, 2026
Ashish Fernando, founder and CEO of EDMO and EDU Unlocked host, builds AI tools to streamline admissions and transfer credit work. He discusses fixing transcript evaluation, balancing fast online systems with human-centered experiences, and reskilling staff for AI adoption. Conversation highlights AI revealing process flaws, offering student choice between bots and humans, and lowering costs while preserving human oversight.
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Episode notes
AI Solved The Transfer Credit Bottleneck
- Ashish built Edmo after podcast conversations revealed systemic admission problems like slow transfer credit decisions.
- Talking with leaders such as Paul LeBlanc inspired an AI transcript-to-catalog mapping that reduces review time from weeks to minutes.
Marry Online Speed With Traditional Human Experience
- Large online institutions gain yield by deploying AI quickly to meet students' demand for speed and convenience.
- Traditional colleges excel at the human-rich post-enrollment experience, highlighting a hybrid opportunity to combine both strengths.
AI As A Diagnostic That Reveals Broken Rules
- AI often first exposes hidden flaws in institutional processes by surfacing conflicting or outdated rules.
- In one pilot the AI found bad articulation rules, then reached 98–99% accuracy after integrating cleaned rules into the model.