Volume Meets Vision: Why Stony Brook Needed a New Approach
Stony Brook University, a flagship of the SUNY system, has experienced unprecedented growth in recent years, receiving more applications than any other SUNY institution.
"We had the same team and the same budget…We just had way more applicants."
Christina Lofaso, Associate Director of Admissions.
This surge placed immense pressure on an admissions team still relying on spreadsheets and manual data entry.
As a nationally recognized R1 research institution, Stony Brook has long prioritized innovation. The university needed more than staffing adjustments. It needed a new model.
Mark Cortez, Executive Director of Undergraduate Admissions, stated, "Part of what attracted me to Stony Brook was the university’s commitment to being innovative, thinking outside the box, and exploring how new technologies can improve our work.
When we were introduced to EdVisorly and EddyAI™, it was a no-brainer. It aligned with our goal of transforming our culture and improving how we serve students."
Industry-Leading AI Technology and Unmatched Innovation
When Stony Brook began exploring automation, they found that most vendors were offering outdated OCR tools with high error rates. With EddyAI™, they saw something different.
Rich Beaty, Senior Associate Provost for Enrollment Management, shared, "When I met with EdVisorly, the AI was the part that really blew me away. EddyAI™ could read transcripts coming from many different sources. In some cases, they were not formalized transcripts—some were slightly crooked or came from outside sources.
When we were looking at other solutions, everyone was using outdated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, which had error rates as high as 55% in some cases. We did not think that would help us long term, since we would constantly have to go back and fix errors.”
EdVisorly’s industry leading artificial intelligence technology is driving unmatched results.
“Now, we are automating over 60% of our transcripts with EddyAI™ at nearly 100% accuracy—which is unheard of. EddyAI™ is able to extract the data, integrate it into our Slate processes, and push it into our reader reforms. I no longer need to hire five to ten more processors."
Rich Beaty, Senior Associate Provost for Enrollment Management
Advancing Equitable & Holistic Application Reading
Solving for volume was not enough. Stony Brook also wanted to ensure fairness—that every applicant, regardless of background, had the same opportunity.
"Every high school may classify courses in a different way. For some, statistics is considered a math course, and for others, it's not. EddyAI™ has really allowed us to say, 'Here's a starting point for how to best classify these courses.’ EddyAI™ provides consistency across all of our application evaluations."
Mark Cortez, Executive Director of Undergraduate Admissions
By standardizing course classification, EddyAI™ ensured that every applicant is evaluated equitably—while also freeing up time and capacity for the team to focus on the human elements of application reading.
"We can now bypass the data collection part of the application reading process and focus on reading a student for the student."
Christina Lofaso, Associate Director of Admissions
With confidence in the accuracy of these foundational data points, the team is now spending more time understanding each student as a person, rather than manually crunching numbers.
GPA Recalculation: No More Spreadsheets
Alongside solving for scale and strengthening equity in application review, the team also tackled operational inefficiencies that had long strained their process.
Rich stated, "We were manually typing in thousands of transcripts every year, with each transcript containing dozens and dozens of data points. It was not sustainable.”
"Prior to EddyAI™, we were utilizing conversions through all sorts of different spreadsheets and Google Docs. Now that the EddyAI™ product is really working to its ability, we're able to remove the function of GPA recalculation completely” said Christina.
By the end of the cycle, the team threw an "Eddy" party to celebrate the time saved and the stress avoided.
"We never would have made it through the final batch of applications without EddyAI™. We were up against our next decision round the following week, and for the first time, I truly felt like, 'We're going to make it.”
Responding to New State Policies: SUNY Top Ten Percent Program
As they gained confidence in EddyAI’s core capabilities, Stony Brook began applying it to broader challenges—including high-stakes state policy changes.
Mark shared, “The State University of New York system implemented an exciting new program this year called the SUNY Top Ten Percent Promise Program. It offered guaranteed admission for students in the top 10% of their high school class from designated schools across New York State. As the program launched, we immediately began thinking about how to structure our processes to provide timely engagement with these top students and move them through the funnel to enrollment."
As a result, New York high school students were submitting transcripts through both the SUNY portal and the Common App, which created a surge in duplicate documents. For each applicant, Stony Brook often received two separate transcripts, each labeled and formatted differently. Without automation, the only way to identify these duplicates was for a counselor to manually open and compare each file—doubling the work during an already intense review cycle.
Dave added, "We started receiving the same transcript twice—from two different systems, each with a different file name or format. That became a major operational headache."
The EdVisorly team jumped in with a solution to ensure a successful state policy rollout.
"EddyAI™ was able to leverage their transcript de-duplication technology to remove duplicates, even though each PDF had a different name. That really helped us. There’s no way we would’ve gotten through the SUNY Top Ten Percent rollout if we didn’t do that.”
Dave Taiclet, Director of Enrollment Operations.
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A Blueprint for the Future
Successful change management was critical to Stony Brook’s transformation, and Rich knew it had to start with his team.
"If I were to give advice to enrollment leaders, I would recommend making sure your teams are part of the conversation from the start. If they see how AI fits into their process, not upending their workflows but enhancing them, adoption becomes easier, and impact becomes immediate.”
That message helped shift mindsets.
Meagan Schuster, Associate Director of Campus Visits & Experiences, admitted, “I’m probably one of the biggest AI skeptics. But I realized that although we’re utilizing AI, we’re still reviewing every application holistically. It’s not about removing the human aspect; it’s about making the process more efficient. We received 64,000 applications last year, and without EddyAI™, I don’t see how it would’ve gotten done."
That leap in capability reflects a broader shift in the field.
Rich added, "Enrollment is constantly evolving. The big message is that AI is our ally—it is helping us, not taking away jobs. As staff naturally turn over, future generations of counselors will expect and embrace these tools. It is the new skill set our offices will need."
According to Mark, as institutions prepare for the future, flexibility will be key.
"The more universities can be both planful and responsive in the moment, the better service that’s going to be for students. EddyAI™ gives us that flexibility now.”
Christina stated, "EddyAI™ has been the dream of admissions professionals for decades. When I started, we were reading paper applications. This is like space technology.”
Stony Brook's success was also rooted in strong partnership.
I’ve worked with many external partners through the years. EdVisorly truly is one of the best partners I’ve engaged,"
Mark Cortez, Executive Director of Undergraduate Admissions.
Stony Brook did not just implement a tool. They co-created a vision for what modern admissions can be. And with each cycle, that vision is becoming reality.
