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Cutting International Admission Processing Times

Cutting international admissions
processing time with AI document validation

The University of Alberta was processing international applications manually. A complex, document-heavy process that stretched
decision timelines to 50 days and left students waiting up to four months for feedback. They partnered with GovLab, and AltaML
worked with their frontline teams to build and deploy an AI-powered screening tool that cut processing time by approximately
6 days, notified students of incomplete documents 5.6x faster, and exceeded its first-phase adoption target.

Education
CLIENT

University of Alberta (U of A)
ualberta.ca

document-correct
PROJECT
AI-powered screening and validation tool for international student admissions documents
AI Workflow Integration
WHAT WE DID
AI/ML development, intelligent document processing, and
workflow integration
stopwatch-fast
IMPACT

Faster decisions, earlier feedback, and 2/3 staff adoption, all within the first three months of deployment

THE CHALLENGE

International student admissions is not a simple intake process. At the University of Alberta, each application can involve transcripts, credential evaluations, and supporting documents that need to be validated against detailed, institution-specific requirements, in multiple languages, from institutions around the world, with varying formats and grading systems.

Validation is inherently manual, and it compounds quickly at scale. As application volumes grew, processing times stretched. Over time, average decision timelines had climbed from 33 days to over 50. Students — many of them planning international moves and visa timelines around an admissions decision — were waiting up to four months just to find out if their documents were complete.

University of Alberta International Student Admissions

THE SOLUTION

GovLab, AltaML's public sector AI practice in partnership with Mitacs and the Government of Alberta, deployed an AI-powered Application Screening Tool — powered by AltaForge, AltaML's proprietary agentic AI platform, and Azure OpenAI large language models.

The tool extracts key academic information from international transcripts and validates it against the University's institutional admission requirements automatically. 

The Application Screening Tool was designed to restructure where Admissions staff attention is needed: incomplete or incorrect submissions are flagged early, before they consume review time, and time is freed to focus on applications that are ready for a decision.

The result? A triage layer that catches the most common sources of delay at the front of the process rather than the middle, getting incomplete submissions back to applicants faster, so they can resubmit and move forward.

6 Days faster at processing complex applications
5.6x Faster notification for incomplete documents
63.5% Staff adoption in the first phase of rollout

WHY IT MATTERS

For international students, an admissions decision is so much more than an administrative task. It affects visa applications, housing, financial planning, and in many cases, whether a student can realistically enroll at all. Weeks of avoidable delay have real consequences.

This partnership with the University of Alberta shows that AI works best when it handles the parts that don't need a human. Automating the document validation layer (the part that doesn't require judgment, only precision) frees staff to do the work that actually needs them, all while getting students the information they need more quickly.

And we know that this problem isn't unique to the University of Alberta. Any institution reviewing high volumes of complex documents faces the same tradeoff between thoroughness and speed. The smart document processing framework deployed here was designed with that in mind.

Document Extraction for PSI, powered by AltaForge

"This initiative addressed a critical administrative bottleneck, streamlining a key step in the evaluation process and ensuring that applicants receive more timely responses.

By leveraging AI to support document screening, we have not only increased operational efficiency but also enhanced the application experience, allowing our admissions teams to focus their expertise on complex decision-making." 

Chris Brunelle
Chris BrunelleAssociate Vice-President & Chief Transformation Officer
University of Alberta

THIS IS WHAT PRODUCTION AI LOOKS LIKE IN HIGHER EDUCATION.

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