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Maestro’s homepage before school starts
Maestro is Masterschool’s AI-native university, built around a personal AI tutor for every student. It launched in the U.S. in 2025 and now serves thousands of students across several degree programs.
I redesigned the experience students see between enrollment and their first day of classes, turning a passive waiting period into a more meaningful start. The goal was to help them feel part of Maestro, connect with their cohort, and begin shaping a learning experience that felt personal to them.
The problem
After enrolling, students landed on a homepage that mostly told them when classes would begin. It confirmed their start date, but gave them little to do in the meantime or to help them feel like they had already joined a college.
Student feedback also pointed to uncertainty around what to expect and how to get started. We saw an opportunity to turn this waiting period into a meaningful transition: from “I’ve enrolled” to “I’m a student here.”
The solution
We hypothesized that a few meaningful actions before classes began could make the transition into student life feel more tangible.
The experience focused on four things: reinforcing student identity, helping students connect with their cohort, letting them shape how Maestro would support them, and creating a sense of forward momentum before academic work began.
The original brief proposed a much broader onboarding journey. I narrowed it to a focused set of actions that added real value at this stage, removing extra structure and interactions that felt unnecessary.
Make student identity tangible
Students can create their Maestro ID card before classes begin, making their new student identity feel more tangible from day one while also giving them access to student benefits and discounts.
Make Maestro feel personal from the start
Students can choose their tutor’s language, voice, and teaching style before they begin learning. It introduces one of Maestro’s core product ideas early: the learning experience adapts to them, rather than asking everyone to learn in the same way.
Create a first connection before the first class
A direct path into the community encourages students to introduce themselves and see who they’ll be learning alongside. Keeping the interaction in the existing community product avoided creating another social experience inside Maestro.
Measuring success
We defined success through academic behavior, not checklist completion.
- Day 1 activation: reduce the share of enrolled students who take no academic action on Day 1 from ~8% to below 5%.
- Early return: increase the share of activated students who return on Days 4–6 to above 50%, compared with a 41.5% baseline.
- Behavior over completion: use these learning signals to test whether a stronger start translated into real engagement, rather than simply tracking whether students completed the preparation tasks.
