← Case Studies

Academic Programs Directory

CASE Circle of Excellence Silver 2026

The Problem

UMBC's academic programs page was a single HTML table listing 400+ programs. The table was 12,000 pixels long. Prospective students had to scroll through the entire list to find a program, with no search, no filtering by degree type or area of study, and no way to measure which programs were generating interest. Apply and inquiry actions were buried and untracked.

What I Built

I designed the directory and wrote about 80% of the code, including the directory logic and conversion tracking. A front-end developer built the initial framework and custom fields. The result:

  • Faceted search with filters for degree type, area of study, and keywords
  • Individual program cards replacing the monolithic table, with clear apply and inquiry calls to action
  • Conversion tracking on every apply click and inquiry submission, feeding into GA4 for attribution reporting
  • Programmatic deduplication so programs with multiple degree levels surface as distinct, searchable entries
  • Relevance-tuned sorting with tie-breaking and clear-all/reset behavior

Results

12,277

Apply clicks

2,407

Inquiries

68%

Traffic from organic search

All numbers are from the first nine months after launch. The directory won a CASE Circle of Excellence Silver Award in 2026.