Processing Student & Alumni Connection Requests

When a student or alum creates a new Handshake account and submits a request to connect with your institution, a notification badge appears on the person icon in the blue navigation bar at the top of the screen.

If you'd prefer to review past requests, refer to Who approved or denied a student connection request? instead.

To access new requests:

1. Click on User Requests (the person icon), located in the upper-right corner of the screen, to the left of Help.

2. All pending student requests will be displayed on the page by date, with most recent requests at the top. There are two ways to review the request:

• Click the three hashmarks, located to the right of the student's name, click View Request

• Click directly on the student's name

3. In the popup that appears, review the information presented: 

• Requestor Name
• Requester Email
• Institution Name (your institution)
• Status 
• Details
• *If you've opted to customise requests with an Additional Info Label, this information is displayed below Institution Name. For more information, check out How to Customise a Student's User Request.

Tip: to review the students profile and self entered education information directly from this pop-up, click on the requesters name. From the user request page, click the three hashmarks, located to the right of the students name, then click View Request. 

4. To process the request, from the popup click either the:

• green Approve button to connect the student to your institution 
• red Reject button to deny the request
  • Note: if a student request is accidentally denied, you can add manually connect the student to your institution using the process outlined in Add an Existing Student Account to Your Institution. 
• grey Close in the lower-left corner of the popup to leave the request pending and process later 

Alternatively, if you prefer to ignore the request, click the three hashmarks from the user requests page, then click Ignore Request. 

Note: This only removes the request from being displayed on your account. The request will still appear for your colleagues. 

For details on email notifications, check out Notifications for Students Requesting to Connect to an Institution.