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Students are accessing graduate study online in ever-increasing numbers with interactive experiences differing from those who traditionally enroll in corresponding face-to-face (F2F) classes. Soft skills such as collaboration/teamwork, communication and presentation are important to learning but difficult to practice outside the F2F environment. Robotic telepresence units (robots) might benefit distance learners by enriching their online experience, making it more similar to corresponding F2F classes. This study examines students' sense of social presence in courses that are accessed fully online, attended via robots or face-to-face. These experiences are compared through the lens of Social Presence Theory (Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 2000). Of the 227 enrollments in 30 educational leadership courses offered during the summer and fall semesters of 2016, a sample consisting of 66 students was selected to measure graduate students' perceptions of social presence. A one-way ANOVA yielded no significant differences between groups with regard to overall social presence and when social presence's effect was subsequently compared using eta-squared, only a small effect was found. When asked specifically, however, students using robots report an increased sense of class membership; a heightened appreciation for peers' humor, and a greater ability to form distinct impressions of fellow classmates. These preliminary results give reason to continue pursuit of this line of inquiry as subsequent findings could yield important implications for distance education programs. The Perceptions of Social Presence Survey is appended.