What is in the Texting Journey guide?

The guide follows one student relationship through five stages, Recruit, Admit, Enroll, Retain, and Advance, and shows what changes when every department texts with one coordinated approach, on one platform. It includes Mongoose benchmark data, examples from institutions like Notre Dame, Kettering University, and Carnegie Mellon, and a look at how AI agents change the capacity math at every step.

The Guide

The Texting Journey: From Application to Advancement

A student's relationship with your institution doesn't start when they enroll, and it doesn't end when they graduate. It starts with an inquiry, and it can last a lifetime: through advising, through a hard semester, through the first gift they make as an alum. Most institutions talk to that student in five different voices: Admissions, Registration, Advising, Student Success, and Advancement, each with its own tools, tone, and inbox. Students expect one.

For enrollment, student success, and advancement teams

Get the Full Guide

Five connected stages of one student relationship: Recruit, Admit, Enroll, Retain, and Advance

The Data

3% to 94%

Enrollment yield, for students with no texted conversations versus students with 21 or more.

4% to 94%

FAFSA completion, for students with no texted conversations versus students with 21 or more.

92.9%

Appreciation rate on donor stewardship and thank-you messages, the highest of any topic Mongoose tracked in 2026.

What's Inside

Recruit

Admissions

“Is this school right for me?”

Why response speed is credibility, and how Segments and Smart Messages reach students at the moment an inquiry comes in or an application stalls.

Notre Dame's online Data Science master's program grew enrollment by 84% over two years.

Admit

Admissions

“Did I get in?”

How CRM connectors keep counselors working from the student data your CRM already holds, so every reply starts with the right context.

Thomas More University's fall preview day signups ran 30 students ahead of the same point last year.

Enroll

Registration

“How do I pay for this?”

Three offices, three messages, one confused student: financial aid, housing, and billing. And how Shared Inboxes let more than one staff member pick up a conversation without losing the thread.

Kettering University saw a 60% increase in undergraduate deposits in a single year.

Retain

Advising and Student Success

“How do I get through this semester?”

Advisor caseloads, the messages that go unanswered, and what the Inbox Assistant, live today, can handle so staff can focus on the conversations that need judgment.

Defiance College cut no-show rates in half after moving to real-time texting.

Advance

Advancement

“Does anyone here still know who I am?”

Why alumni and donors respond to text, and how stewardship, Giving Day, and WhatsApp for international alumni fit the same relationship.

Carnegie Mellon University saw a 170% increase in alumni campaign responses.