Aug 21 2025
How Montcalm Community College Gets Higher-Than-Average Reply Rates With Coach-Led Texting
How JSU Gets a 21 Percent Response Rate on Graduate Inquiry Texts
TL;DR
Jacksonville State University’s graduate admissions team is five people, and its students are busy adults who don’t always open email or pick up the phone. With Mongoose Text, connected to Ellucian Recruit, the team sends recruiter-signed, personalized texts at every stage of the funnel. Graduate campaigns average about an 11% response rate, first inquiry texts hit 21%, and since April 2025 the team has revamped or created 22 communication plans. In spring 2026, first-time graduate and doctoral enrollment rose compared with the previous cycle.
- ~11% average campaign response rate
- 21% reply rate on first inquiry texts
- 22 communication plans since April 2025
- Spring 2026 grad enrollment up
Download the full case study
Jacksonville State University (JSU) is a regional public university in Alabama that passed 10,000 students for the first time in fall 2025. JSU uses Mongoose Text across undergraduate, graduate, and dual enrollment recruitment. In March 2025, it added two new recruitment communication roles under Associate Director Roxanne Stancil, one for undergraduate admissions and one for graduate studies.
Madison Willingham, Coordinator of Graduate Recruitment Communication, leads graduate communication planning and campaigns. She’s also a graduate student herself, which helps her spot the moments where a quick text can clear up confusion and keep students moving.
The challenge: Reaching busy adults
JSU had faced declining enrollment and low response to traditional channels. Emails were easy for students to overlook, and phone calls didn’t always fit their schedules, so it was hard to keep students engaged and moving through the process. The team needed a modern, scalable way to reach students quickly.
A texting-first strategy that still sounds human
Graduate admissions built a texting-first strategy that handles both high-volume outreach and one-to-one conversations. Campaigns, personalization fields, scheduled messages, and auto-responses send timely nudges, welcome messages, and event follow-ups. Texts go out from segments in Mongoose or are triggered from Ellucian Recruit through the connector.
“We’ve seen strong success using Mongoose with our graduate and doctoral students. Once an application is started, several multi-modal communication campaigns through our CRM help keep applicants engaged and moving through the process to completion. Texting has been one of the most effective ways for us to reach busy adults.”
– Madison Willingham, Coordinator of Graduate Recruitment Communication, Jacksonville State University
Campaigns that get replies
The team uses campaign performance data to learn what resonates with graduate and doctoral audiences, and different messages perform differently:
- ~11% average response rate across active graduate campaigns
- 21% response rate on the initial general inquiry text
- 10% response rate during a free application week campaign
- 5% response rate on a graduate program fair invitation
Since stepping into her role in April 2025, Madison has helped revamp or create 22 communication plans for the Graduate School.
A first-day check-in
In spring 2026, the team texted new graduate students on the first day of classes, both as a friendly check-in and a way to surface last-minute questions.
“Spring ’26 was the first time we sent new graduate students a message on the first day of classes. The responses were very helpful and allowed me to identify areas where we can add more information and support into the accepted student communication plan I am building for graduate students.”
– Madison Willingham
Time back for a small team
With a lean team, automation keeps graduate admissions responsive during busy stretches. Auto-replies are a big help during free application weeks, when incoming messages spike and not everyone can be in the inbox at once.
“Mongoose saves us significant time and effort by allowing us to build texting campaigns that answer common questions before students even need to ask. Our graduate admissions team is small but mighty, with five team members total, including myself.”
– Madison Willingham
Personal, never robotic
Texts are signed by recruiters and use simple personalization fields like first name and program, so students know they’re talking to a real person, not a generic office.
“It seems very simple, but those are so beneficial… It’s nice when we’re able to say, ‘hey, Madison,’ instead of, ‘hey, future student.’”
– Madison Willingham
Visibility across three inboxes
Madison manages communication across three shared inboxes and relies on the Mongoose dashboard to keep everything in one place. Trending topics show what students ask about most and spark ideas for new outreach, and conversation resolution keeps follow-ups organized.
“I love the dashboard… I’m a visual person. It’s nice to get a true sense of how the students are feeling. Plus, the trending topics definitely sparked different ideas where I realized, I could do a whole plan about this.”
– Madison Willingham
Friendly by design
JSU calls itself the Friendliest Campus in the South, and its texts are written to match.
“I really feel that by leaning into our brand, the Friendliest Campus in the South, Mongoose texts never feel robotic. The messages stay warm, personal, and inviting, which encourages students to reply and start a conversation.”
– Madison Willingham
That warmth shows up in person, too. As an undergraduate recruiter, Madison once scheduled a simple “come say hi” text while she was working a college fair, and students came by just to say hello. “The number of students that came up to me was surprising,” she said.
In graduate recruitment, she added a check-in text for in-person events. When attendees check in, they get a welcome message signed by the recruiter staffing the event, which helps them put a name to a face and starts better conversations onsite.
“Wrapping it all up with the personalization and hitting those touchpoints that they really care about, that matters. And we really couldn’t do it without Mongoose.”
– Madison Willingham
What made the difference
- Personalization at scale. Recruiter-signed messages that feel human.
- Campaign analytics. Data that supports continuous improvement.
- Scheduled messages and auto-responses. Timely outreach and a lighter inbox at peak times.
- Dashboard insights. Trending topics and conversation resolution for better visibility.
- Ellucian Recruit connector. Texts sent from segments or triggered from the CRM.
Looking ahead
The work is already showing up in the numbers: JSU saw an increase in spring 2026 first-time graduate and doctoral enrollment compared with the previous cycle. Next, Madison is building communication plans for every stage of the graduate funnel, and nearly all of them include Text as a key touchpoint.
“Mongoose has become an essential part of how we communicate with students. We genuinely couldn’t do this work as effectively without it.”
– Madison Willingham
What other graduate admissions teams can take from JSU
Sign every text with a recruiter’s name, use first names and program names, and track response by campaign so you can see which messages to keep. To compare your own numbers, see what 53 million messages reveal about 4-year college engagement and how to tell if your student communication strategy is working.
Graduate programs elsewhere have found the same thing. At Notre Dame’s online data science program, enrollment grew 84 percent after the team swapped long emails for short, personal texts. And JSU isn’t the only school texting from Ellucian Recruit; the University of Central Oklahoma cut campus visit no-shows by 10 percent with text reminders sent through the same connector.
Download the full case study
Frequently Asked Questions
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