How OSU-Cascades Lifted Its Contact Rate From 36 Percent to 57 Percent

Q: How can texting help reduce summer melt?

At OSU-Cascades, higher contact rates with admitted students meant more of them finished critical next steps, like orientation registration, to secure their spot for the upcoming term.

Q: Does texting increase event registrations?

Yes. At OSU-Cascades, 60 percent of registrations for a Next Steps webinar came directly from the text link, and open house text reminders earned a 63 percent response rate, 20 points higher than phone calls alone.

Q: Does Mongoose work with Slate?

Yes. OSU-Cascades connects Mongoose to Slate, so conversations are logged and the team can build Segments and send texts easily.

Q: What is OSU-Cascades planning next?

Peer-to-peer texting with student ambassadors, a year-round texting strategy for application outreach, yield, and anti-melt campaigns, and a texting channel for high school counselors.

Three college students walking together outside a university building, smiling and carrying books.

TL;DR

A text first and a phone call second reaches more admitted students than either channel alone. Oregon State University – Cascades adopted Mongoose in early 2024, connected to Slate, to reach students who weren’t answering calls or reading email. By following texts with phone calls, it raised its overall contact rate from 36 percent to 57 percent, which helped more admitted students finish steps like orientation registration and cut summer melt. Texts also drove 60 percent of registrations for a Next Steps webinar.

Contact rate up from 36% to 57%
60% of webinar sign-ups from a text
63% response to open house reminders
Connected to Slate

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When Oregon State University – Cascades texted admitted students about its Next Steps webinar, 60 percent of the webinar’s registrations came directly from the text link. It was one of the first signs that texting would reach students the admissions team had struggled to reach by phone and email.

OSU-Cascades, in Bend, Oregon, is a growing hub for higher education in Central Oregon, a historically underserved region. It aims to grow from 1,300 to 2,200 students by 2030, and its admissions team adopted Mongoose in early 2024 to reach prospective and admitted students.

Why Calls and Email Weren’t Reaching Students

Phone calls often went unanswered, sometimes because students hadn’t set up voicemail, and emails got lost in crowded inboxes. With aggressive enrollment targets, OSU-Cascades needed high-touch communication that would work at every stage, from application to enrollment.

How OSU-Cascades Built Texting Into Admissions

Alex Galbreath, Director of Admissions, brought in Mongoose after using it before. Its Slate connector logs every conversation and lets the team build Segments and send personal, conversational texts, and Smart Messages save staff time without making texts feel automated.

“Mongoose offered the personalized, one-on-one interface we needed. The integration with Slate made it easy to create segments and send texts, and features like smart messages saved us valuable time while keeping communication personal.”

Alex Galbreath, Director of Admissions, Oregon State University – Cascades

Desktop and mobile access let counselors keep texting students and high school counselors from their own Mongoose numbers during busy travel seasons.

Results: More Contact, More Sign-Ups, Less Summer Melt

Higher Contact Rates to Fight Summer Melt

By following texts with phone calls, OSU-Cascades raised its overall contact rate from 36 percent to 57 percent. Reaching more admitted students meant more of them completed next steps like orientation registration, which helped reduce summer melt.

Events Students Sign Up For

Texting drove participation in admitted student webinars and open houses. One Next Steps webinar campaign produced 60 percent of the webinar’s registrations directly from the text link. Text reminders for spring open houses earned a 63 percent response rate, 20 points higher than phone calls alone, and improved show rates by 9 percent.

A Channel for Transfer Students

Transfer students are often hard to reach by email or phone, and they engaged more by text. In one case, a staff member resolved a transfer student’s concerns entirely through texts.

“Mongoose really helped one transfer student from an accessibility standpoint, as communicating via phone call was very challenging.”

Alex Galbreath

Responsive Support

“The Mongoose team is fantastic. They’re always quick to respond and provide support, which makes a huge difference when you’re managing so many moving pieces.”

Alex Galbreath

What Other Admissions Teams Can Take From OSU-Cascades

Don’t treat text and phone as either-or. A text first makes the follow-up call more likely to connect, and the pair reaches more admitted students than either does alone. That matters most in the summer, when melt is rarely a messaging problem and more often a follow-up problem; this post on why admissions communication plans fail covers why. To see how your reply rates compare, start with these admissions texting benchmarks and FAQs.

Other admissions teams have seen similar results. Thomas More University signed up 30 more students for Fall Preview Day by text and WhatsApp, and Kettering University increased deposits 60 percent with personal outreach.

Looking Ahead

OSU-Cascades plans to launch peer-to-peer texting so student ambassadors can connect with prospective and admitted students, build a year-round texting strategy for application outreach, yield, and anti-melt campaigns, and use Mongoose to give high school counselors a reliable channel for questions and updates.

“Mongoose has been a game-changer for us. It’s flexible, intuitive, and incredibly effective at helping us connect with students and counselors. We’re excited to continue building on its capabilities to support our growth.”

Alex Galbreath