How student checklists helped Jax State keep more students on track
The gap between acceptance and enrollment is full of to-dos – submitting records and forms, financial aid steps, advising appointments. Students lose track. Families get anxious. Staff spend hours chasing people down, instead of moving them forward.
Once students register for orientation at Jacksonville State University, they need to complete placement exams, schedule and prepare for their advising session, apply for housing, upload their student ID card photo, and more. It can feel like a lot of next steps, so it’s important to give students the info they need in a digestible way!
With CampusESP for Student Orientation, Jacksonville State University uses Checklists to make student next steps clear – and the results are showing up in their enrollment numbers. Jax State ended their summer orientation season tracking 15% ahead year-over-year on first time freshman class registrations.
Keaton Glass, Director of 1st & 2nd Year Experience, shared how they’re seeing students engage differently: “Before CampusESP, our system provided checklists to students, but we didn’t see them take action like we wanted. By centralizing orientation registration, communications, learning modules, and checklists in one system, we’re seeing students meaningfully prepare for their first year at Jax State!”
The problem Jax State needed to solve with orientation management
Jax State uses CampusESP for Student Orientation to support orientation registration and check-in, with dynamic sessions and QR-code check-in to make orientation simpler and more efficient.
Prior to CampusESP for Student Orientation, they had tried multiple systems to manage orientation. Most recently, they were using a campus-wide student engagement system and just making it work for orientation.
Glass told us about the challenges their system was causing: “Our system was stopping us from simple things that would’ve made everything easier - like segmenting tickets by student type, running check-in, and tracking student engagement. It just wasn’t built for orientation.”
In July 2025, after 2 years of family engagement in CampusESP, Jacksonville State signed on for CampusESP for Student Orientation and they found something that works - one orientation operating system that combines orientation registration, email and text messaging, QR code check-in, learning modules, checklists, event group support, an AI assistant, and more!
They launched orientation registration in CampusESP in November 2025, followed a few months later by checklists and learning modules to support incoming Fall 2026 students.
Now, more than 10,000 admitted students have been imported into CampusESP, receiving emails and texts, registering for orientation, and completing their admitted student checklists.
With an intentional strategy in a system purpose-built for orientation management, Jax State is seeing high engagement from students, more efficient orientation seasons for staff, and boosts in enrollment numbers!
How Jax State uses Checklists to keep students on track
In CampusESP, Checklists give students a single, prominent list of what they need to do before arriving on campus, segmented by student type so the list stays relevant to them.
Checklists show students a personalized list of their next steps, with different options for completion, like self-checked or automated triggers.
Build checklists by student population – so a commuter student doesn’t see move-in-related items that don't apply to them.
Attach automated completion triggers to specific items so the list updates automatically as students finish steps, rather than relying on manual status checks.
Include direct links to forms, portals, and next steps so students aren't left Googling where to go next.
Set up automated reminders for incomplete checklists – without having to manually identify who's behind.
Throughout the summer, before and after a student’s orientation session, Jax State shows all incoming students a checklist – from applying for financial aid to attending new student convocation, next steps are clear and organized every step of the way.
2,000 students (and counting!) have been assigned to checklists - automatically assigned to each student the moment they register for an orientation session.
The Results
In just three months, Jax State students have completed over 6,000 total checklist items. They’re seeing higher completion numbers than they ever have before.
Glass shared, “We’re so happy with the response to checklists so far. We previously had checklists in our other system and, within a month of launching student checklists in CampusESP, we already surpassed the completion numbers we used to see over an entire summer.”
By centralizing the student experience during these crucial first few months, the Jax State team is seeing real student adoption and staff time savings. Most importantly, though, students are actually progressing towards enrollment - to the tune of a 15% year-over-year increase in first-time freshman class registration!
Students are actually taking the steps they need to take, and along the way, becoming better equipped for their entire student journey at Jax State! We're excited to see the continued impact of Checklists guiding students all the way through census day.
Want to learn more about CampusESP for Student Orientation? Request a demo!