How St. Charles Community College embraced family engagement to boost enrollment results
With a long-standing program in place, St. Charles Community College (SCC) had build a starting framework to guide area high school seniors into their system. But they knew it could be more effective. When Laura Powell transitioned into her role as Director of Recruitment for SCC, she immediately saw an opportunity to improve communication about the institution, especially with parents and families who were not being engaged and missing key details along the way.
That’s when SCC brought on CampusESP.
What started as a fix for inconsistent information-sharing quickly became a foundational tool in the SCC BeReady strategy. By engaging families early and often — and automating key touchpoints through CampusESP — SCC boosted enrollment by 29% in the program, cut down on placement test issues, and built stronger connections with families at scale.
Powell estimates that each recruiter spends less than five hours total setting up a full year of reminders for all of their schools.
About the BeReady program
For more than 15 years, St. Charles Community College’s BeReady program has been helping high school seniors navigate the college enrollment process. The program serves 32 high schools through five touchpoints: an introduction to SCC, application support, a campus orientation, placement testing, and individual registration at the student’s high school. SCC communicates with students and families throughout the process, ensuring students are registered for their first semester before they even leave high school.
By offering this strong support system, BeReady aims to make the transition to college seamless for students, and boost enrollment.
Parent reminders that actually make a difference
Before CampusESP, communication for the BeReady program relied almost entirely on high school counselors to relay information to students. Families weren’t part of the loop.
Important details were getting lost in translation. Students would show up unprepared — missing their Social Security numbers for applications or confused about the process of placement testing. With so much happening during senior year, it’s no surprise that deadlines and logistics sometimes slipped through the cracks. But those small oversights created big setbacks, delaying next steps and causing stress for students, counselors, and SCC staff.
SCC also changed the order of the BeReady process after noticing that students who received testing accommodations in high school didn’t always know they had to request those supports from the college. Students now visit campus before placement testing, see the assessment center, and learn how to request accommodations. Powell reported that placement scores improved and fewer students needed to take the test a second time. “The earlier we communicated, the better it was for everybody,” she said.
With CampusESP, the BeReady program thrives thanks to both student commitment and active family involvement. Parents receive timely, personalized reminders — from bringing key documents to prepping for placement tests — ensuring they have the information they need to support their student every step of the way.
Meet families where they are using their preferred channels
SCC uses CampusESP for Two-Year Colleges to ensure families are informed. Over 800 parents are actively engaged through the platform, where they receive personalized text messages, emails, and reminders tailored to their student’s specific journey.
One of the most effective ways SCC engages families is through CampusESP’s automated newsletters, a feature that automatically alerts families of top content and requires no lift from their team. In 2025, SCC sent over 112,450 emails with an 15% average click-through rate. They also sent over 9,770 text messages to parents, with key updates like placement testing dates and campus events.
Smarter content creation = more time for what matters
The SCC builds each high school’s communication calendar before the busy season and schedules one-week and one-day reminders in advance. ESP Sense™ AI-powered workflows makes it easy to add, edit, or translate content in seconds, and scheduling features that let SCC plan everything in advance.
“We plan every school’s date for all of the visits in August and September. The entire calendar is booked through April. We drafted and scheduled every one-week-out and one-day-out reminder before anything started because once this program gets going, there’s no time to build on the fly.” said Po
CampusESP’s team also curates 93% of the content as part of the CampusESP Content Network, so SCC doesn’t have to start from scratch. The result? More time spent engaging families and supporting students — and less time spent writing emails.
More BeReady students moving forward
As a result of more regular, tailored outreach to families, the SCC team has seen completion of the BeReady program soar. For Fall 2026, 979 BeReady students planned to attend SCC, compared with 761 in Fall 2025, an increase of about 29%.
BeReady participants also converted at a rate of 76%, compared with 49% for non-BeReady participants. Powell connected those results to fewer enrollment barriers:
“The student didn’t hit a barrier. They had somebody there to support them and make sure they had everything they needed.”.
The time savings have helped SCC serve 32 BeReady high schools without adding staff. “I don’t know how four people could do all the things they’re doing in all these schools without what CampusESP helps provide,” Powell said. “I don’t know that we could do that as efficiently and not overload our counselors.”
These wins have helped SCC not only reach its current goals but extend family engagement beyond BeReady. SCC now uses CampusESP to manage FERPA-authorized connections and communicate with current-student families. More than 60% of SCC’s FERPA requests through the platform were initiated by students.