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 63% in the program, cut down on placement test issues, and built stronger connections with families at scale.
The best part? The team only spends about one hour a week managing it all.
About the BeReady program
For 15 years, St. Charles Community College’s BeReady program has been helping high school seniors navigate the college admissions process. SCC’s team visits 32 high schools five times over the course of the school year and supports students and their parents through every step of applying, 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.
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. Last year, SCC sent over 25,000 emails with an 18% average click-through rate. They also sent over 2,400 text messages to parents, with key updates like placement testing dates and campus events.
Smarter content creation = more time for what matters
The SCC team spends just one hour a week managing communication through CampusESP — a major shift from the manual, time-consuming processes of the past. That’s thanks to two key tools: the built-in Generative AI Editor that 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.” — Laura Powell, Director of Recruitment
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.
A 63% increase in enrollment with family engagement
As a result of more regular, tailored outreach to family, the SCC team has seen completion of the BeReady program soar, with a 63% increase in incoming first-year students. 763 BeReady students are planning to attend for Fall 2025, up from 481 in Fall 2024.
The time savings that came with content help and scaled automation have also allowed the SCC team to expand the core program, with a 23% increase in the number of high schools served.
These wins have helped SCC not only reach their current goals, but start a new list of what strategic family engagement can help them achieve, including providing protected data access to families in facilitate student success and retention.
“BeReady was our soft launch. Now we’re expanding CampusESP for FERPA access and current student families. Our goal is to get more families in the portal — not just for BeReady, but across the board,” said Powell.