A question about evening classes. A campus tour confirmation. A request for help finishing an application. These are the kinds of replies an admissions team wants when it sends a prospective student a text.
For career-school leaders, the useful question is how often texting produces those exchanges and what happens afterward. Published research offers evidence that students will engage through text. Your school’s own admissions data can show which messages deserve a place in your follow-up plan.
What the response-rate research tells us
A 2021 study by Christopher Avery and colleagues examined text-based college guidance for U.S. high school students in the graduating class of 2016, primarily at schools serving low-income populations. In its national intervention, 65% of treatment-group students replied at least once, excluding opt-out requests.
That figure covers participation across the intervention, rather than replies to a single text. It also describes a different audience from adult learners considering career training, so it isn’t a benchmark for your admissions team.
The study’s conversation data adds a useful detail: engagement was highest around where to apply and which college to select, with financial aid topics next. Students had concrete decisions to make and questions to resolve. Enrollment findings varied between the national and school-based programs; the national program did not improve enrollment, despite generating replies.
For a career school, that makes SMS worth testing around specific admissions decisions, while measuring the next step separately.
Give students a clear reason to reply
Start with the student’s current situation. Someone who has just requested program information needs a different conversation from someone who has already booked an interview.
Use text to ask a question your team can act on. For a new inquiry, that might be whether daytime or evening study fits their schedule. Before a tour, it might be a request to confirm attendance. For an unfinished application, offer help with the remaining step.
Keep each message focused. Identify your school, provide enough context to make the contact recognizable, and ask for one response. Save detailed program explanations for the channel that gives them enough room.
Before sending, follow your school’s approved contact-permission and opt-out procedures. A better response rate isn’t a reason to contact people who shouldn’t be on the list.
Build a response rate your team can use
When comparing SMS response rates in education, write down what counts before reviewing results. A practical campaign measure is the percentage of unique contacted prospects who send a substantive reply within a defined period.
Use these rules consistently:
- Count each prospect once, even if they send several messages.
- Separate useful replies from opt-outs and wrong-number notices.
- Specify whether your total includes everyone you attempted to contact or only recipients with reported delivery.
- Set the reply window in advance and show the underlying recipient and responder counts.
Then compare similar campaigns. Keep new inquiries separate from booked appointments, and separate recent leads from older prospects you’re trying to re-engage. Otherwise, a change in audience can look like a change in message quality.
For small groups, read the conversations as well as the percentages. A handful of replies can help identify confusing wording, but it doesn’t establish a reliable performance trend.
Follow the reply through to the admissions outcome
Choose the intended action alongside the reply measure. For tour reminders, track confirmations and attendance. For application follow-up, track replies and completed applications. A prospect may take the requested action without texting back, so check both.
Review the team’s response, too. Who owns incoming questions? What happens when a prospect replies after office hours? Can another representative see the conversation if the assigned advisor is away?
An unanswered question about start dates is a concrete follow-up problem. Sending another campaign won’t resolve it. Give replies an owner and a next action, then check that the action happened.
Keep SMS connected to the student record
Text messaging for schools belongs in a coordinated admissions process, with SMS, email, and phone treated as connected student communication channels. Before contacting a prospect, your advisor should be able to see whether a phone call already answered the question or an email changed the next step.
Great Exposure’s CampusLogin CRM and SIS supports automatically scheduled text and email campaigns, alongside stored email, SMS, and phone communication histories. Its admissions reporting tracks lead-to-student conversion by recruiter and media source.
Those capabilities give schools a foundation for reviewing outreach in context. Set up your workflow so the team can connect the conversation to the prospect’s current stage and see what still needs attention. Confirm the reporting configuration needed for your chosen response measures.
Start with one admissions campaign
Choose a recurring task, such as confirming campus tours. Establish the current reply and attendance figures, review the message, and test one change with a comparable audience. Keep the version that produces more useful conversations and supports the intended action, while watching opt-outs.
Want to connect SMS follow-up with your broader enrollment process? Talk with Great Exposure about CampusLogin. Bring one admissions campaign and the student action you want to improve.
