Case Study: Johns Hopkins University boosts student retention with Mongoose texting

How Johns Hopkins University uses student mentor texting for retention

Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, needed a better way to support first-year students as they transitioned from high school to college. The Office of Orientation and First-Year Experience found that students were not very responsive to email, so they looked for a more immediate, mobile-first way to connect with them. Using Mongoose’s Cadence texting platform, they created a student mentor texting program to reach students in a voice they could relate to.

With Mongoose and Cadence, Johns Hopkins trained paid student mentors like Kai Abiola to send timely, personalized texts based on key milestones throughout the first-year experience, while staff could monitor messages for quality and accountability. The results were strong: summer email read rates were about 10%, while text message read rates held steady at 30–40%; only 3 students opted out during the 2020 school year out of nearly 1,000; and one support-check text earned a 23% response rate, with 86.7% of respondents saying they felt supported.

Johns Hopkins University

Brittany Claridge

Assistant Director of Orientation