Each year we survey parents across all CampusESP partner schools. The process is managed by our Customer Success Team and is free for all our customers.

Detailed reports are provided back to all participating institutions that:

• Measure parent satisfaction trends. In some cases, historical data is provided so that schools can see whether parent services are improving.

• Compare data to industry benchmarks. We benchmark each school’s data against the rest of the CampusESP parent community. The benchmarks not only provide helpful peer group comparisons, they also benchmark data for segments of parents, such as parents of first generation students.

• Provide recommendations on program improvement. Our Customer Success team reviews the results and delivers an action plan to improve parent engagement in 2020.

This year the survey was completed by 7,991 parents from 50 participating colleges and universities. That’s a lot. The most ever. As our customer community has grown, so has the community of parents we support.

So what did the survey find? Let’s get to it…

65% of parents say CampusESP helps them better support their students

One of the most important questions we ask families is, “Has the information you've received from your parent portal helped you to better advise/support your student?” This year, 65% of parents said YES.

This is one of the most important metrics to our team. We passionately believe that parent engagement can support student success. It’s why we do what we do.

As George D. Kuh, PhD (Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at Indiana University and a member of CampusESP's Advisory Board.) said, "it is hard to imagine a more promising, cost-effective, and personalized approach to increasing student success."

Parents want information on campus events

The Parent Satisfaction Survey contains both quantitative and qualitative responses. One of the open ended questions we ask is, “What types of content would you like to see more of?”

The most frequent response? Events.

From our own research we know that parents are increasingly connected to the institutions their students attend. They want to know about Family Weekend, move-in, orientation, career fairs, and other events that their students should attend.

Want a deeper dive on the content parents crave? Check out our blog “Focus on first-year families: the info they need” for an analysis of 261,000 content clicks from first year families.

In 2019, we released new features to support event management in the CampusESP platform. Our partners can now create engaging event pages, charge for tickets and add-ons, and track the results.

Cyndy Hill, Director of Penn State Parent Programs, presented at the CampusESP Customer Summit on how she sold out of Family Weekend tickets in 3 hours using CampusESP!

Certain demographics get even more value from parent engagement

Before we created CampusESP, we surveyed over 8,000 college parents and found some pretty interesting results, including how parents of first generation students engage at higher levels in college than the overall parent population. The research also showed that Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino families had some of the highest levels of parent engagement.

This year, we’re flat out inspired to see that not only do those demographics engage at a higher level, but that they believe CampusESP helps them support their students at a higher level… up to 14% higher for African American families.

At a time when student retention rates are a focus, especially for under-served populations, parent engagement can make a difference

Our team is very excited about these results. There’s more to do. We can be better. We can help more students and families. But we’re off to a great start helping schools define the future of parent engagement and how it can support student success.