Saint Vincent College
The Challenge
Saint Vincent College, a private Catholic, Benedictine institution in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and the longtime summer home of the Pittsburgh Steelers training camp, serves roughly 1,300 students across more than 90 undergraduate majors and minors.
The team at Saint Vincent recognized the need for a comprehensive overhaul of their recruitment marketing strategy, which could support true one-to-many personalization alongside the comprehensive personal outreach that was a hallmark of its recruitment efforts. To support its personal outreach and recruitment strategies, it needed a digital hub that would grow and change to deliver the optimal user experience across the funnel and all channels.
Combining personal experience with broad outreach was necessary to build a stronger, deeper pipeline. What was missing was the digital infrastructure and tools to deliver that level of personalization at scale.
The Turning Point
Saint Vincent College partnered with Waybetter in February 2025 with a clear goal: work together to build the digital infrastructure, launch the campaigns, and put the institution in position to connect with far more prospective students than it had before without losing its personal connection and meaningful messaging. The 2026 recruitment cycle marked the first cycle with Waybetter helping to shape the strategy from the top of the funnel all the way through deposit.
Waybetter moved quickly in lockstep with the Saint Vincent team—standing up a Slate infrastructure from Sophomore to Census. Every touchpoint, every changing status, every mile marker was configured and built to deliver the ultimate user experience throughout the entire lifecycle. Saint Vincent was a great partner eager to turn things around.
The Work
Together, the Saint Vincent College enrollment and marketing teams delivered:
- A full buildout of Slate communication spanning the entire funnel—sophomore inquiry, junior inquiry, senior inquiry, transfer, parents, incomplete applicants, admits, and deposited students—ensuring consistent, personalized outreach to every prospective student at every stage of their journey.
- A dynamic portal experience built for every stage of the funnel—prospect, inquiry, applicant, admit, and deposit—to deliver the most relevant content at every stage of the journey. Students moved seamlessly from one status to the next using data to always meet them where they were.
- An additional suite of Slate portals—including the Visit Portal, Counselor Command Center, Deposit Portal, and Parent Portal—giving students, families, and counselors a personalized, connected experience at each stage of the process.
- A comprehensive Slate Audit and full email template buildout to ensure Saint Vincent had a consistent and polished communication foundation, built to perform. All data issues or other underlying Slate infrastructure issues were identified and corrected for optimal performance throughout the entire cycle.
The Results (as of May 1, 2026)
In their first full cycle with Waybetter, Saint Vincent College posted meaningful growth at every stage of the funnel—from first inquiry all the way through deposit.
Compared to Fall 2025:
- Applications increased 35%, reflecting the immediate impact of engaging students earlier and more consistently across the funnel.
- Admits decreased 9 percentage points.
- Yield increased 5 percentage points.
- Deposits went from 265 to 388, a 46% increase and the highest in at least four years.
- 435 students had at least one parent engage with the Parent Portal—a meaningful signal of family investment at the moment of commitment.
It says something, especially over the last year, that the questions from our board have really been reduced to ‘where are our numbers’ — not ‘what are we doing?' We are building confidence that the plan we have in place is working"
The Road Ahead
With a fully built communications infrastructure and a first cycle that continues to exceed expectations, Saint Vincent College enters the summer months and year two with a stronger foundation than it has had in years. Together, SVC and Waybetter will continue to refine and deepen the engagement strategy—expanding outreach earlier in the funnel, strengthening the scholarship and yield experience, and ensuring that every prospective student encounters a version of Saint Vincent that feels personal, compelling, and worth saying yes to.