SUNY Geneseo
Designing a Connected Slate Experience for Students and Families
The Challenge
Like many enrollment teams, SUNY Geneseo—a highly regarded flagship public college within the SUNY system enrolling roughly 500 students each year—was navigating rising expectations for clarity and one-to-one personalization amid limited staff capacity and growing operational complexity.
Slate served as the system of record, but the experience it delivered had not yet caught up to how students and families were engaging with the enrollment process—particularly at critical moments like application, admission, and deposit.
Parent communication emerged as a clear opportunity. Families increasingly wanted timely, relevant insight into the process, but Geneseo needed a way to deliver transparency without adding manual work or creating a fragmented experience across systems.
The Turning Point
Geneseo partnered with Waybetter to take a step back and evaluate how Slate could be used more intentionally across audiences. The shared goal was to design clearer, more connected experiences that met students and families where they were—automatically and at scale.
A personalized parent portal, integrated directly into Slate and tied to student activity, became a natural extension of this strategy.
The Work
Waybetter worked closely with the Geneseo enrollment team to strengthen both structure and experience within Slate. The engagement included:
Comprehensive Slate audit covering workflows, data structure, and communication architecture
Custom application, admit, and deposit portals guiding students through each stage of the funnel
Personalized parent portal providing visibility into campus culture, milestones, and next steps
Automated student and parent communications triggered at application start, enabling timely engagement without added staff lift
Each component was designed to be cohesive and intuitive for the end-user and easy for the Geneseo team to maintain.
The Results
Parent engagement was immediate and sustained:
- 775+ parents accessed their student’s portal within the first five days of launch
- As of February—early in the admit cycle—55% of parents of admitted students had logged into their portal
- 61% of parent visitors returned more than 5 times, indicating strong early adoption and sustained engagement
These early results reinforced what Waybetter already knew: when families are given clear, relevant access at the right moment, they actively use it and continue to return as the cycle progresses.
Across Waybetter partner institutions:
The Impact
By extending the Slate experience to parents in a thoughtful, automated way, SUNY Geneseo created a more transparent, connected enrollment process for both students and families—without adding operational burden for staff.
The result is higher engagement through the funnel and more students on campus.
They don’t just deliver a product; they help you think strategically, anticipate challenges, and get the most value out of the solution.
Waybetter was an exceptional partner from start to finish. Their team was responsive, collaborative, and deeply thoughtful—taking the time to understand our needs and delivering work with real care and attention to detail. The student and parent portals have been game changers for us, dramatically improving how we communicate and engage while giving us access to meaningful engagement data we didn’t have before. Internally, the impact has been just as significant: fewer manual processes, fewer repeat questions, and more time for my team to focus on strategic work. "