From Public Scrutiny to Purposeful Rebuild: Whittier College & Waybetter Marketing
The Challenge
In 2023, Whittier College found itself in a highly public enrollment downturn—one that had been covered by the Los Angeles Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed, among many others.
Years of internal mistrust, pandemic fallout, and a series of strategic missteps had fractured campus morale and threatened Whittier’s long-term sustainability. The college had paused high-profile athletic programs, over-indexed on online offerings, and significantly reduced recruitment investments.
They were truly facing an existential crisis.
With alumni disillusioned and faculty skeptical, change was urgently needed. A new president brought stability. Then Ken Woods, a Whittier alumnus with deep operational experience, came out of retirement to serve as interim VP of Enrollment. Ken’s approach centered on loyalty, hard work, and restoring confidence—student by student.
The Solution
Together with Ken and his lean but committed team, Waybetter re-architected Whittier’s enrollment strategy and rebuilt their Slate CRM from the ground up, helping counselors focus their energy on the right students at the right times.
Key work included:
Fully restructured Slate instance with complete campaign coverage across the funnel
Search, application, and yield campaigns that reflected Whittier’s core differentiator: “You will be seen and heard here.”
A custom Waybetter Counselor Command Center in Slate and corresponding dashboards to support high-impact, transparent work across the enrollment team
Sophomore-to-Census student portals and personalized parent portals
Multichannel, personalized messaging throughout the funnel at every touchpoint, including print, web environments, email comm flows, and text messaging
The Results
Whittier saw one of the most dramatic one-year enrollment turnarounds in the country:
Applications increased by 50%
Admits rose by 55%
Deposits jumped 56%
Campus visits increased by 26%
“What Waybetter helped us build is a system rooted in connection. Every student is in their own funnel, and now we have the tools and the people to meet them there. For example, Waybetter’s Counselor Command Center [in Slate] lets my team focus on who matters most each day, so we’re not dealing with hundreds of thousands of names—we’re dealing with hundreds. We can read every student response to our yield campaign. We know what they’re worried about. This keeps us tethered to their world. It’s been a gamechanger for us, and the results speak for themselves.””
As Whittier looks toward Fall 2026, the momentum is real, and the path forward is clear: grow the top of the funnel and continue offering students and families a highly personalized experience that shows how deeply Whittier cares.