Reducing Summer Melt: Turn Incomplete Enrollment Steps into Timely Student Support

A practical checklist for helping committed students complete the final steps from intent to enrollment.

A student can intend to enroll in the fall and still fail to arrive.

Sometimes the barrier is financial. Sometimes it is confusion about a required form, a registration hold, an orientation deadline, or a placement assessment the student did not realize mattered. The final stretch from admission to enrollment is filled with consequential steps, and each unfinished step can be an early opportunity to offer support.

For enrollment teams working to reduce summer melt, the question is not simply, “Which students have not enrolled yet?”

A more useful question is:

Which students have an incomplete next step, and what would help them move forward?

Start with unfinished steps that can delay enrollment

Not every incomplete task indicates that a student will melt. But when a required, time-sensitive step remains unfinished, it gives institutions a timely reason to check in.

Consider students who have not yet:

• completed required placement assessments;
• submitted financial aid verification documents or other required enrollment materials;
• registered for or attended orientation;
• resolved holds preventing registration;
• registered for classes; or
• addressed a balance or payment requirement.

These are more than administrative tasks. They are moments when students may be confused, overwhelmed, financially uncertain, unsure where to turn, or quietly reconsidering their plans.

The goal is not to label every student with an incomplete task as “at risk.” The goal is to identify where progress has stalled while there is still time to help.

Ask students where they are, rather than assuming why they are stuck

One Mainstay partner recently identified approximately 2,500 admitted students who had not yet completed required math and/or English placement assessments—important next steps for class registration and orientation.

Instead of sending only a reminder, the institution used SMS to ask students which statement best described their status:

1. I completed my placements already.
2. I plan to complete my placement assessments by the deadline.
3. I need help or am not sure why I have to do them.
4. I’ve decided not to attend.

More than half of the contacted students responded. Among them, 168 students selected the option indicating that they needed help or were unsure why the assessments were required.

Before that conversation, those students appeared on an incomplete-task list. After it, the institution had a clear group of students who could benefit from targeted assistance, clarification, or a connection with a person.

A reminder may help a student who simply forgot a deadline. It may not help a student who does not understand the requirement, is facing a barrier, or has started to question whether enrollment is still possible.

Use the right channel for a question that deserves an answer

For these moments, communication should not only deliver information. It should make responding easy.

A short SMS message allows a student to answer in the moment, whether they are at work, at home, or away from a computer. A simple set of reply options helps the institution quickly distinguish among students who are complete, planning to act, asking for help, or no longer intending to enroll.

The communication itself should be brief. The institutional response cannot be.

Students who indicate that they need help should receive immediate guidance when the question is routine, along with a clear path to a person when the situation requires judgment, empathy, or individualized support.

That is where AI-supported engagement can add capacity without replacing human care: answering common questions quickly, supporting students through known next steps, and identifying moments when staff involvement matters most.

What research tells us about summer melt outreach

This approach is supported by rigorous research.

In a randomized controlled trial at Georgia State University, committed students who received personalized, AI-supported text outreach about pre-enrollment requirements were 3.3 percentage points more likely to enroll in the fall, representing a 21 percent reduction in summer melt compared with students receiving usual support.[1]

A subsequent randomized controlled trial involving more than 4,400 students found that proactive outreach improved students’ navigation of financial aid processes overall. For would-be first-generation college students, the outreach also increased successful course registration and fall enrollment by three percentage points each.[2]

The lesson is not that every reminder prevents melt. It is that proactive, targeted outreach can help institutions identify and resolve specific barriers before an unfinished task becomes a missed enrollment.

A summer melt action checklist

Enrollment teams do not need to begin with every possible barrier at once. Start with one required step that is consequential, time-sensitive, and visible in institutional data.

1. Identify the incomplete step.
Choose a requirement students must complete in order to move toward enrollment, such as placement testing, orientation registration, financial aid verification, document submission, hold resolution, or course registration.

2. Reach out while there is still time to act.
Do not wait until the student has missed multiple deadlines or disappeared from the process.

3. Ask a question with a simple response.
Give students a simple way to indicate whether they completed the step, plan to complete it, need help, or no longer intend to enroll.

4. Respond differently based on what students tell you.
A completed task may require no further outreach. A planned action may require a reminder. A request for help may require immediate guidance or human follow-up.

5. Check whether support led to progress.
Monitor task completion, unresolved barriers, and eventual enrollment so that outreach becomes part of a measurable student-support strategy.

Help students reach day one, one next step at a time

Summer melt does not always begin with a student making a single decision not to enroll. It can begin with a required step that feels unclear, burdensome, or impossible to complete alone.

Institutions that can identify those moments and begin a useful conversation have an opportunity to do more than send reminders. They can find the students who need support—and help them keep moving toward the fall term.

Mainstay helps colleges and universities use timely student data, two-way SMS engagement, AI-supported guidance, and human escalation to identify barriers and support students from intent to enrollment.