# From Data to Impact: How SDP Fellow Alumna Megan Conklin Is Transforming Student Success at Hope Chicago August 13, 2026 - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) ![Megan Conklin](/sites/g/files/omnuum4446/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-10/Conklin_Megan.jpg?itok=tiD-nyOE) What does it actually take to help first-generation, under-resourced college students not just enroll, but stay, succeed, and graduate? For Megan Conklin, SDP Fellowship alumna and data leader at Hope Chicago, the answer starts with listening. Megan is a runner-up for 2026 SDP Award for Strategic Data Impact, and her work is a powerful example of what happens when a skilled data leader combines technical rigor with genuine care for students. We highlighted Hope Chicago's model last year, but the results from Megan's work in 2024-2025 make it worth revisiting because the numbers tell a story that's hard to ignore. **Access Is Just the Beginning** Hope Chicago partners with five community high schools on Chicago's South and West Sides (where the average household income sits below $23,000) to offer students and one parent or guardian the opportunity to pursue a postsecondary education or workforce credential completely debt-free. It's a powerful promise, but as Megan and her colleagues recognized early on, removing financial barriers is only the starting point. Like most postsecondary organizations, Hope Chicago was largely dependent on lagging indicators like mid-term grades, end-of-semester GPAs, and semester-to-semester retention rates. By the time those numbers surfaced, the window to meaningfully intervene had often already closed. Megan set out to change that. **Building a Real-Time Support System** Over the course of 18 months, Megan designed and built what has become one of Hope Chicago's most impactful tools: the Pulse Survey system. Deployed at five strategic points throughout the semester—before classes began, two weeks in, before and after midterms, and at the end of the term—each survey was timed intentionally to capture what students needed most at that specific moment. The surveys were distributed through Typeform via individualized links, protecting student privacy while keeping the experience simple and accessible on any device. Students had 72 hours to respond, and their answers flowed automatically into a spreadsheet for immediate review. To encourage participation, Hope Chicago raffled cash prizes and shared results back with students. Sharing the results back helped in building trust and demonstrating that their voices were actually being heard. Average response rates hovered around 65%. The surveys gave students a direct, low-barrier way to share what was really going on in their lives like not having their textbooks, a parent in the hospital, and struggles with mental health. Within one week of each survey closing, students who flagged a challenge were identified, and program managers were equipped with their contact information and a brief description of their needs. From there, the team determined the right intervention, which could be a phone call, an email check-in, or a referral to on-campus support, and tracked every step, including whether the issue had been resolved. "Our scholars felt seen, felt heard, felt cared for," Megan reflected. "When we followed up with a phone call or a text, they knew we were listening. This let them know that we were here for them—and I think this transformed their college experience." **Results That Speak for Themselves** The impact was immediate and measurable. During the 2024-2025 school year, the Pulse Survey system identified 814 individual scholar needs, 27% of which were mental health-related, ranging from everyday college stress to serious cases of distress. In response, Hope Chicago and partner colleges reached out to each flagged student individually and developed a Wellness Guide distributed to all scholars through a Fall Wellness Campaign. In Fall 2024 alone, 224 obstacles were identified among 187 students, and nearly 90% of these obstacles were resolved through timely, targeted outreach. The effect on student outcomes was dramatic for Hope Chicago's third cohort (students who began college in Fall 2024): \- 67% passed three or more classes in their first term, up from 47% in prior cohorts \- Among students with a high school GPA between 2.5–2.9, the pass rate nearly doubled, jumping from 32% to 60% \- One-year persistence rose to 78% up from 60%—a rate that rivals students from far more well-resourced communities Importantly, no additional academic resources were provided to this cohort compared to earlier ones. The difference was proactive, real-time social and navigational support. As Hope Chicago's Chief Operations and Financial Officer Matt Lyons noted: "Simply helping solve real-time challenges by providing proactive support for students may well help an additional 1 in 5 students find success early in college." The benefits extended beyond students, too. Program managers shifted to a structured case management model, using survey data as a consistent, meaningful reason to connect with scholars. Student outreach surged from an average of 3.8 emails per student in Fall 2023 to 15.8 emails per student in Fall 2024. Partner institutions also began using pulse survey insights to guide their own outreach to at-risk students. **The Person Behind the Work** What makes this work especially impressive is how much Megan built and how thoughtfully she built it. She didn't just design the surveys. She engineered the data pipelines that moved information across 20 campus partners in real time, navigated complex data privacy requirements, and brought alignment to organizations with very different processes and definitions of success. (Even something as seemingly simple as defining what "resolved" meant required significant cross-organizational work.) Megan credits the SDP Fellowship as foundational to her ability to take this on—giving her not just technical skills like survey design, but the softer skills needed to navigate complex, multi-stakeholder environments and drive targeted, data-driven action. "We weren't just guessing at what scholars needed," she said. "We were actually listening to scholars and making that the central focus of what we do." That commitment—to listening, to acting quickly, and to ensuring that data serves the student first—is what makes Megan Conklin's work a model for the postsecondary field and a runner-up more than worthy of recognition. See also:- [ SDP Convening 2026 ](/tags/sdp-convening-2026) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)