How to Build Relationships during the Admissions Process

Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with an educational leader to look at her school’s admissions process. We identified the parts of the process that were working well for their school…and the parts that could be working better. The starting point was to identify the goal of the admissions process.

The goal of the admissions process is not to “sell” the school to a family, but to begin a relationship with a prospective family.

Since the marketing and admissions process is about beginning and building a relationship with families, let’s start by breaking down the process. Relationships go through three stages:

1. Awareness - families need to become AWARE of your existence. This is the job of your school’s marketing.

2. Engagement - families need to ENGAGE with your school and its team in order to learn more about your ministry and to build enough trust to take the next relationships step. Engagement is a process that happens over time and involves both your marketing (attending an event, seeing an ad, viewing your website, scrolling through your social media) and your admissions process (taking a tour of the school, meeting with the principal/admissions personnel, and asking questions).

3. Commitment - families make a decision to commit to your school and probably at least a year-long relationship through the enrollment process. This is the ultimate goal of the marketing and admissions process, as well as continued commitment through retention efforts.

While the marketing process is focused on the awareness stage and first part of the engagement stage, admissions concentrates on the second part of the engagement stage and the commitment phase. As you look at your school’s own admissions process, here are a few ways you might be able to build relationships with prospective families even better:

1. Make sure they have enough information to take the next step. Lots of schools get “leads” from their marketing efforts - usually email addresses or phone numbers gathered from contact forms, event registrations, or brochure downloads. Schools will then reach out with an email and/or phone call, hoping to usher families to the next step: scheduling a school tour. But what happens when that lead gets an email and/or a personal phone call and doesn’t sign up for a school tour?

   I find that many schools give up, assuming the answer is “no.” While in some cases this is true, keep in mind that families vary in the amount of time or information they need to take the next step. Some families will schedule a tour within a week of submitting their contact information; others will take weeks or months or years.

   One way of making sure that families get enough information is to put all of your email address leads into an email nurture campaign - an automated series of emails that drip information little by little, usually once a week for several weeks. These are short emails that share more information about your schools’s mission, culture, academic program, as well as parent testimonials, performance statistics, and, of course, continued invitations to schedule a tour and continue the relationship-building.

2. Optimize the school tour experience. A school tour is a lot like the “first date” of a relationship. After getting to know your school through your marketing materials and email correspondence, they are ready to take the next step…and the school tour is that next big step. Treat it with the care this big step deserves. Send a confirmation email, telling parents where to park and enter the building, and share your excitement for the upcoming chance to meet them. Make them feel like an honored guest by welcoming them, offering them coffee, and making sure they are comfortable. (For more ideas about the tour experience, read this article!). And as you get to know each other, ask a few very important questions:

   1. How did you hear about us?

   2. Why did you decide to visit our school?

   3. What are you looking for in a school?

   4. What are your biggest needs and desires for your child’s education?

   5. What questions can we help you answer?

   Listen intently and record the answers to these questions. You will probably see some patterns over time. This data can be invaluable for making future program, marketing, and admissions decisions.

3. Follow up! After the tour, follow up consistently with the family. I love this idea from Kaylen Orr, preschool director at Building Blocks Christian Academy out in Los Angeles, California:

“After a family tours our preschool, I follow up in two ways. First, I send a thank you email that same day, sharing how I enjoyed our visit, appreciated getting to know them more, and am available to help them with any more questions or the enrollment process. Within 24-48 hours, I also mail a Scholastic book with a handwritten note inside the front cover to the family. We get tons of free books, and I find that parents really appreciate a book much more than a keychain or some other SWAG item from the school (and the book tends to stay on their bookshelf for years!). About 10 days after I mail the book, I follow up with the family to ensure they received the package in the mail and to ask them if they have any more questions or would like enrollment information.

4. Follow up again! Most school leaders I meet are terrified about one particular piece of the admissions process: spamming families with too much information or becoming too pushy or sales-y. This is a great fear to have! However, because this fear is such a strong one, I have yet to find a school team that is sending too much information or follow-up! Rather, the wide-ranging issues is NOT following up enough.

5. The process doesn’t end at enrollment…it continues through the first months of school! There can be months between the time of enrollment and the first day of school. Make sure to send communication throughout that time! Ideas include - a welcome gift for new families with some school SWAG, a phone call from the child’s future teacher, and/or a special email from the principal a couple days before schools starts letting the family know that the faculty and staff is praying for their new students.

Also consider how you can continue to check-in with new families during the first couple months of the school year. A phone call after the first week or a sit-down interview after the first month goes a long way to show new families that your school cares about them and wants their new student to have a great experience at your school.

Questions for your Team to Ask

1. “What is our current admissions process?” Write out the process from the time you get a family’s information through the first couple months of the school year.

2. “Where is our admissions process working well? Celebrate the parts that are working well…and challenge your team to make them even better!

3. “Where might a family need more information or nurturing? Brainstorm ways to make families feel more welcomed, understand your school better, and continue to build relationships and trust.

4. What information are we gathering during the admissions process - and what other information do we need to gather? Look for ways to consistently gather information from parents and record that information for future decision-making and evaluation.

Blueprint Schools loves helping schools reach more families in their communities. If you feel stuck or need advice about your marketing and admissions, we’ll listen to your unique situation, answer your questions, and share how we can help your school thrive. 

Take the first step by scheduling a Zoom consultation with us.