The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) reports private schools saw an increase in student enrollment over the 2023-24 academic year. At an average of 404 students per school, it’s the third year of growth in a row.
As the independent school environment grows more competitive for a growing applicant pool, enrollment managers and directors need to ensure they do everything possible to attract and retain families.
When it comes to family involvement during enrollment season, technology plays a key role in the equation. Having a fast, easy, and connected experience incentivizes applications and eases the workload on administrative teams.
With these seven steps, you can set your school apart as families make final decisions.
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1. Go Paperless
Removing manual paper submissions is one of the first and most effective steps to modernizing the enrollment process. Traditional paper forms and contracts are not only time-consuming to complete, sort, file, and retrieve, but can create barriers for prospective families who may opt for an easier experience with a competing school. By digitizing documents and applications, schools can offer a seamless experience while reducing the risk of errors, speeding up times-to-decision, and protecting sensitive information.
Additionally, a paperless system supports sustainability goals and creates a cleaner, more organized administrative process. A cloud-based document management platform stores and organizes all enrollment materials, making them accessible at any time.
2. Offer Online and Mobile Payments
With smartphones and online options so prevalent, families expect flexibility in how they pay for tuition and fees. Offering online and mobile payment options allows parents to make payments quickly and easily from their phones, tablets, or computers.
Integrate secure payment gateways for payment cards and ACH transfers to ensure financial transactions are convenient, transparent, and safe. These options also help schools to maintain accurate financial records in real-time, reducing the administrative workload and the likelihood of billing errors.
3. Reach Families Where They Are
Today’s families are more likely to regularly communicate through multiple channels, including email, social media, text messages, and apps. Enrollment directors must meet families where they are and provide them with information through a variety of touchpoints. By implementing multichannel communication strategies, schools ensure that parents receive important updates in the most convenient format.
Multichannel outreach is especially important for retaining current families, as the right communication mix often contributes significantly to family and student attitudes toward your school.
4. Automate Enrollment Workflows
Enrollment directors and their teams save a significant amount of time and reduce administrative errors when automating key workflows. Using enrollment management software, independent schools can automate tasks such as document collection, data entry, and progress tracking. This technology often helps eliminate manual processes like assigning staff members to verify paperwork, checking for missing documents, or individually processing payments. Automation serves to expand staff bandwidth so teams can process more applications and further school goals.
5. Communicate Proactively
Proactive communication keeps prospective families engaged and informed throughout the enrollment process. Instead of waiting for applicants to reach out with questions, schools can use technology to send automated reminders and updates to keep families on track. For example, families of accepted students who have not yet enrolled receive an automated email reminder to submit a tuition deposit before a deadline.
Proactive communication builds trust with families by demonstrating the school is organized, attentive, and invested in their success. It also reduces the likelihood of delays or missed deadlines that could prevent potential students from enrolling.
6. Personalize Communications
Human connection informs human decisions—personalizing communications serves to build this bridge with each prospective and current family. With the right enrollment management software, independent schools can scale customized communications based on a family’s specific interests, attributes, or engagement metrics with the school.
For instance, if a family has shown interest in a particular academic program, enrollment directors can send targeted information about that program, highlighting benefits, curriculum details, and extracurricular activities. Rather than receiving a generic email, the recipient has relevant information more likely to sway their decision in your school’s favor.
7. Celebrate Student Achievements
Once students are enrolled, celebrating their achievements is a great way to showcase your school’s value and create a strong sense of community that contributes to future re-enrollment. By sharing student successes—whether academic, athletic, or artistic—through award ceremonies, academic showcases, the school’s website, social media pages, or in newsletters, schools can demonstrate to prospective families the quality of education and experiences they offer.
Highlighting student accomplishments also helps to create a positive school culture that appeals to both prospective families and current students. Whether it’s spotlighting an honor roll student, showcasing an athletic victory, or promoting a new initiative, celebrating these achievements creates a long-term sense of pride among families.
Strengthen Enrollment Management with Ravenna
With the right technology, schools transform their enrollment processes, making them more efficient, cost-effective, and faster on the administrative side and more actionable, personalized, and accessible for families. Prioritizing the enrollment management checklist at your independent school promotes higher enrollment rates and increased satisfaction among families.
