Starting the admission and enrollment process is an exciting time for families. After weeks (or months!) of carefully researching and inquiring about schools in your area, they have chosen to apply to your school!
As a school, you want to maintain that high morale throughout the admission and enrollment process. Here are three ways you can provide a streamlined experience for new families, as well as enhance your current process for those who are returning.
Caring Support
Admission and enrollment continue to be top priorities, with 66% of the schools we surveyed in 2022 citing it as their number one priority and four in 10 schools indicating that they intend to invest more money in both areas in 2023.
With an increased focus in these areas also comes more work for your admission and enrollment team. Understandably, families have many questions throughout the process, which can put staff in a time crunch to complete their other tasks. Automating a few parts of this process can help you keep your team’s workload manageable while maintaining a high-quality experience for families.
First, there are solutions available that offer family support; a support team acts as an extension of your admission and enrollment office to answer administrative questions, such as questions about filling out documents or what steps they need to complete. This keeps your in-house staff focused on meaningful conversations with families and pressing tasks during admission or enrollment.
Second, you can set up automated reminders to inform families when important due dates are coming up. Better yet, modern systems enable you to send reminders that are tailored to each individual based on their progress. For example, a family further along in the admission process will receive a different reminder than a family just starting an application. Once information is submitted, the staff is alerted immediately—accelerating the evaluation and decision-making process on your school’s end.
Centralized Family Information Management
Have you ever tried to sync two systems together to no avail? Perhaps you wanted to link a credit card to your bank account, but the two platforms weren’t compatible, ending in frustration. The same is true for a disconnected admission and enrollment process.
Seeking a solution that provides a one-stop shop for all applications, forms, tracking, and agreements will allow families to focus on getting you the correct information on time. This streamlines the backend for schools with a small admission and enrollment team, reducing time spent tracking information between systems.
An online solution can help with this. Many modern solutions offer a central portal where you can submit and track applications and enroll once a decision is made. Information already in the system auto-populates in documents, so no reentry is required. Here are five more benefits of taking admission and enrollment online.
Communication Options
It’s no secret that Millennials communicate differently than Gen X or Baby Boomers; understanding generational differences in communication preferences can help your school communicate effectively with every family at your school.
For example, Millennials prefer the convenience of texting, Gen X like emails, and Baby Boomers would rather meet in person.
How do schools cater to each demographic? It all comes down to offering choices. First, allow families to set their communication preferences in your online system. Then, your school can determine how you will manage various communication channels. Try implementing a solution where you can communicate in a variety of formats—phone calls, emails, and text messages are the most common. This will keep families informed using their preferred channel and likely increase their interaction with your school.
Navigate the Admission and Enrollment Process with Confidence
We know that admission and enrollment season is a heavy lift for Catholic schools, especially if you have a smaller team. Use these tips and our resource library to plan how to improve the journey for families and staff.
If you need help implementing any of these strategies, we encourage you to set up a demo with a TADS team member to see how a connected admission and enrollment solution solves challenges and creates a positive experience for everyone.