Blogs - AISAP

The Strength of Openness in Admissions: Creating Connections with New Families

By Sam Rosenfeld

A family's initial perception of an independent school is frequently shaped in a special way by admissions officers. There is a deeper relationship to be made—one based on trust, clarity, and understanding—beyond the slick brochures and campus visits. Transparency is not only a recommended practice but also a requirement in the rapidly changing educational landscape of today. Families may find the admissions process intimidating. Clear and open communication reduces uncertainty when it comes to financial assistance paperwork, timeframes, and determining whether a school is the appropriate match. Transparency transforms what may otherwise be a transactional ...

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The Power of Enrollment Leaders

By Davion Fleming

As enrollment leaders in independent schools, our roles extend far beyond the admissions process. We are uniquely positioned to bring insights and perspectives to our school communities and leadership teams. By understanding and harnessing our broader potential, we can drive meaningful change and contribute to the success and vibrancy of our respective schools. Here are three ways enrollment leaders can lead with impact: 1. Illuminating the Values of Families Enrollment leaders are the keepers of our families' stories. Through countless conversations, interviews, and interactions, we gain a deep understanding of what our prospective families value, the ...

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Bring your School's Story to Life with AI-Assisted Video

By Linda Haitani

As members of AISAP, you’re always looking for new ways to connect with prospective families and showcase what makes your school unique. And while video is one of the most powerful storytelling tools a school can use, the professional production required to make polished videos can be costly and time-consuming. Fortunately, AI brings all kinds of new possibilities to enrollment management, offering ways to personalize outreach, streamline processes, and enhance engagement. Here’s how you can harness OpenAI’s Sora to turn a simple photo into an engaging video—quickly, affordably, and with no technical expertise required. In this video, you'll learn how to: ...

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Elevating Enrollment at Montcrest School

By Natasha Estey

Montcrest School is a K-8 co-ed independent school located in the heart of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1961, the school is situated in five historical buildings on 1.4 acres of land backing onto the Don Valley Ravine. An enrollment management team of two supports a student population of 335 and enrolls about 85 new students each year. Five years ago, the enrollment management team started using Finalsite to support admissions, enrollment, and re-enrolment and was able to develop an intentional, personalized, and high-touch process and workflow to maximize the limited resources of a small team. Montcrest School’s admissions cycle is similar ...

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The Synergy Effect: Partnering with your Alumni Relations Team to Strengthen your Admission Process

By Nastaran Hakimi

Leading a small and scrappy, but mighty(!) admission team in a saturated market of well-known and highly respected independent schools, we are constantly brainstorming ways to diversify our process and collaborate across our greater Institutional Advancement team to showcase different aspects of our program and to set ourselves apart from our competition. Through a survey we sent to prospective families, we were surprised to learn our applicants were interested in hearing more from our alumni during the admission process. It only makes sense. Alumni represent what schools provide (college outcomes, professional trajectory, personal qualities, growth, etc.). We ...

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On the Other Side of the Desk

By Elizabeth Nolan Conners

As Admissions professionals, we spend a fair amount of time thinking about how to attract and yield families. What will appeal? How can we highlight our welcoming community? While I have played a role in Admissions since 1991 and am currently the Director of Enrollment at The Wolf School in Rhode Island, the lessons I learned about Admissions and how to appeal to families came mostly from being a parent going through the process myself. We Never Planned on Independent School My husband and I did not plan to be independent school parents. Even though I had always worked in independent schools, we built a house in a lovely community that supposedly had wonderful ...

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What Is Success for Students with Learning Disabilities?

By Kurt Moellering

What does success look like if you are a student with a learning disability? A high school diploma? Graduating from a 2- or 4-year college? Joining the workforce and holding down a job? Or is it the ability to live independently? Or, perhaps, to live in a community with support services? When it comes to the education of our children with disabilities, what are the right markers of success? How do we gauge if we are preparing students well enough for life after they leave our schools where they have experienced expert teachers, modified environments, and tailored supports to a degree they will be unlikely to encounter again? Like neurotypical student ...

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Reimagining Faculty Involvement in Recruitment: A Fresh Approach

By Kim Schinzel

As schools evolve, so too must their recruitment strategies. While traditional fall open houses have served us well in the past, there's an exciting opportunity to showcase our talented educators in new, more engaging ways. By embracing a flexible, personalized approach, we can truly highlight the inspiring and skilled faculty that make our school special. Consider launching a monthly blog series where our educators share expertise on timely educational topics, or a parent education series that welcomes both current and prospective families. These initiatives not only demonstrate our faculty's knowledge but also provide real value to our community. Create ...

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Remaining Faithful to Your School’s DNA

By David Lazo

I’ve learned to appreciate that we in admissions and enrollment are living historians. Even if our schools have been around for a century or longer, admissions and enrollment sustain the legacies we’ve inherited and steward them daily. The milestones are cataloged through accreditation reports and national databases. Still, in our day-to-day, we are often left to our devices. For example, every year around this time, we see requests for enrollment reports and data dashboard templates filling our inboxes. Indeed, there are some templates out there. But, in my experience, they lose their luster when transferred to another school. Why? It dawned on me that for ...

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Boarding’s Back: Capitalize on a Growing Trend Toward Private School Boarding Program Enrollment

By Metric Marketing

Our friends at NAIS recently shared a snapshot survey of member-school admission officers – and the emerging trends about the 2024-2025 school year were illuminating (in our humble nerdy opinion). 45% of NAIS member boarding schools reported a year-over-year increase in international student enrollment in 2024-2025 (17 points higher than the increase seen at all schools). We’re hearing similar things from the private and independent schools we talk to. After a few unpredictable years, families are considering boarding again – including those coming from overseas. Marketing to these families is an interesting challenge that most school marketing and admissions ...

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Words Matter

By William Diskin

Words matter. Terminology matters. Being transparent with families matters. With this in mind, our financial aid team has made the effort to eliminate the terms "award" and "awards" when discussing and writing about financial aid decisions. Why? Well, our thinking -- and we welcome and encourage your feedback on this -- is that the word "award" carries with it the connotation of winning something. That connotation, we believe, can cloud a conversation with a family when we are trying to explain that our financial aid committee decisions are thoughtful and deliberate decisions based on the data and information we reviewed in their financial aid application. ...

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Poverty As a Cycle, Not A State

By Shuja Khan

Golden State Warrior tickets are notoriously expensive, even for the Bay Area. So, when a teacher at the ultra-expensive independent school where I worked saw one of his students at a game, it wasn’t surprising. Our families are the ones who can afford to go. That the student was there to celebrate a birthday and had bought tickets for a bunch of friends also was not surprising. However, this teacher was on the admissions staff and therefore privy to information about aid. The very next morning, he was in my office to complain. How could this student afford all these tickets and then also qualify for a “gargantuan” aid package? Most people when they hear this ...

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I Never Thought of it That Way, Oreos, and Ted Lasso

By Marianne Ryan

This summer, our faculty and staff read, “I Never Thought of It That Way” by Mónica Guzmán . The book is timely for individuals and schools as we approach the upcoming election season. I found it a valuable read, and of course, read it through the lens of admissions and enrollment. I found myself delving into it as I headed off for vacation, which is often when I come up with new ideas. Guzmán suggests that we, on a regular basis, ask the essential question, “What am I missing?” And so I asked myself, "What am I missing and how do I break away from the silos of my own perspective about admissions?" I like to consider myself an open minded and curious person, ...

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Stay the Course: An Admissions Officer's Reminder that Mission Really Matters

By Tricia Xavier

Many independent schools are facing formidable enrollment challenges. The declining birth rate, rising cost of living, volatile economy, increased popularity of virtual learning and homeschooling, and greater “student choice” in selecting a school have caused many of us in admissions to feel like we’re up against insurmountable odds. Under these circumstances, how on earth can we meet enrollment goals? And while many independent schools strive to adhere to mission-driven criteria, admissions teams sometimes feel like all we can do is accept students outside mission guidelines. The pressures of serving as Chief Revenue Officer de facto have never been ...

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Tricks of the Trade: New to Independent School Admissions

By Kristen Mariotti

If you are brand new to independent school admissions, congratulations! You are about to embark on an incredible journey! Working at an independent school offers a unique and very rewarding experience. Particularly as a member of the admissions team, you get the chance to play a part in envisioning the makeup of the student body that will define your school! As you embark on this new adventure, here's a guide to help you navigate your first 90 days. Understand Your School Although you probably spent a lot of time learning all about your institution for your interview, now is the time to make sure you learn everything you need to accurately and enthusiastically ...

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How to Craft Social Media Guidelines for School Marketing Teams

By Metric Marketing

For K-12 schools, social media is an excellent tool for connecting with your community, attracting prospective families, and showcasing your unique programs or features. However, managing social media content effectively can be challenging – especially for small school marketing teams (did you know 29% of all independent schools have a one-person marketing team?). Without clear guidelines in place to guide and govern your social media, maintaining brand consistency, communicating expectations, and ensuring engagement can quickly become overwhelming. That’s where we can help. Why Social Media Guidelines Matter Maintaining a cohesive brand voice across multiple ...

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Condensing Your Timeline

By Shelly Landau

I was recently reviewing “Ask AISAP 2023 Wrap Up" that gave some interesting summaries of what Independent Schools are moving toward. Early Action/Early Admissions and tightening the cycle are some trends schools are implementing. I thought it would be pertinent to revisit the trend of shortening the Admission and Enrollment cycle. I presented this concept twice in 2021 to two different AISAP audiences (one virtually and one in person) and wanted to share that our process has worked. It took three years to see the level of engagement that we wanted but the cycle is now officially shortened and is working well. We moved from a process that lingered sometimes ...

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Navigating Together

By Janice Crampton

We are amidst the flurry of the enrollment season, and I wanted to take a moment to pause and extend my heartfelt appreciation to the admission and enrollment professionals who make AISAP tick. The enrollment journey is undoubtedly filled with challenges and uncertainties, but it's in these moments that our collective strength shines through. I want to acknowledge the myriad of feelings you may be experiencing now. Your emotions are valid and understood, from the excitement of welcoming new students into our communities to the anxiety of meeting enrollment targets amidst a changing landscape. The road ahead may seem daunting, but together, as a community, we ...

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Grace in the Admission Cycle

By Marianne Ryan

The week after the application deadline and final scheduled tour, I received 14 inquiries and 5 phone calls from families looking for tours and application information for the upcoming school year. Quite honestly, I was a bit disappointed. We advertise our tour dates in many online and paper publications, and our website clearly outlines the application process, including dates and deadlines. I realize it is my hope that people will find us and go through the process in the orderly way we have outlined for them, that they will inquire, take a tour, apply, send transcript release forms and teacher recommendation forms to their child’s current school, and sign ...

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Come See Me: How to Change the Perception of Prospective Families Through Tours and Visits

By Alida Abdullah

They say “never judge a book by its cover”, and I had been guilty of this for a very long time. I often tell the story of how my kids started attending an independent school, and it was seeing it from the “inside” that made all the difference. I had been a part of my current school’s community for a long time as the sister of an employee. My brother and I never went to an independent school and we both obtained our degrees and diplomas from public schools from Kindergarten all the way up through completion of our undergraduate studies. So, when he was hired as a coach and teacher for one of the largest independent schools in the continental United States, ...

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