The first focus of a personal or unbiased college admissions staff is to drive enrollment, but it surely shouldn’t cease there. Everybody within the college ought to to be dedicated to preserving households and college students engaged in order that they need to return yr after yr. One factor that makes an enormous distinction in enrollment and retention—but is usually missed or underneath resourced—is the technique and means of onboarding.
Your college’s onboarding course of is crucial to pupil retention and your technique ought to contain not solely admissions workers, but additionally your complete management staff. From the Head of Faculty being seen and accessible to the advertising workers creating electronic mail content material to the admins managing your father or mother portal, every member of your staff has a vital function in onboarding.
Rick Newberry, President of Enrollment Catalyst, has labored with greater than 500 non-public and unbiased faculties in crafting their advertising and enrollment methods. In a latest Blackbaud webinar, he shared the assumptions he’s seen college leaders make about onboarding households which might threaten enrollment. Listed below are the highest 5.
1. You assume they’re going to present up.
The contract could also be signed, the coed enrolled, and even a deposit made, however that doesn’t imply they’re going to present up on day one, nor that they are going to proceed to attend all through the varsity yr. There are quite a lot of variables that will change between contract and attendance, so your job is just not accomplished when a household enrolls.
Your enrollment is in danger if:
- The college fails to nurture the household relationship
- The kid has a poor preliminary expertise
- The onboarding course of is disorganized
Bear in mind: retaining a pupil prices lower than recruiting a brand new one. Within the 2022 Impartial Faculty Value-Per-Enrollment Examine, median cost-per-enrollment of 1 new pupil was $3,677. These bills—together with admission staffing, admissions advertising and communications, promotional and software program prices, journey, and extra—are solely rising.
2. You assume they perceive your college’s tradition.
You realize your college. You realize what your acronyms are. You realize the aim and nature of your teams and occasions. A brand new household doesn’t know. They haven’t skilled any of it earlier than, so you may’t assume that they know the cadence of your college yr, what precisely a catchily-named group is, or what an occasion is all about.
As an example, new households may not be aware of the annual Fall Competition, which is a major occasion on your group. Why ought to they attend, not to mention volunteer? Equally, they may not perceive the varied teams and actions accessible for his or her kids or tips on how to become involved. Did your enrollment course of embrace delving into every baby’s abilities and pursuits? How are you serving to them discover these teams past itemizing them in a packet or in your portal?
When you have customizable digital checklists in your enrollment administration system, make sure you embrace college teams and actions so households can point out curiosity. Then schedule duties on your workers to comply with up and guarantee college students get related with others who share these pursuits.
3. You assume households and college students will meet new folks on their very own.
They’re becoming a member of a brand new group, and a few mother and father and college students are shy. They might be extra introverted. They might not like crowds. But it’s essential that they meet and really feel related to your school, workers, and different college households.
It’s essential to create a tradition of belonging the place new folks really feel accepted and valued. Assist construct their sense of group by encouraging key relations to take part in group actions, providing them help, and regularly exposing them to new methods to make connections. Offering alternatives for one-on-one interactions could make a major distinction. Many colleges create a buddy system for college students. Take into account doing the identical for the adults concerned.
4. You continue to depend on an enormous welcome packet.
Packing the whole lot into one envelope and sending that to households is just not essentially one of the best ways to share very important info. Do you actually assume they’re going to learn all of it? Are you positive it reached the correct folks in that family?
What if, as an alternative, you had college leaders, advisors, and pupil ambassadors attain out to households proactively? How will you interact extra members of your group to maintain the welcome going in the summertime months and all through the varsity yr?
5. You assume they aren’t questioning their enrollment choice.
They’re. Households will spend some huge cash to attend your college and there are different components at play. You’ve guided them by means of the complete admissions funnel. They made an enormous choice, and so they’re enrolled. They’ve signed the contract.
But within the Enrollment Administration Affiliation’s (EMA) 2024 The Experience to Impartial Faculties Report, greater than 1 in 3 households already enrolled in an unbiased college have been actively contemplating a brand new college outdoors of the unbiased college house. EMA calls it an “industry-wide leaky bucket.”
What are a few of these households’ largest considerations and questions? Try to perceive their mindset. They’ve seen your supplies, learn on-line opinions, and peered into your social media channels. They’ve visited your campus. However they don’t actually know what your college is like as a result of they haven’t skilled it.
It may be exhausting to switch into a brand new college. They possible thought-about their choices for over a yr earlier than contacting you. Possibly they have been 3 or 4 options earlier than selecting your college. They’ll frequently consider whether or not it was the correct choice for them as a household. It’s your job to indicate them it was and nonetheless is.
Shifting ahead
The onboarding course of at non-public and unbiased faculties is a elementary element of pupil retention. It requires the involvement of the complete college group—from the Head of Faculty and admissions to advertising and entrance workplace workers—to make sure that new households really feel welcomed and supported. By addressing frequent assumptions and offering clear communication, faculties can create a constructive expertise for brand spanking new households, finally resulting in larger retention charges. Investing in a complete onboarding technique is important for long-term success.
Dig deeper into onboarding—together with profitable methods already carried out at some faculties—in our on-demand webinar: Past Enrollment: Onboarding Okay–12 Households for Retention Success.
