Smart Enrollment Practices are More Crucial Than Ever

Heads and admission leaders need to be strong strategic partners

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I was fully planning to have a governance fundamentals post up today, complete with easy-to-skim bullet points and graphics but… I ran out of runway. Next Friday!

Instead, enjoy this piece that is a light edit of a 2023 post that still holds up. Heads of school need to be champions, partners and challengers of admissions - get familiar with the practices and structures of the admissions office and be there as a resource, a cheerleader and to push the DEM’s strategy and thinking. I also took the opportunity of this edit to insert a short rant about people in this sector who criticize (look down on?) the net tuition revenue model. Now, let’s hop in the WayBack Machine…

I spent many years of my adult life worrying about enrollment. Not just as a head of school, but also as a senior administrator. When I reflect back on this, I don’t think - “Faulstich, what were you so worried about? That was a waste of energy.” Mostly, I understand why it was such a central worry and I am just glad it is not part of the background hum in my current day to day.

I choose to use the word “worry” purposefully. For me, worry has an implication that includes things outside of your control, unlike, say, the word “concern.” I was worried, more or less, despite what influence or power I had in the process as academic dean, assistant head or head of school about many things outside my control. And as a participant in the admission process in the first two roles and then being ultimately responsible for the outcome as head, I was certainly not powerless.

Because there is an element of mysterious alchemy in the admissions process as a whole. Independent schools only serve roughly 10% of the United States school age population. So of course, in theory, there are so many potential candidates out there!

But it just doesn’t work that way. And although that is not what this post is primarily about, I wanted to make the point that genuine, sustainable enrollment movement is done slowly, strategically and deliberately over time and the goals should be incredibly thoughtful, data driven and perhaps most importantly, realistic for your school and its context.