Top Five Reasons Why You Shouldn't Beat Yourself Up

The enrollment numbers might be disappointing but it's not a personal failure

Welcome to the Talking Out of School newsletter! If you were forwarded this email, hit the subscribe button to get weekly insights into applied leadership for your independent school or nonprofit. Thank you for your support!

Here’s more information on program offerings from Julie Faulstich and Stony Creek Strategy. Contact us - always happy to chat!

It’s hard to work hard and feel like it didn’t totally pay off

Photo by luthfi alfarizi on Unsplash

Sometimes things don’t work out despite the best laid plans, the right investments and the careful calculations. That’s definitely part of the vibe I’m getting from this year’s yield results. I think people weren’t foolishly hopeful but felt they had made accurate preparations and efforts that would support strong student yield this spring.

Instead, what I’m hearing from some corners is tinged with disbelief. Are there times when we miscalculate the market mood or overindex towards some data points that are telling us what we want to hear? Sure. That’s normal and positive energy is part of what drives most admission offices. The “we got this” attitude helps engage in that one final parent call of the day with the dad who has one more question even though you’ve talked to him five times before.

But yield seems to have been funky this year and some places that usually aren’t worried about making their numbers are worried about making their numbers. Other schools know they’ll be fine but have had to reach down into the pool to take kids who might have been straight up the middle yields for that other school who is now worried about their numbers.

This kind of thing has been a trend for a while but it seems particularly acute this year, and likely it is connected to the massive economic unpredictability that was introduced into the market by the trade war. And if you were phoning it in to your international families, woe betide you and get thee to a plane. (Hopefully not leaving from Newark.) Times have changed.

Of course, as heads and directors of enrollment management, it is appropriate to take responsibility and take stock. But taking it one some level as a personal failure is a mistake, although an easy one to understand. It’s just going to sap your energy. The heads and DEMs I know take great personal pride in their work but the underside of the thrill of victory is the agony of defeat. Maybe it’s time to let go of both, a little.

ONE

Can we please all agree “best year ever” is a giant pile of BS? PLEASE?

I’ve been talking about this for years. Unless you know someone really well, it is always hard (impossible?) to have an honest conversation with colleagues at other schools about what is going on with their enrollment situation. And most of the time, you aren’t even remotely competitors. Sometimes DEMs open up to each other. Sometimes. But I think often school cultures conflate honesty about the school’s gaps in the outside world as disloyal or a betrayal. There’s a way to talk about it where you can love your school and be a dedicated employee without implying your school sucks or is on the ropes. But we might make much more headway in success all the way along the funnel if we weren’t so scared to admit many, many schools are struggling to fill seats with tuition capable families.

(I think there’s more to be said about the ill effect of the BYE posture, including how it can create cognitive dissonance in a school culture, but that’ll need to wait for another post!)

And there are a whole lot of other enrollment issues that aren’t easily fixed in this kind of market since schools are all Rubik’s Cubes - there are so many demands - from coaches, the need for diverse classes, too much aid centered on one entering grade - the list goes on.