In the age of school choice, increasing student enrollment has become a bigger challenge than ever before.
Student data can reveal clear steps you can take to boost application numbers and increase enrollment. Dig into your treasure trove of student data and uncover some hidden gems that will help you improve your school enrollment.
Start by diving into your historical data, including exit interviews with families and parent satisfaction survey results. These provide valuable insights into why students leave or choose not to apply in the first place.
Then use this information to improve your messaging:
This strategy can win back applicants who may have been deterred by prior issues.
Map out residence data of your current student applications to visualize all the addresses.
Once you’ve identified clusters of applicants from certain areas, you can ramp up your recruitment efforts in and around those same locations.
Examine your student applicant data, and look for any gender imbalances in your school. Preemptively visit boys clubs, girl scouts, and athletic club teams to increase applications where needed.
Additionally, if you’re noticing gender discrepancies, tailor your school-level recruitment plan to speak directly to their concerns and interests.
Be sure to monitor the distribution of applicants and current-student ages.
A balanced applicant pool will produce a student lottery that is balanced and, ultimately, classrooms that are balanced, supporting sustainable enrollment over the long term.
Are most of your applicants interested in your STEM program? Or are they interested in the art programs your school offers?
Whatever your enrollment data tells you, follow the breadcrumb trail, and get involved in your community. For example:
These types of strategies are particularly effective for increasing enrollment in magnet schools, charter schools, and independent schools with specific focuses.
By the way — if you’re a district or charter organization struggling with even collecting data on what programs and services families may be interested in, check out our K-12 school finder software, SchoolFinder.
Arguably, this is the easiest and quickest strategy for driving higher student enrollment.
Once you’ve identified current students with siblings, make sure those siblings are also applying. Here are some tips for increasing enrollment using siblings:
If you’re not sure whether your students have siblings — or you know they have siblings but don’t know the child’s age, grade level, or even gender — consider making some small changes to your student enrollment form.
Do you know how many languages are spoken in your community? Do you know what those languages are? Are your enrollment materials available in all of those languages?
If your answer is no, you’re missing out on an opportunity to eliminate an unfortunately common barrier to enrollment.
Identify every language commonly spoken in your community. You can then translate your applications and all associated materials into those languages and make them available to parents in their primary language.
A student enrollment system like SchoolMint Enroll makes translating your enrollment materials into other languages incredibly easy.
From application and lottery to new student registration and returning-student registration, SchoolMint Enroll features in-platform full translation for 17 languages — and has built-in Google Translate integration for all other languages.
Did you know certain words have a different impact on how socioeconomic groups perceive the language used in applications and marketing materials?
Words like waitlist, admissions, and lottery can deter families who don’t think they have a chance to be accepted.
Once you’ve identified the different groups in your applicant pool, use friendly, accessible language in all your school materials.
For example, if you know families in your community find those previous words to be discouraging, try these instead:
You’ll inevitably have families who begin their student application but drop off in the enrollment process.
Note: an enrollment system like SchoolMint Enroll has built-in family communication tools. SchoolMint Enroll lets you set up automatic notifications to families regarding additional information required, upcoming enrollment deadlines, and more.
You should be able to get this information from surveys and parent feedback. Your school should have its own voice and identity. Successfully defining and communicating your school’s value is a step in the right direction to increase enrollment in schools.
If marketing your public, charter, or private/independent school is an area in which you need help, we offer a variety of school marketing and consultation services. Learn more on our website!
An application and lottery management tool that shows a full enrollment conversion funnel can make splicing your data — and finding these patterns — instant, painless, and rewarding.
SchoolMint Enroll is the premier student enrollment management system for schools and districts that are serious about creating efficient processes for themselves and easy experiences for fa milies.
Our comprehensive enrollment management software provides functionality for managing: