Articles & White Papers

12/13/2006
An Introduction to Enrollment Consultation

Advancement Associates, Inc. has designated enrollment consultation as a new core service, with particular focus given to K-12 church-related schools. Company partners reached this decision after considering three key factors:

• First, we consider an effective enrollment program to be a vital component of the overall advancement effort for church-related schools. Enrollment results often affect the bottom line for such schools even more dramatically than do financial gifts.


• Second, AAI Principal Rich Gerig has strong enrollment credentials. During his 30-year career in advancement at Goshen (Indiana) College, Gerig served as a student recruiter, admissions director, and enrollment vice president. Among other activities, he initiated the Gideon Project, a study of factors that influence families when they consider church-related colleges and schools.


• Third, AAI has offered enrollment guidance as an auxiliary service to five elementary and secondary school clients in the past several years, establishing a strong record of results and learning much about the ingredients of enrollment success.

Of such schools Gerig says, Although they may be small in size and have limited resources, these schools are discovering that their enrollment efforts must become more intentional and sophisticated as they deal with constraints such as declining demographics, increased competition, and family concerns about affordability.

The AAI approach

How does AAI help schools deal with these realities and constraints? In a nutshell, Gerig helps clients implement applicable enrollment best practices so that they can identify potential student markets, create short- and long-range goals for growth, develop strategies for recruitment of new students, and monitor and improve retention among current students. If needed, AAI also offers more specialized enrollment services for clients, including recruitment and mentoring of new enrollment staff, direction for creating formal enrollment plans, and market research.

Some examples

To further illustrate AAIs approach to guiding K-12 church-related schools in their enrollment programs, Gerig makes reference to three recent projects.

Freeman Academy (Freeman, South Dakota) This school faces multiple enrollment challenges, the largest of which is dramatic demographic decline. In this rural area of South Dakota, even the public schools deal with shrinking student numbers and diminished financial resources. How can a small private school survive in such a setting?
AAI helped Freeman Academy achieve consistent enrollment growth in this difficult environment through implementation of all the services identified above. Of particular note is the schools investment in a formal enrollment market study, through which specific potential markets in the local community and surrounding area were clearly identified. Along with presenting key findings from the study, AAI offered a list of specific recruitment strategies and activities suggested by the data.

Scattergood Friends School (West Branch, Iowa)
Scattergood is a small high school with a highly distinctive program. Most students and staff members live on campus. A working organic farm is integrated into the curriculum, along with other innovative educational approaches reflective of Quaker values.
Upon the recommendation of a visiting accreditation team, Scattergood invited Advancement Associates to conduct an image audit. The following research objectives guided this project:

1. To listen to views of opinion leaders within primary markets for Scattergood to determine attitudes toward the school and produce a list of specific image-related strengths and weaknesses.


2. To define the general level of awareness of Scattergood among parents of young children who represent the primary market groups of prospective students, and to determine their current images of the school and sensitivity to price.


3. To assess the image impression of parents who have had children at Scattergood in the last 10 years and other key stakeholders related to the school.


4. To explore the level of excitement Scattergoods vision creates among persons in the current target groups and the proposed new markets.


5. To determine where the most likely market potential, compatible with the schools mission and vision, is found for future enrollment efforts.

With AAIs report in hand, Scattergoods leaders now have a useful tool that will help them better articulate their program to an expanded audience of potential students.

Central Christian School (Kidron, Ohio)
After a period of steady growth, Central Christian has faced enrollment decline in recent years. A current teacher, with good potential but no experience, was appointed part-time enrollment director last year.
Along with providing other services, Gerig developed a mentoring relationship with this new enrollment professional. Together, they built and implemented a formal enrollment plan, which included strategies for both recruitment of new students and retention of current students. This plan now serves as a blueprint for all enrollment activities. It also offers a means to measure achievement of key objectives, such as enrollment targets for elementary, middle and high school; increasing the number of visits by prospective students; and boosting the number of referrals made by current patrons, alumni, and other Central friends.

Enrollment challenges to continue

Gerig points out that many K-12 church-related schools will continue to face enrollment obstacles for the foreseeable future. Given their limited resources of staff time and money, these schools have very little margin for error in their enrollment programs, he notes. By now offering enrollment consultation as a core service, we are prepared to help our school clients effectively and efficiently rise to the challenge.