Despite feeling positive about their Head of School, admissions directors can be frustrated by some of their bosses’ beliefs or actions as they strive to achieve greater enrollment success. Sometimes the conflict is significant enough to warrant leaving the school, but oftentimes, these directors aren’t able to leave due to a variety of reasons. Perhaps they have an emotional connection to the school or have a child attending. It also may not be an ideal time in their career to make a change, but when they’re able to leave, they do without looking back.
Below are some challenges that admissions and communications directors face when they are not getting the full support of their Head of School. This collection aims to start a productive conversation around these challenges and encourage reflection. Perhaps just knowing that you’re not alone will help:
- The Head understands less about marketing than s/he thinks s/he does.
- The Head believes that more advertising alone will bring in the required full-pay students.
- The Head agrees to allocate more dollars, but only for the projects that s/he wants to do, rather than the activities recommended by the Director of Admissions or Communications
- The Head wants more full-pay families, but is not willing to commit additional resources.
- With 8th grade attrition at 30%, the Head blames the Director of Admissions for not getting enough students enrolled into the 9th grade.
- The Head offers to give the Director a new hire, but wants to select the person him/herself instead of the person who the Director believes is right for the job.
- Oh! And the Head wants the new hire to teach 2 classes and coach 2 sports, because the new recruit needs to gather unique stories in order to be able to contribute more to admissions.
- The Head believes that full-pay people are easy to matriculate when the school is as good as it is; limited marketing required.
- The Head wants to be the “back-seat driver” to my marketing, communications or sales programs.
- The Head believes that since marketing and admissions are related, the Director of Admissions should also run marketing and communications.
- The Head believes that since the quality of the program affects marketing success, the Director should speak with the faculty about any concerns with quality of the program.
- The Head doesn’t tell the board the complete story about the enrollment situation, which means that admissions staff can’t get the resources they need.
- The Head doesn’t tell the board about all of the survey findings, which results in a lack of transparency and truth about the situation; see above.
- The Head tells the Director that s/he needs to create and implement a marketing plan without additional resources.
- The Head insists that the Director should be the one to tell employees to support admission efforts.
- When there is strong enrollment, the Head believes that it is because the school is great.
- When there is weak enrollment, the Head believes that it is because the admissions office isn’t getting the word out about the great school.
- The Head believes that features such as community atmosphere, small class sizes, nurturing environment, broad range of opportunities, rigorous academics and high quality faculty make his/her school unique.
- The Head doesn’t support prospective families spending time in the classroom.
- The Head doesn’t believe in my ability, but in part, it’s because he/she knows that I don’t approve of one or more items listed above.
If none of these scenarios resonate with you, count your blessing and give your Head a hug! If you are dealing with these types of problems, I only have a few solutions: retire, leave or convince your Head to attend the Five Pillars workshop with you. At the Five Pillars, I can explain, demonstrate, and challenge, in a manner that you cannot from your position, after all, I am the consultant 🙂
I considered having a follow-up article, “It Hurts My Job Success When the Director of Admissions….” However, the power differential makes the solution rather simple – fire the person.
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