It is quite clear that the job to enroll more full-pay families isn’t going to get easier any time soon. With competition from charter schools, home-schools, and cyber-schools, as well as the growing delta in tuition versus the free public school option, you will need to employ the right leadership in the position of director of admission or enrollment to bring in your school’s necessary revenue. We are overdue in recognizing that we need admission directors who have expertise and talent in much more than the planning and implementing of recruitment events, creating promotional materials and evaluating students. While some schools think the more efficient approach will be to distribute the responsibilities of the 21st century admission director among their other school leaders, this tactic will not pay off in the long run. Schools who want to maintain their financial integrity should be seeking and paying for a director of admission with extensive skill and knowledge to lead them in their work to generate the necessary revenue.
Having engaged with over a thousand admission professionals over the years, I have observed that a significant amount of them were appointed to the position of director of admission with little or no experience of what it not takes to be a 21st century director. Fortunately, with help from the Association of Independent School Admission Professionals (AISAP), SSATB’s improved professional development services, and stronger consulting joining the training circuit, admission directors are becoming better prepared. However, it is still imperative that all independent school associations and national organizations affiliated with these schools commit to training Directors of Admission for the 21st century job.
The three primary roles a 21st Century Director of Admission will need to be an expert in are:
- Strategic Enrollment Thinker – The director of admission tends to have the broadest view of what is happening in their school. He/she will need to have a comprehensive strategic approach that traverses all educational, admission, fundraising, and summer programs at his/her school. The director will also need to understand the budgeting process and practices. Without a strategic operation encompassing each of these categories as they relate to enrollment, schools will get inefficient results. You might think that this is the role of the head of school, but I don’t see it as a viable solution with their other responsibilities for the most part, and certainly not in a comprehensive strategic manner.
- Revenue Generator – The director of admission or enrollment is responsible for bringing in a large portion of the operating budget by enrolling students into the regular program and or the summer program. As much as 90 percent of a school’s operating fund is related to this effort. Furthermore, by identifying the right families, the director of admission can set up or lose fundraising opportunities for the advancement office. In our current condition, it takes intentional strategies to achieve the desired results; the director always has to be focused on revenue generation from a strategic approach. This includes thinking about student entry points, bubble in the enrollment, and the use of financial aid as an income or composition builder. As a strategic revenue generator, the director will produce the necessary income despite varying enrollment environments. Under shooting income goals will not be an option; it can have a multiyear impact on the operations of a school’s programming, faculty work allocations, maintenance, and student composition. Schools can’t afford to miss revenue targets. The 21st Century Admission Director will drive the success of his/her school.
- Mission Patron – In the profit world, the primary objective is to create the best quality product or service that can yield the greatest profit. To some members of the non-profit community, the best quality service or product outweighs the concept of profit. In non-profit private schools, the primary objective is to create the best educational experience that yields the school’s mission. The 21st Century Admission Director has to be the strongest proponent of maintaining and ensuring the achievement of his/her school’s mission. Through the generation of revenue, the influence on programming, and the selection of students, the ability to affect the school’s mission will be significant. The board and the head are the only other people who can impact the school’s mission any greater. They are at the top of the decision making pyramid and can obviously, manage, control or support the director’s actions leading their school to success or failure.
There are 13 subsets to the Strategic Enrollment Thinker, Revenue Generator, and Mission Patron roles that I have identified below. The 21st Century Director of Admission will need to have strong levels of responsibility for, understanding of, and in some cases mastery within these 13 categories.
- Evaluation of Program Quality
- Financial Acumen
- Student Composition Evaluation and Balancing
- Value Proposition
- Brand Positioning
- Marketing, Communications and Sales, The Five Pillars Paradigm
- Data Driven Decision-Making
- Presentation Skills
- Internal Marketing
- Risk Taking Assessments
- Development Prospect Management
- Auxiliary Services (Include online classes)
- Strategic Enrollment Management Optimization
Although several of these roles should belong to other senior management leaders, my experience has shown that the director of admission will be the one expected to lead in these categories. After I synthesize them further, I am planning to offer a workshop for admission professionals and heads of schools on understanding the what, why, and when to use these strategies. I believe these categories will become the job description of the 21st Century Director of Admission. I also believe that the title for this position will be more along the lines of Associate Head for Enrollment Management with the overarching role of Strategic Enrollment Thinker, Revenue Generator, and Mission Patron. And finally, because this position moves from important to critical in revenue generation, I believe that the shortage of 21st century directors, will lead heads to paying salaries comparable to those of their Chief Financial Officer or Director of Advancement.