Question from a curious Admissions Director
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Anonymous
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I think the free magazines -- Washington Parent etc. -- would be a good place to advertise.
I'd also reach out to the private school placement specialists, Georgia something who wrote "the book" on private schools, Jean Baldwin, and make sure they know your school. I'm DC, so don't know if there are similar schools in VA, but the schools that end at 3rd - Beauvoir, Concord Day, -- you need to have a relationship with them. Play up the advantages of K-8th -- the main one being in my mind that kids gets to transition to High school while at home, preparing them for the college transition. Also that applying at 9th means reentry to public -- think TJ -- possible, a big money saver. |
Anonymous
| Provide details on outplacement. The number of students accepted at each high school, and where they matriculated. A list that tells me 5 accepted at Sidwell, 5 at NCS, 5 at Maret, I don't know if the same 5 girls were accepted at these three schools. So have a column for number accepted, and then number matriculated. Assuming the above were the same 5, then the matriculated may read 1 Sidwell, 3 NCS, 1 Maret. |
Anonymous
| I went to one Open House for a VA private and was turned off by the parents. I am quite certain that the school thought they were wonderful representatives of the school - white, well dressed preppy women - but I found them uptight, boring and worse they provided little info about the school when asked and tended to talk about their own little circle of friends and their child's outside school activities. So be careful what kind of parents you choose for those Open House events to represent your school. Make sure they are the kind of parents who understand that the Open House is really a marketing event for the school and not gossip hour. |
Anonymous
| I wonder if this was a school I visited. Great website, nice handouts, beautiful campus, enthusiastic parents at the open house... I sooo wanted to like it, but the great turnoff was the physical condition of the buildings. I have one physical criteria for the schools we're visiting - they need to be at least as nice as our current daycare facility. I just can't see spending a ton of money for a place that looks like it's seen better days, especially if the other schools we're considering have maintained the physical condition of their sites. May seem superficial, but if a place looks rundown, it makes me wonder what else they're neglecting. The school I'm thinking of touts its strong academics, use of new technology (smart boards in classrooms), and small class sizes. But the classrooms looked cluttered and tired (they have smart boards, but they haven't painted the rooms in ages, and the heat is up way too high). I was really disappointed, and we ended up deciding not to apply. |
Anonymous
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OP, if there really isn't anything that makes your school special/unusual, you have a tough sell. Our kids are at Burgundy, which we chose partly because of geographical convenience but mostly because it's progressive philosophy was unusual, relative to other Northern VA schools. Strikes me that having something distinct is both a plus and a minus: a plus, since parents will self-select , and a minus, since obviously some people just won't think it's for them. But word of mouth... Do special visits/coffees for parents at local preschools... And I agree, don't just take any old parent volunteers for open houses, pick ones who will represent the school well. I love Burgundy but I swear our parent admissions tour guide almost made me decent the place wasn't for us: she positively oozed money and whiteness, which, for us, was not really very appealing. We wanted diverse, creative, and interesting. Luckily she is not representative. Another thought: maybe get (the right) parent volunteers to make individual calls to everyone who shows p at open houses, just to say hi and offer to answer any questions? Also, think about incorporating kids into tours and open houses. We visited National Presbyterian, and though we ultimately decided it didn't make geographic sense, one of the things that impressed me about it was that they had sixth graders leading the school tours-- and they seemed like great, polite, smart, kids, the kind I hope my kids will become.
Good luck! |
Anonymous
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After being at one private, and looking to transfer to another with one experience behind us, I think here are things that made me at least look at a place at first, and then stay interested:
advertising does give that little blip of a reminder to put and keep a school on my list exmissions a sincere interest in my child a good-enough playground so my child says this is a school he wants to attend early access to technology, again so my child says this is a school he wants to attend my having gotten a good understanding of the "mission" of the school - I think this is critical - I think a school needs to give parents an understanding of what the philosophy of the place is because parents will be running into it over and over - so, be it a commitment to episcopal principles, nurturing kids, serving gifted needs - whatever is your first and foremost principle, get this across and stick with it -- parents want to know what they are getting, and then they can work with it to the advantage of their particular child having great communication with parents through email and the like so parents don't have to search out needed information - we are busy and something might just slip through the cracks and then our child is upset! which we don't like Hope this helps, and I am grateful someone is asking this question sincerely! |
Anonymous
I find it incredibly disturbing that a poster would even think to ask Jeff to check an IP address and even worse that he would do so. People feel comfortable posting on this board precisely because it is anonymous. A large percentage of messages on this board would never be placed if it were not an anonymous forum. Absent criminal or abusive behavior, I can never see any reason why the site administrator would breach the implied confidentiality of an anonymous forum to check an IP address. The call to check IP address and the references to doing so make me more than a little hesitant to continue frequenting this board. Just a thought.... |
Anonymous
| I honestly think the AD is from Burgundy. The description fit Burgundy. They have a new AD who's very warm. They also have the majority of 8th graders going to public high school for the 9th grade. We live in DC and applied to Burgundy. We love the setting. It's not my first choice-but-until Friday/Saturday I won't really know my first choice-will I? |
Anonymous
| 21:14 So true re: Friday/Saturday. And all along I was wondering if it was Burgundy. |
Anonymous
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Don't think it is Burgundy.
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Anonymous
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To the AD (if you still are reading this thread)
I hope my perspective will help as it is a bit different from others. We are moving to the DC area and so the traditional routes of word-or–mouth or local advertising are not effective. I think that DC tends to be a transient area so I hope this might help you. I would strongly encourage you to have a strong dynamic web presence. That should include both your own website as well as popular “review” websites. Make sure that you are listed correctly on sites where an unfamiliar parent might visit first- I think I went to Association of independent schools listing, and a few others like great schoolreviews.com. Once I had a list I read their mission statements. If it was a K-12 school I read their college matriculations list. The K-8’s I did not at first- but later returned to them after I had learned which high schools in the area were more top tier. To be honest, I never found a list, on any site, that gave me the details I wanted. I think the numbers of matriculating students. My Dd is enrolled in an independent K-8 school here. We are looking at 4th grade for the fall. I am torn between continuing in K-8 or going to a K-12 so we don’t have to make the switch. If you are a K-8 I would encourage you to really go into detail about the benefits of that structure. One of the things that my current school does is ask former students who are currently in college to write a reflection of how the school gave them the foundation they needed to build on. These reflections come from students who are usually in an Ivy/ M.I.T etc. Onto my story- but first, please understand that I am the type of parent that is equally focused on intellectual and academic gains AND on character development. When I think of her as an adult, I do not focus on her knowledge base alone. I also want her to be a good person who demonstrates self-motivation, confidence, respect, empathy. With this in mind, you might understand why my decisions solidified when I made contact with the schools. I immediately put Burgundy at the top of my list because the woman who I spoke to was so warm and inviting. I actually enjoyed our conversation. The AD I spoke with represented to me the culture and atmosphere of the school. I want my child with people like her! Another school that made it onto my list sent me materials from my online inquiry. Included was a special sheet for parents who currently live out of the area. It explained how things would be done for families like mine who could not attend open houses visiting days etc. The fact that it seemed they understood my situation (and would not stress me out) is huge. Relocating is a major lifer change after all and knowing that somebody gets that and will work to make it a bit easer suggests to me a culture of flexibility and understanding. I also called Potomac. Twice. The admission counselor was not available either time and had to call me back. I got the impression that the call was screened. Uh Oh. That smacks of a snobbish attitude that I am wary of. When the call was returned the person on the phone was …. cold. I felt that she was neither interested in me or my child. I have read on this forum that the admissions office there is just like that but the school is not. I will never find out because I am never going to apply there. That the headmaster lets this go on is really all I need to know about the leadership at that school. When I narrowed it down to 4 schools I brought my daughter into the process. Her interests and perceptions matter a great deal too. She wanted to know about things like lunch, recess, and where the kids play. I let her wander through all of the schools websites. She was drawn to he images of children who were active and having fun. FH was on my list- but something she saw made her tell me that she absolutely did “not want to go there!”. I eliminated another school because they require the recommendation form from her current teacher to be done online , and the teacher had to register etc. Quite frankly, I adore my Dd’s current teacher. I want to respect her time. Having her write out a recommendation and make copies already takes her time. Asking her to ALSO sign up and go through rig-a-ma-roll because that school has to be different- it just seems like a pain. So now my list is down to 3. Burgundy Hill is still at the top. Not only did my daughter independently pick it as her favorite, but when I called the AD a second time to ask about late applications she was very forthcoming. I hope this viewpoint helped! |
Anonymous
| OP -- if I were you I would talk to all of the other admissions directors in the tri-state area. Many of them are stressed and cannot help every family. You should offer the other ADs to come to a "tea" and show them what you have to offer. If they like it -- they will be the first ones to recommend it to some of the families on the waitlist and/or rejected applicants. Restaurants do this all the time...they are booked to the max...the customer asks for a "like" restaurant in the area and they are glad to oblige. |
Anonymous
Agree this probably isn't real but I don't think OP is clearly talking about Langley. Langley is not convenient to any mass transit; isn't what most people would consider competitively priced and is definitely not short on advertising budget! |
Anonymous
This was settled a page or so back. It was a real posting and it's not Langley. I kind of wish this one would just go away. The AD probably isn't checking it anymore. Not sure why it was dug up in the first place. |
Anonymous
Why do you care? It isn't about trying to figure it out. An AD is asking for help. Why don't you stop trying to be a snoop and just try to be helpful. This is why more people don't trust this forum to ask for honest feedback. It's really disheartening. Cut it out and grow up. |