Overview: Admissions Process
Admissions management gives schools numerous options for working with candidates, parents, and families. This includes setting up forms like Inquiries and Applications, creating new candidates, processing applications, and much more.
Admissions staff create an inquiry form which your school can embed on your school's website. Prospective families can fill out an inquiry directly or staff may complete it on their behalf after phone calls, admissions events (such as an open house), and more. Use information from inquiries to guide future communications with prospective families.
An admissions scheduling calendar is also available to admissions managers and staff for adding candidate visit and interview information to make it easier to keep track of upcoming activities and events.
Admissions staff also create application forms and checklists. Checklists guide prospective families through your admissions process. In additional to online application forms, checklists might require the candidate to attend admissions events (such as guided tours), take placement tests, complete interviews, request letters of recommendations , and more. Your school can create different application forms and checklists based on entering grade level or academic interests. Your school's admissions staff determine which checklist each prospective family should complete. Admissions staff can also waive checklist items and mark items as complete on a candidate's behalf.
Some students may request financial aid when they submit their application. Many schools have a limited amount of aid available but may offer multiple types of aid (need-based, merit-based, employee or multichild discounts).
Both the school and the candidate make decisions about whether to continue with the enrollment process. An admissions manager determines the exact nature of these decisions. Typically, a school will decide to reject, wait-list, or accept a candidate. The school usually sends a contract to each accepted candidate. Your school will probably use different contracts based on whether students are boarding, day, international, and more. Wait listed families can choose whether they to remain in consideration. Accepted candidates decide whether to accept or decline the school's invitation to enroll. Some candidates may require information about the status of their requests for financial aid to make their decisions.
Admissions staff ensure that candidates who accept the school's invitation to attend become incoming/enrolling students. Incoming students are then placed in classes for the upcoming academic year. When the academic year school starts, the incoming student becomes a student.
At the end of each year, the school asks the students they want to keep to re-enroll. For students and families that agree, new contracts are exchanged for the next year and the students are placed in classes for the next academic year.