How to Audit Your School’s Enrollment Process
Empowered Enrollment Team
When was the last time you tried to enroll at your own school?
You know exactly where the inquiry form lives. You know which button schedules a tour. You know what happens after an application comes in and which email a newly enrolled family receives next. But a prospective family knows none of that. When you work inside the same enrollment process every day, it’s easy to stop noticing the extra clicks, unnecessary questions, outdated information, or communication gaps a family encounters.
You’ve worked hard to help prospective families find your school. When they’re ready to take the next step, your enrollment process needs to be ready for them. Once a year, experience that process for yourself by starting where they start: finding that first next step.
Start Where a Prospective Family Starts
Resist the urge to begin your audit on your school’s homepage. A prospective family might start there, but they’re more likely to search Google or ask an AI tool for school recommendations. They might even click through from social media. However they arrive, they shouldn’t need insider knowledge to figure out what to do next.
Try it yourself. Search for your school the way a prospective family might, then see how easily you can make an inquiry, schedule a tour, abd apply. Pay attention to the path you take. Is the next step easy to find? Are you sent searching through menus or pages? Do you hit any dead ends? And most importantly, would you know what to do if you didn’t already know what to do?
Tassel Tip: Try a “Friend Audit”
Ask a colleague at another school to pretend they’re a prospective parent. Give them a simple assignment: “Go online and figure out how to schedule a tour at our school.”
That’s it. Don’t send your school’s website or tell them where the tour page lives. Don’t explain how your enrollment process works. See where they go and what happens. Then, try it again with an application. Where did they get stuck? What confused them? Did they end up where you expected?
If you want to take the exercise further, Tassel’s alliance with Enrollment Catalyst offers an Online Secret Shopper Program that evaluates the prospective parent experience from online search through inquiry and follow-up. Schools can receive an objective assessment of their own experience as well as comparisons with key competitors.
Fill Out Your Own Forms
Once you’ve found the next step, take it. Fill out your school’s inquiry form. Register for a tour. Walk through the application. And as you do, look beyond whether each form technically works.
Pay attention to what you’re asking of a family at each step. Does the amount of information you’re requesting match where they are in the enrollment process?
Enrollment forms tend to grow over time. A field gets added because someone needs a piece of information. Another question gets added to solve a specific problem. Before long, a simple inquiry can start asking a lot from a family who is still deciding whether they want to learn more about your school.
Consider not only what information you’re requesting, but when you’re requesting it. Something your team will eventually need may not belong on that first inquiry form. Then, go through the process again with a different family in mind. What feels manageable for a parent inquiring about one child may feel very different for a family with several children at different ages and stages.
Tassel Tip: Question Every Question
Take a close look at every field on your inquiry, tour, and application forms and ask: Do we need this information right now? If the answer is yes, keep it. If you’re not sure, find out why it’s there. And if your team doesn’t need that information until later, consider asking for it later.
Read Every Communication a Family Receives
As you work your way through the enrollment process, don’t stop at the forms. Pay attention to what happens after you click “submit.” What email arrives next? Do you receive a text? How long does it take? And does the communication make it clear what happens next?
If your enrollment system uses automated emails or text messages, trigger those communications and read every one. Check the basics first: dates, photos, links, names, event details, and any other information that can become outdated from one enrollment season to the next. Then, read them again with the family in mind.
A perfectly accurate email can still leave a prospective parent wondering what they’re supposed to do next. Look for messages that have become too long, assume knowledge a new family doesn’t have, or provide information that doesn’t match what a family needs at that point in their enrollment journey. You may also find places where there’s no communication at all.
Tassel Tip: Ask “What Happens Next?”
As you review each email and text message, follow it through to the next step. Could a family easily answer: What happens next, and what do I need to do? If the answer isn’t clear, you’ve found a place to improve.
Keep going until you reach enrollment. Seeing the entire communication sequence together can reveal outdated messages, unnecessary information, and gaps that are much harder to notice when you’re managing each interaction one family at a time.
Don’t Stop the Audit at “Yes”
A family enrolls. Everyone celebrates. Your enrollment team turns its attention to the next prospective family. But what happens to the family that just said yes?
The time between enrollment and the first day of school can be a surprisingly quiet one. Your new family is excited, but they’re also entering unfamiliar territory. They have questions about what to expect, what they need to do, and how to prepare for the year ahead.
Continue your audit through this transition. Look at what a newly enrolled family receives after they commit, and when they receive it. Who welcomes them? What information do you share? When does the enrollment team hand the relationship off to others in your school community?
Tassel Tip: Follow the Silence
Map every communication a newly enrolled family receives between enrollment and the first day of school. Where are the long stretches of silence? Think about what a new family might be wondering during those stretches.
You may uncover questions you can answer before families have to ask them, or moments when a simple check-in could help them feel more connected to their new school community. Your audit may uncover the opposite problem, too: plenty of communication, but information scattered across long emails that families have to dig through later.
Consider creating one reliable resource where new families can find the information they’ll need. Depending on your school, that might be a webpage, family portal, app, or another resource that’s easy for your team to update. Then, let your emails point families there rather than trying to store every detail in the email itself. Your message can focus on what a family needs to know now, while your central resource gives them a place to return when they need the details.
It also gives your team a resource that can grow with your families. If several new parents ask the same question about childcare, uniforms, or another part of school life, add the answer. When information changes, update it in one place rather than hunting through old email templates.
The goal is to notice what families need before confusion or frustration brings it to your attention. When your enrollment process is built to anticipate those needs, saying “yes” to your school feels less like the end of the enrollment process and more like the beginning of being welcomed into your community.
Ready to put your enrollment process to the test?
Download The Tassel® Annual Enrollment Process Audit to walk through your school’s experience from discovery through enrollment. You’ll find practical exercises to help you spot friction, review your family communications, and identify improvements your team can put into action.