You Ask, We Answer: Measuring School Enrollment Health
Empowered Enrollment Team
Is “full enrollment” your team’s gold standard? When you’ve got classrooms buzzing with students, waitlists growing, and families eager to become part of your community, it’s easy to equate high numbers with success.
But enrollment health goes deeper than just filling seats. It considers whether the right families are enrolling, whether they’re staying, and whether your school can live out its mission in an impactful way.
In this post, we’re answering three of the most common questions we hear from school leaders about enrollment health: what it is, how to pursue it, and how to track your progress over time.
Question #1: What is healthy enrollment™, and how is it different from full enrollment?
At Tassel®, we define healthy enrollment as the prioritized pursuit of strategic recruitment and retention goals, anchored in shared commitments to:
- A Focused School Identity. Your school has a clear, distinctive value proposition that aligns faculty and staff and resonates with right-fit families™.
- An Empowered Enrollment Team. Your enrollment team has the expertise, capacity, resources, and authority to pursue Enrollment Goals and Seasonal Priorities.
- Engaged Right-Fit Families™. You’re recruiting and retaining families who value your approach, support your mission, and contribute to a vibrant culture.
Full enrollment, on the other hand, can sometimes give a false sense of security. High headcount might mask deeper challenges like staff burnout, a drifting culture, or families who never truly supported your mission. We unpack this in more detail in our blog, 7 Complexities of Full Enrollment.
You can be full and be healthy. In fact, that’s the goal — not to just fill every seat, but to build a sustainable learning community aligned with your purpose.
Question #2: How do I identify and attract right-fit families™?
Healthy enrollment hinges on more than interest; it requires intentional alignment. Before you can attract right-fit families™, you have to define what “right-fit” looks like for your school.
This goes beyond academic qualifications or ability to pay tuition. Families who understand your school’s mission, values, and educational approach are more likely to become active participants in your community — not just one less empty seat. They’ll shape culture (for the better), strengthen retention, and sustain long-term school health. Tools like a Right-Fit Family™ Rubric can help you start building shared clarity across your team on what that alignment looks like.
And once you know who you’re looking for, you can begin designing strategies that help those families find and choose you. This includes:
- Messaging that clearly reflects your mission, vision, and culture
- A content strategy that walks families through the Family Journey™
- Tight collaboration between your marketing and admissions teams
To keep learning, read about these 3 Areas Marketing Impacts School Enrollment.
Question #3: What metrics should I track to measure enrollment health?
If you want to strengthen enrollment health, you have to measure what matters. Vanity metrics or isolated numbers such as total inquiries, tour volume, or overall enrollment, don’t tell the full story. These metrics can look impressive but miss deeper indicators of enrollment and retention.
Here are some of the indicators that we recommend tracking:
- Inquiry-to-enrollment conversion rate — not just how many families inquire, but how well you’re guiding them toward enrollment.
- Retention rate — especially early attrition in key transition years.
- Yield of right-fit families™ — based on qualitative assessments, not just quantity> Family satisfaction and engagement levels — through surveys, interviews, or informal feedback
- Family satisfaction and engagement levels — through surveys, interviews, or informal feedback
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