Every Day is Open House

Let me start this article with the statement that I have a bias toward the work of admissions directors in private schools.  My wife holds just such a title, and I firmly believe that she is the very best in her profession.  (She also is an amazing supporter of the job I do every day, and she makes some of the best chicken pot pie I have ever tasted.)  While admissions used to be an interest of mine before I met her, I now can see more and more of what I do through the eyes of someone in her position.

At most private schools around the country, the heart of admissions season is well underway.  Along with that comes a litany of tasks that includes but is not limited to admissions testing, open houses, visitation days, campus clean ups, advertisements, video productions, mailings, and other on-campus special events. However, unbeknownst to many, admissions events have been taking place since the start of the school year on every high school campus around the country in the form of home athletic events.

I bring this idea to light as I think back to a basketball game we hosted at our school just over a month ago.  We were playing an opponent that we rarely play even though the opposing school is relatively close to ours.  As the administrator on duty that day, my job was primarily to oversee traffic flow in the gym and ensure that proper decorum was maintained by the fans in the bleachers.  What I ended up doing that day, however, was handling a barrage of questions from multiple families about the facilities at our school, the admissions requirements, and availability for financial aid.  While I did nothing to solicit their initial questions, the basketball game had turned into an admissions event as our campus had been exposed to a relatively affluent segment of the metro area’s population that we had not reached in some time.

Let me be clear in saying that there was nothing taking place that day on our campus that could be in any way construed as “recruiting”.  We had no admissions brochures out on the table, we made no announcements about our openings over the loudspeaker, and we had no banners or signs that encouraged anyone to apply.  Nonetheless, the exposure of our campus to these new visitors opened the eyes of some families that may had never considered our school in the past.

The truth is that any school that welcomes 500 families for admissions open house events in the winter may have five times that many visitors from other schools at their basketball games throughout the winter season.  They may have ten times as many fans from opposing schools in the bleachers for football games in the fall.  Chances are that athletic events bring more outside families to a school campus than all other school events combined.

For this reason, auxiliary aspects of athletic events need to be approached with the care and preparation of an admissions open house.  The facilities need to be clean and well-maintained.  Fans need to adhere to proper models of decorum so that parents and fans from the opposing school are not offended.  Signage on the walls, videos on the scoreboard, and music played over the PA system need to be free from offending language and/ or images.  Lastly, athletic administrators need to be well-versed in the schools admissions policies and procedures.

While schools may offer structured visitation days for prospective families in the winter, savvy applicants will choose to visit the campus for more authentic experiences like volleyball, football, or basketball games.  I know that families do this because that amazing admissions director that I mentioned at the start of this article tells families to do this when they are comparing schools.  It is safe to assume that at large events, there are families following similar advice and placing more weight on their experience from that day than they may on an open house event.

Furthermore, athletic events allow schools to reach audiences that may never think of their school as an eventual educational destination.  In spite of a school’s best efforts to advertise and publicize its programs, athletics will always have a greater reach.  More often than not, the visiting schools on the football, soccer, or baseball field are schools similar in size, geographic location, and even programming to the host.  It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that those athletic events allow a school to showcase itself to real potential applicants down the road.  But even when you are playing an opponent with great differences from your own school, there is always the chance that your school will spark a new interest with a family that may have never considered your school in the past.

As if athletic administrators needed another task added to their job description, admissions associate belongs near to top of their focus.  Every event held on their campus is just an admissions open house in disguise.