Community School in Sun Valley, Idaho has selected Ian Symmonds & Associates for research and consulting services. Community School is a pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade day and boarding school in Sun Valley, Idaho, where students are known and challenged by an inspiring faculty to think critically in a collaborative, close-knit community. The school has been a long time member of the ISA client family, partnering with us in 2009 for a strategic marketing plan. We return to Community School to continue our partnership and build upon our prior work.
St. Andrew's Episcopal School Announces Director of Enrollment Management
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Ann Masterman as the director of enrollment management at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Saratoga, CA. This appointment is to a newly created position at St. Andrew's to lead the implementation of an integrated strategic enrollment management system. ISA led the search for this appointment, and it is sure to be a great partnership.
Ann impressed the selection team at St. Andrew's with her of 11 years of experience in the enrollment management field. Most recently, Ann served as the Executive Director of Enrollment Management, Marketing, and Operations from The University of Miami. Ann holds a PhD from Boston College in Higher Education Administration and a Master's Degree in Higher Education Administration from The University of Miami. Ann will utilize her education and expertise in the field to provide leadership in enrollment planning and will serve as the point of integration for the recruitment, admissions, financial aid, information management, re-enrollment and retention functions of the school. .
Please join ISA in congratulating both Ann and St. Andrew's Episcopal School in their new partnership and the creation of an integrated strategic enrollment management system.
Recalibrating an Industry > It's About the Ecosystem, Stupid
What do luxury retailers and brands know that perhaps private schools do not yet understand? I think they know with relative certainty that a high price/low volume enterprise is very difficult to sustain in challenging market conditions. Think of many luxury brands of considerable retail expense, such as German import cars (Mercedes, Audi, BMW) or Swiss watches (Rolex, Tag), and you will find that they have had to diversify their offerings into an ecosystem of different price points in order to build a long term financial model. Even Apple understands the value of getting people onto their ecosystem with a "gateway drug", such as the iPod or iPhone, in order to build a system of consumers.
It turns out that colleges and universities have been doing this for over 20 years. When the market for full pay undergraduate, residential consumers dwindled in the 1990's as Baby Boomers had fewer college age children, colleges went after parents with online learning, degree completion programs, MBA's, and graduate degrees. Universities built a strong ecosystems of schools and colleges with a variety of delivery models and access points that would enable them to weather the uncertain luxury retail consumer storm.
Independent and private schools are learning the hard way that, for most of them - the relatively underfunded and low endowed schools - they cannot sustain themselves on high price, high selectivity, and low volume models. They will have to diversify their offerings in the future in order to sustain themselves. They are going to have to remove the barriers to access and leverage their brands in order to build sustainability into their financial model. With the innovative learning approaches taking place throughout education including lower entry price points and different delivery models, private schools are going to have to adjust to the changing times. And, if the industry and their schools are strategic, they will use this opportunity to remove barriers and address access, diversity, and inclusion efforts in a financially responsible way. There are so many opportunities on the horizon to build a strong ecosystem, serve a variety of different type of students, diversity our audiences, and enlarge the footprint of our industry.
Staying Out of the Weeds
How do you successfully "stay out of the weeds" and "stay at the 30,000 foot level" when developing strategic plans? Our experience tells us this is an area of considerable difficulty for some people. The fact is that most people - by their very nature - find it easier to develop a short-term tactical solution than a long-term strategic solution to a problem. How do you change the orientation and thinking of people to this higher level thinking?
Strategic thinkers, by their very nature and discipline, tend to seek structural and systemic solutions to problems identified by research. For example, let's assume that a small college has identified that "food" and "food service" has been identified as an issue in the research for strategic planning. Here is how different thinkers would solve that problem.
- The operational thinker would revert to a personnel issue and want to fire the food service director.
- The tactical thinker would likely assume that this problem could be addressed by firing the food service provider and hire a more effective vendor.
- The strategic thinker would see "food" and "dining" as an extension of nutrition, wellness, and building community and would look to the mission of the college (which speaks to these issues) to build a dining experience that is congruent with the educational philosophy of the college.
It turns out that strategic thinkers are always "pushing up", seeking to identify the higher level or systemic issue to a problem. They look at the symptoms indicated in the research as clues to what the larger issues really are to be revealed. Doctors don't tell patients complaining of a stuffy nose and sneezing that they are suffering from "stuffy nose" disease. No, they look at these symptoms as a picture of a larger condition and then try to treat the condition.
Staying out of the weeds requires great discipline. Remind your strategic teams to "push up" and use the issues revealed in the research as clues to a larger, more systemic issue. Then, treat the issue with a structural or systemic change. It's not easy, but it is far better to view the world from 30,000 feet than to be stuck in the weeds.
Strategic Enrollment Management Explained
Looking for a brief, simple explanation of the principles to strategic enrollment management? Ian spoke at the annual conference of the Sacred Heart Network in St. Louis in November. His keynote talk focused on two important topics: 1) the future of education and 2) strategic enrollment management. This short video outlines the seven core concepts behind strategic enrollment management and is excellent professional development material for school and college executives, administrators, and enrollment management and advancement professionals. Special thanks to the Sacred Heart Network Conference for their invitation and video work.
The Future of Education - Keynote Video
What's the forecast for the future of private education? Ian spoke on this topic to the Sacred Heart Network Conference in St. Louis in November. This annual gathering included Sacred Heart Network heads and board members of member schools. In this video, Ian outlines the major forces and trends that may prevail and impact our progress as an industry. He outlines a very stratified sector of education that will empower some and leave others behind. Special thanks to the Conference on Sacred Heart Network.
Brownell Talbot School Selects ISA
Brownell Talbot School in Omaha, Nebraska has selected ISA for research and strategic services. Our work with the school begins in February and continues on through the next academic year. Brownell Talbot is Nebraska's only private, preschool through grade 12, independent, coeducational day school. We are delighted to welcome the school to our ISA family.
Brownell Talbot School was founded by the Rt. Rev. Joseph Cruickshank Talbot, D.D., then the Episcopal Bishop of the Northwest. Bishop Talbot's decision was inspired by his desire to bring cultural and educational opportunities to the daughters of the pioneers, while sparing them the long journey to eastern boarding schools. As a girls’ boarding school, Brownell Talbot was originally named Brownell Hall. Bishop Talbot named the school for the Presiding Bishop of Connecticut, Thomas Church Brownell, whose parish provided a large portion of the funds needed to purchase the school’s first home, at what is now 24th Street and Grand Avenue.
In 1952, the decision was made for Brownell Hall to become coeducational, and boys were enrolled in the Talbot School for Boys, named for the founder of Brownell Hall, Bishop Talbot. The school was called Brownell Hall-Talbot School for Boys until 1963, then renamed Brownell Talbot School. In 1967, Brownell Talbot became independent of the Episcopal Church. Today, Brownell Talbot is Nebraska's only independent, coeducational, college preparatory day school serving students from preschool through grade 12.
Recalibrating an Industry - The Historic Business Model of Private Schools
There is no doubt that the private education sector is under duress. A universal softening of demand at the K to 12 sector, increased price, leveraged financial aid, and a changing set of core customers in Millennials places this industry in a challenging place. In our series "Recalibrating an Industry", where we explore the potential solutions to these current woes, we first look at the business model. It seems like the most appropriate place to explore revision.
Our current situation is a complex one with many factors contributing to the financially unstable future of independent schools. I find history always provides an excellent context for understanding our current situation. So, it is useful to start with an historic perspective and pose a simple question:
"Why has the high price - low volume, selective admissions business model of independent schools prevailed for so long without any major overhaul?
Our experience with a national base of these schools as clients is that the industry has believed it can successfully address and stimulate softening demand through short-term, tactical solutions. Some of these solutions over the past decade or two, and some of their ramifications, have included:
1) Increasing leveraged and targeted financial aid and filling seats through a net tuition revenue approach (leading to reduced revenue per student and greater diversity)
2) Altering admission standards to widen the universe of potential students (leading to retention and persistence challenges)
3) Reducing programmatic expenses that support the learning and professional development experience (leading to a lessening of the core academic experience)
4) Building an assumption of growth into non-core programs, such as auxiliary revenue (leading to occasional mission creep and challenges of organizational focus)
This is simply a sample of some of the most obvious. There are other ways in which the industry has attempted to address a softening of demand through various short-term solutions. However, we still find the industry overall in a weakened state seeking direction.
History can tell us a lot about where we have been and how we got here, but it may not reveal the ultimate next steps for our industry. The reality is that these short-term, tactical efforts historically have done little more than maintained our current situation and kept the industry treading water. They have not provided any transformation to the industry.
Our next series of posts will look beyond the historic business model and overlay some future trends, perhaps providing some potential new direction for the future. We will discuss some innovations in other industry sectors that may prove useful in considering as potential tools at our disposal.
Lycée Francais de San Francisco Selects ISA
Lycée Francais de San Francisco has selected Ian Symmonds & Associates for strategic planning. The school joins at least five other French international schools in the Puget Sound, Portland, and the Silicon Valley, as well as the French International Schools of North America, as members of our client family. Our work will commence later this spring and continue into the following academic year.
Le Lycée Français de San Francisco was founded in 1967 upon principles of internationalism and inclusivity. Their unique program, accredited by the French Ministry of Education, helps all students from preschool through 12th grade students build confidence and adaptability in their ever-changing environment. By emphasizing intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and integrity, Le Lycée Français de San Francisco prepares students to realize their potential and positively impact their world.
Fort Worth Country Day Launches Strategic Plan
Fort Worth Country Day in Texas has launched their strategic plan. "From Here...Anywhere" details the strategic vision for FWCD, which includes aspiring to be a school of significance. Consistent with our blog series in 2015 of a similar theme, a school of significance is a school or college that has a transformational quality on the context of their environment. From our experience, they are a small segment of independent schools and colleges that seem to thrive in doing meaningful work within the context of their environment. We are so pleased with the quality and thoughtfulness of this strategic vision for the future and can't wait to watch Fort Worth Country Day School thrive as they follow it forward into the future. Download their strategic plan here in PDF file format.
A Landmark Research Accomplishment
We have pretty cool news! Our research division has just informed us that Ian Symmonds & Associates has completed 500 client surveys of parents, students, and stakeholders since our inception in 2003. ISA now stands 15 years old with over 300 clients served in 48 states and several foreign countries and 500 surveys completed. We are very excited to bring industry leadership through our research and experience to our client community.
Canterbury School Selects ISA
Canterbury School in Greensboro, North Carolina has selected Ian Symmonds & Associates for research and strategic planning. Our work will commence in the late spring and continue throughout the next academic year. Canterbury School was founded in 1993 as a co-educational Episcopal day school and serves students from PreK through 8th grade. Canterbury’s campus is approximately 35 acres in northeastern Greensboro, N.C. There are seven permanent buildings: lower and middle schools, a science and technology building, an athletic center, a chapel, an arts building, and a student center. Additional facilities include a library, playground areas, outdoor chapel, soccer field, pond, fitness trail, outdoor education center, extended day, and administrative offices. We are excited to welcome Canterbury School into our client community.
Sacred Heart Network Selects ISA
The Network of Sacred Heart Schools has selected Ian Symmonds & Associates for strategic planning services. The Network of Sacred Heart Schools is an association of Catholic independent schools acting in cooperation with the USC Province of the Society of the Sacred Heart to advance a shared mission. Our work will commence in February and continue though the spring and summer as we develop a vision and plan for the Network. ISA has served several member schools during our history, including Duchesne Academy in Omaha, Nebraska, Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans, and Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bellevue, Washington. We welcome the Network to our client community.
Recalibrating an Industry - Where Do We Start?
By nearly every important strategic measure, private education is under industry duress. Some of the indicators of this duress include softening demand, shrinking universe of traditional customers, inflated prices with inflated financial aid trying to make up the difference, changing modes of delivery, and rising expectations of new consumers. It's not all bad, though, as many private schools and colleges are using this time to refocus their energies and recalibrate their offerings.
As we move into a new year, we start with a theme of recalibration. There is no question we are at a pivot point as an industry. In fact, we have been at this place since the global economic shift in 2007-08, which served as a catalyst for change in an industry that had neglected external trends. Since that time, the industry has been making incremental change without significant transformation of the business model.
Where are we going and where do we start? There are critical questions that need to be answered in the future. Do we begin with reforming the classroom? Or maybe we should focus on changing the business model? How about altering the method of delivery? We will focus our first quarter of blog entries of 2018 on the theme of recalibration and attempt to address some of these questions and the issues that emerge as a result. It should be a good series. We hope you can join us, follow along, and even throw in a few ideas of your own.
Happy Holidays from ISA
ISA wishes you the very best of the holiday season. In an effort to afford ourselves the opportunity to refresh and reflect, ISA will be closed from December 22nd through January 5th. During this time, ISA staff members will be checking email, voicemail, and our Basecamp collaboration feeds only periodically. We wish you a safe and enjoyable holiday season and look forward to our work together in the New Year!
Practicing Integrated Marketing
The notion of integrated marketing has been around for long time. In the education sector, we have been using this language for at least 15 years, first at the higher education level followed by the primary/secondary sector. I am still surprised how many schools and colleges fail to meet this simple test on their marketing message with so many tools at their disposal.
The theory integrated marketing, in the simplest of terms, means "no matter the medium, the message and design of delivery does not change". In practice, this means that websites, push emails, social media, print media, advertising, and all other collateral have a matching set of messages and design. It starts with a clear positioning platform, set of key messages, and an effective design palette - led by a clear graphic identity - that is coordinated through all media. One of the great advantages of integrated marketing is that it promotes a "one voice" impact for an organization. It promotes simplicity and synchronicity of message to ensure that your organization is experienced by audiences the same way through all media.
Make practicing integrated marketing a priority with your organization. Your audiences will appreciate the ability to recognize your brand easily. And, with all of the tools available today, it should be the most cost effective and foundational effort in your marketing program.
Strategic Trends Defining Education Today
We have been pouring through research and trends for our independent schools and colleges lately. As a result, we have a neat, tidy list of recent trends that we believe are relevant and defining for independent schools and colleges today. We thought we would pass them on to you and encourage you to comment or share as you wish.
1) When the economy goes South, consumers delay the decision to purchase private education. And, even though education generally performs well in recessionary times, we've seen a lot of delay in consumer decisions lately.
2) Consumers are seeing increased stratification of educational offerings, driving price down and choices up, between MOOC's, online platforms, and hybrid offerings.
3) Young, entrepreneurial professionals continue to dwindle in numbers occupying seats around boardroom or governance tables, seeking other venues for their more action-oriented approach to socially-conscious venues to make a difference.
4) Competitive pricing and aid models remain the holy grail of independent education, with no real revolution or innovation in this financial model in two decades.
5) Students are more politically active and socially engaged in issues that define their generation that just a decade or more ago.
6) Curriculum remains incongruent with solving the issues of our times. The global challenges of 2020 don't seem well reflected in our curriculum.
7) The jury is still out on the best way to teach students, with no obvious prevailing educational philosophy taking the lead role in education.
8) With a tough economy and more lower cost choices in the marketplace, "good is good enough" is becoming a common prevailing consumer philosophy.
9) The marketing game continues to be more about flash than substance, showing us getting attention is far more important than delivering content.
10) The classroom and its walls are exploding, with new tools, fewer walls, and more global influence than ever before.
Sidwell Friends School Launches Strategic Plan
idwell Friends School in Washington, DC has completed and launched their new strategic plan. "Lead in the Light: Empowering Students to Let Their Lives Speak" is an ambitious plan for the school and lays out the priorities for Sidwell Friends over the next five to seven years. ISA worked with Sidwell Friends School over the past 15 months to construct this strategic plan.
The plan places students firmly at the center of goals designed to enhance the school's ability to deliver Quaker education in the nation’s capital at this particular moment in history. Developed in response to the School's extraordinary opportunity to purchase property next to our campus, the strategic plan consists of four goals: 1) Unify the Campus, 2) Imagine the Future of Learning, 3) Inspire Ethical Leadership, and 4) Welcome a Wider Community.
We are very excited about this strategic plan and congratulate the school on the completion of a remarkable process. To view or download the strategic plan, please visit the Sidwell Friends School Strategic Plan website or visit our Work page.
It's About Reaching More Than Teaching
I’m increasingly convinced that what is being passed off as innovative in our top prep schools is not much more than incremental improvements. As a cohort it turns out that we have historically been pretty good at high quality education. However, the single largest threat facing our best prep schools is not how to teach students but how to reach students. Ultimately, it is about access, delivery, and the interdependency of the financial model. The future will demand that our independent and private schools are smaller, more focused, and more innovative in their delivery and financial models. There are few, if any, schools today that are not experiencing declines in demand, tuition revenue, and a softening of giving. The writing is on the wall.
Defining and Explaining Strategic Enrollment Management
Looking for a simple yet thorough explanation of strategic enrollment management? Look no further. Here is our easy to understand guide to the systems approach to managing enrollment, revenue, financial aid, and the life cycle of students at your school. We created this model for use in conference presentations and enrollment management bootcamps for several associations and find it useful as an organizing set of principles.
Most of us tend to think of the term “admissions” when we describe the active efforts of creating a sustainable enrollment for a school or college. However, this term - and its definition and core function - are really quite limiting in terms of what is required to build sustainable enrollment at tuition driven independent schools and colleges. “Admissions” really only describes the process of entry into a school or college, rather that the activity that was needed to create that enrollment interest or sustain the enrollment in the school.
About 20 years ago, the concept of strategic enrollment management was created at the higher education level, giving birth to a new way of viewing admission work from a systems approach. About 10 years ago, this system was largely adopted by relatively successful, mature, and forward thinking independent schools as a way to develop an integrated approach to cultivating and sustaining a suitable enrollment body. The system has seven critical components, each working together as a system to forge a sustainable enrollment platform. The following is a brief description of each function and how it contributes to the larger ecosystem of strategic enrollment management.
Recruitment - For tuition-driven schools and colleges, generating suitable demand is the most critical function of sustainable enrollment. We call this function “demand generation”, which translates into the creation of inquiries, applications, and visits to campus. Without these elements, the school does not have a suitable enrollment from which to work.
Admissions - Admission is literally the process of entry into a school or college. Similar to being admitted to a hospital, it is the process of entry into an organization. Admissions is typically defined by the systematic gathering of information that contributes to a candidate’s portfolio for consideration for entry.
Financial Aid and Net Revenue - Financial aid is the strategic use of unfunded or funded financial assistance as a method of generating revenue, sustaining enrollment, and creating access. It takes many forms, from merit to need based, and is used in strategic enrollment management as a tool to create and sustain mission appropriate student enrollment with revenue assumptions. Most independent schools practicing strategic enrollment management set priorities on financial aid as a system, seeking to accomplish one of three objectives with their expenditures, including 1) filling unused capacity to generate revenue, 2) shape their class with specific types of students, or 3) provide access to underrepresented populations in the community.
Information Management and Tracking - Sound information management and tracking of strategic enrollment management efforts is the backbone of this system. This includes using an information system that is shared school wide, tracking students through the “input - throughput - output” lifecycle of the school, and creating insightful reports that inspire responsive activity.
Marketing Communications - The act of generating and sustaining interest and demand in the market requires effective marketing communications. This is the area where brand, identity, and communication planning intersect with enrollment management work. For this reason, most schools utilize more than just the admissions team in their strategic enrollment management program as it requires collaboration across divisions, with shared responsibilities and roles in marketing communications and advancement areas.
Retention - It is often easier to keep a student than recruit a new one. Retention is the systematic analysis and development of managing students once they are enrolled in the school. It is again a collaborative effort across school divisions, requiring input and insight from academic leaders throughout the organization. Retention also requires excellent tracking systems so that student and parent behavior indicating potential attrition can be tracked and responded to accordingly.
Research and Analysis - Finally, strategic enrollment management requires that there is a steady research and analysis function present in team efforts. Strategic enrollment management deals with the systematic tracking of human behavior, and thus requires a steady review and analysis of activity so that schools and teams are making wise choices in their efforts.
Strategic enrollment management is an integrated system that works together to form a powerful tool of creating the input, sustaining the throughput, and developing the output of school enrollment, all the while managing revenue and capacity assumptions. And, at the most basic of levels, strategic enrollment management is about removing unnecessary barriers and creating client-centered incentives toward persistence in the input, throughput, and output process.