Back to school season, from the early days of sharing supply lists and finalizing schedules, to the later weeks of students and faculty fully settling in and adjusting to routines, takes on a life of its own. It has a distinct feel, one that understandably can feel like the opposite of admissions season. Understandably, it can feel like the opposite of admissions season. But some of the year’s most consequential relationship-building happens in these first several weeks back.
A family whose child just started is still forming their real opinion of the school. A family entering a third or fourth year is quietly deciding, often without saying so out loud, whether they will still be enrolled next September. Both families are, in a real sense, still in admissions. Schools simply tend not to call it that.
That reframing is at the center of a growing body of thinking in admissions and enrollment management: Enrollment is not a single transaction that ends when a seat is confirmed, but a continuous relationship that runs from a family’s first inquiry through graduation and beyond.
The Ground Has Shifted
Anyone working in admissions has felt the market shift, even if the details vary sharply by region. Homeschooling has grown substantially since 2020 and no longer looks the way it once did demographically. In some markets, charter and public options have pulled families from independent schools; in others, enrollment is rising. International mobility is changing, too: At some schools, the share of internationally mobile students, whose families relocate between countries during their school years, is declining even as applicants come from a wider range of places.
Still, a few patterns show up across enrollment research. Families are weighing school options over years, not weeks; by the time they formally inquire, the relationship has often already begun in their minds. Academic rigor and genuine challenge remain the most common reasons families cite for leaving a school. And enrollment trends are rarely uniform: A school 15 minutes away may be having a completely different year. The answer is not a single national playbook, but closer attention to what is changing in your community.
The changing enrollment landscape also requires schools to think differently about how families experience the admissions process. That is especially true for internationally mobile families, whose moves across countries often mean that virtual interactions are their primary introduction to a school. For these families, a webinar, Zoom conversation, or virtual tour is not a supplement to the admissions experience. It is the admissions experience. A polished in-person open house means little to a family evaluating a school entirely through a screen from another country.
In a market this uneven, schools need more than a sharper pitch or a longer list of touchpoints. They need an approach to each family encounter that adapts to local conditions while keeping the family experience at the center.
A Philosophy Worth Borrowing
Families rarely choose based on information first. They choose based on how an interaction felt, then use information to confirm a decision they had already begun to make.
To borrow from horticulture: Each school is its own garden, with its own soil, climate, and character. No admissions script will work the same way everywhere. What can travel is the philosophy behind the work: Every interaction, however small, can build trust, connection, belonging, and community with a family.
That distinction changes what good admissions work looks like day to day. A transactional office is easy to spot: automated replies, feature-heavy tours, generic follow-up, and families who leave feeling processed rather than known. A relationship-driven office works differently. It puts human connection before logistics, listening before presentation, and shapes each tour or conversation around what a family has said matters most.
A Continuing Conversation
The family experience is better understood as a guided journey with six stages, each with its own emotional work:
- Inquiry: making a first impression and beginning to build trust
- Visit: helping a family picture their child thriving there
- Application: offering support and reassurance, not just evaluation
- Offer: making belonging feel real
- Enrollment: creating a warm, connected onboarding
- Re-enrollment: continuing the conversation rather than restarting it
Back-to-school season sits squarely in the last two stages, which is why it is such an underused opportunity. A new family arriving in August is still in the enrollment stage, deciding—largely by how welcomed and known they feel in the first weeks—whether their choice was the right one. A returning family is already beginning the re-enrollment stage, whether consciously or not, months before any contract lands in their inbox. Seen this way, a school’s enrollment strategy has less to do with marketing than with attentiveness.
Suggestions for This Season and Beyond
Admissions work does not have to be complicated; a few small, intentional moves can make the connection feel more personal from the start.
Call every new family personally for a genuine check-in on the transition, not a satisfaction survey. A five-minute conversation early on can surface small frustrations before they become a family’s first real doubt.
Give every new family one clear point of contact through at least the first day of school and make sure they know how to reach that person. No family should feel as if they are starting over with a stranger at each step.
Start re-enrollment discussions in the fall, not in the spring. A short, specific note that recognizes something real about a returning child’s year so far does more for retention than a form letter or an early-bird incentive.
Whatever stage a family is in, prompts that begin with tell, explain, or describe: “tell me more about what this year has been hardest,” or “describe what you're hoping is different next year,” invite a story rather than a yes-or-no answer. If a staff member is doing most of the talking in any of these conversations, the real need in the room has almost certainly been missed.
At Tessa International School (NJ), for example, children’s activities are always part of fairs and open houses, and they tend to be most effective when they connect directly to the school’s curriculum and brand. Schools can also make these events more interactive by learning about families in real time. Asking who is new to the area, exploring a language program, or attending their first school event creates an immediate sense of connection while helping staff tailor the conversation to the audience.
None of this requires a new budget or new software. It requires building simple habits that help families feel known before small doubts have time to grow.
The Real Back-to-School Opportunity
Families will not remember most of what a school tells them this fall. They will remember, often for years, how the school made them feel in the first weeks of a new beginning—whether it was their child’s first day ever or their fourth first day in a row. Schools that take that distinction seriously are not simply improving an admissions funnel. They are paying attention at the very moment families are paying the closest attention back.
That is the case for rethinking back-to-school season as relationship work, not just logistics: The return is not a single enrollment number, but the accumulated trust of families who stay, refer others, and come to tell the story of your school as their own.
Learn More
THIS WEEK: Get more context and strategies during Kathleen Visconti’s NAIS webinar this Thursday, October 8. Register today for the NAIS Global Webinar Series: Every Moment Matters: Building Trusted Family Relationships in a Changing World Through Admissions and Outreach.
