Admissions Matters: The Essay

Before you spend $5,000, $15,000, $25,000 or more annually for your child's education in a private school, do your own due diligence. Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines due diligence as "research and analysis of a company or organization done in preparation for a business transaction." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/due%20diligence In a normal business transaction such as buying a house, you would probably concern yourself with the title search and a house inspection in the first instance. When evaluating private schools for your child, your due diligence will focus on the fit. You want to find the private school which offers the best fit for your needs and requirements. You want to identify a school at which your child will be happy. The due diligence steps which you take in a business transaction inspect and review tangibles. Due diligence for parents evaluating private schools includes tangibles such as the academics, sports, and extracurriculars as well as that all-important intangible which is how the school fits in with your requirements.

Avoid common mistakes.

When you visit schools, please don't make the following common mistakes:

• Being late
• Being dressed inappropriately
• Being unprepared
• Being over-prepared
• Being rude and disinterested

A little thought and preparation will help you make the best impression possible.

Visit schools.

Visiting schools is an essential part of evaluating the schools on your short list. There are several ways schools will arrange those visits.
This part of your due diligence can be great fun. You will set foot on the campus and explore the facilities of a

I asked the experts at Noodle Pros for suggestions as to how to improve quantitative scores on the commonly used private school standardized admissions test, the SSAT. Their answers follow. ...Rob

Four Noodle Pros give advice on how to improve your SSAT quantitative score:

1. Be thorough.

Write out your math as thoroughly and as clearly as you can. Even when you can do much of the calculation in your head, it helps a lot to have your step-by-step thinking on paper in front of you. Many times when you get lost or stuck, you can look at what you have written and find your way out of a jam. You can also find and fix the errors in your thinking or your calculation more quickly and more accurately when you can see the work in front of you. Don't do all your math in your head! - Brendan Mernin, 27 Years Tutoring

2. Be confident.

Students do their best when they feel confident. The challenge in maintaining good morale is that the difficulty of the exam can cause students anxiety. Remember that, according to the SSAT website, the SSAT writers design the questions so that only 50 to 60 percent of the test-takers get the question right. Help your child maintain a realistic view of what is expected, and take on preparation in reasonable “chunks.” Start by mastering the questions on content your child already knows, gradually pursue new content or new applications of content,

Summer is a good time for the marketing team to review the year-to-date and plan for the year ahead. Strictly speaking, summer doesn't begin in most private schools until school is out. That can be anytime between the middle of May and the middle of June, although some schools finish classes at the end of June. In any case, this is an excellent time to spend a couple of days reviewing your marketing initiatives. It is important to see what's working and what isn't working.

I like to think of marketing from the perspective of the homeowners I used to represent back in the 80s when I was a real estate broker in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut. I would explain to them how important it was to view their home and surroundings just as a potential buyer would. Buyers see things that you are so accustomed to seeing that you don't see them. The things which you do not see objectively could well be deal-breakers. The same principle is true in marketing your school. Certain things which you take for granted or think are not important could be deal-breakers for potential families looking at your school.

Against that backdrop, let's take a look at each of your marketing tools as well as your overall campaign.

1. Your website

Think of your school's website as the front door to your school. The entrance to your school is warm and inviting, isn't it? Perhaps it is impressive, even imposing.

Marketing a private school is one of the tasks which can be daunting for school administrators of the small to medium-sized school. That is mainly because most heads of school have as their principal duty raising money. That responsibility is a full-time job by itself. Naturally, heads of school have a host of administrative duties as well. Moving down the organization chart, private school business managers have to keep the books balanced, manage the cash flow and deal with the overall management of the physical plant. Academic deans manage the teachers and what happens in the classroom. As a result, the admissions office ends up with the marketing brief, such as it is, in smaller schools. Most of the time marketing in the small school consists of making sure the website is updated, regular posts to the social media pages are done, and an admissions catalog is produced annually.

This state of affairs contrasts sharply with large private schools which can afford to hire the professional marketing staff needed to promote their schools effectively.

What is remarketing?

So, I can just imagine you reading this and thinking that you barely have time to market your school, much less remarket it. Anyway, what exactly is remarketing?

You and I are targets of companies' remarketing efforts every time we surf the web. For example, I was looking at bread machines the other day. After I left Amazon, I went to The Guardian to check the headlines and