Best Practices for Processing Inquiries?

Nicole DeKorte

Hello, all!

I am new to the Enrollment Management System and had some questions about how other schools process their inquiries and convert them into applicants, how their checklists are set-up, etc.

Currently, we use SchoolAdmin, and the inquiries we receive come directly from an embedded form on our website or they are manually entered from a phone call inquiry. Upon submission, inquiries automatically receive informational emails that also contain a link to our application. Families can also choose to bypass the inquiry form and submit an application instead.

My question is: When families submit an application without submitting an inquiry in Blackbaud, will my checklist still work? It is set up with the Inquiry milestone as the 1st step.

Any insight and tips are appreciated!

-Nicole DeKorte

Admiral Farragut Academy - St. Petersburg, FL

Coco Parham

@Nicole DeKorte Morning, our checklist is set up with inquiry, applicant, application complete, decision, new enrolled as milestones. Usually, our candidates are inquiries first; once I process their inquiry they receive the login invite to view their checklist and start the application (or not, depending). We also accept the SAO application. When we get a SAO application, I manually complete the inquiry step and send them the information they would have received had they started as an inquiry. But they go from inquiry to applicant in one fell swoop.

Nicole DeKorte

@Coco Parham
Thank you!

Do you ever have families who would prefer to just submit an application (not SAO)?

Also, we tend to receive a lot of inquiries that never apply/do not contact us back - do you still recommend sending an invitation to all inquiries to set up their Blackbaud account?

Brian LeBlanc

@Nicole DeKorte We use inquiries exclusively as our first point of contact for prospective families, and we position them as the first step in the application process. Doing it this way provides multiple benefits for us:

• As a growing school, not all grade levels are available at all times, and having different inquiries for different entering years allows us to control which grades are available for what years
• We have multiple campuses and by using inquiries up front, we are able to tell parents about campus and grade level availability based off the inquiry prior to them completing the application (and submitting the app fee) so that they aren't spending money on an application for a grade where we aren't considering applications. This allows parents to consider applying to a different campus where there might still be seats available
• We've integrated BBID into the processing of the inquiries rather than sending a separate BBID connection email, which allows us to accept inquiries years in the future (and build up a mailing list!) and control when parents are able to access the application and checklist

We don't have inquiries on the checklist itself because it's just a waypoint; it doesn't really have any bearing on the admissions application itself and serves mostly as a way to collect basic demographic information rather than anything specific to the decision-making process.

This is very much my wheelhouse; I've been involved in the design of pretty much every aspect of this process. I'm happy to share tips and tricks if you'd like to touch base, feel free to shoot me an email: brian dot leblanc at thalesacademy.org.

Nicole DeKorte

@Brian LeBlanc
Thank you SO much!! Sending you an email now!

Coco Parham

@Nicole DeKorte I haven't experienced a family request to go straight to the application step. Even when its a younger brother (we are all boys), they still start as an inquiry. I send out a packet to all our inquiries once we receive it. If they do not apply, I inactivate or re-apply inquiries right before the next year starts or when the admission counselor asks me to during the admission year. We do report # of inquiries and how many complete the process as well.

I don't have any recommendation, only what your school wants to do. Since we inactivate them, it hasn''t been a problem to send out invites to people who don't apply.

Kathleen Sanders

@Brian LeBlanc Hi Brian, I'm curious about 'We've integrated BBID into the processing of the inquiries rather than sending a separate BBID connection email, which allows us to accept inquiries years in the future (and build up a mailing list!) and control when parents are able to access the application and checklist'. Can you explain that a tad more for me, please? We have always kept the current admissions year open and no future years. There is a certain point during the year when there are two admissions years open, the current academic year and the next academic year. There is some discussion at our school about opening future years and would like to understand how other schools manage the data when additional years are open. Thanks so much!

Brian LeBlanc

@Kathleen Sanders check your PM inbox!

Karla McNamee

@Nicole DeKorte my process is basically like Coco's. I have “inquiry received” as my first checklist Item, basically so we can use it for stats if we want. If families go straight to submitting an application I mark off the “inquiry” checklist item.

Our families get invited to connect with BBID after they submit an online inquiry and when they start our online application. If a family submits the application via the SAO I mark off or waive the previous items.

Before each new admission year, I reevaluate our checklist to see if I can improve it, etc. I also have a “test” checklist that I play with on a test record so that I can see what works and what doesn't.

Chrystalle Kiefer

@Nicole DeKorte We have people that will skip right over our inquiry and just apply. I have my checklist set up so that it will “Auto-waive prior steps", which is just my initial contact, so we don't have to manually waive or check it off.