Best Practice Question: When do you mark students as "Inactive"

Christina-Marie Rawlins
Christina-Marie Rawlins
Sixth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™

I am trying to create an SOP on when to mark a student as inactive but I am wondering what other schools do. Do you mark them inactive as soon as they decline an admission offer (individually)? Does your school do them on a certain date? AND when marking them inactive does it create problems for the family if they try to apply to your school the following year?

Comments

  • Coco Parham
    Coco Parham
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 5 December 2025 Monthly Challenge Name Dropper

    @ChristinaMarie Rawlins I inactivate candidates that decline us individually, or a list our admission team sends me during the year. In September, I create a candidate list of the year that just ended for the team to check to re-apply or inactivate.

    If someone from that list inquiries again, I re-activate or re-apply them and send out the login information to them

  • Julie Winkeler
    Julie Winkeler
    Third Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @ChristinaMarie Rawlins

    Hello Christina Marie,

    Our school will mark the file as soon as we get the declined notification.

    We will make an official note. We will make a copy of their contract, delete it with a note of declined enrollment, then we mark the decision tab with the valuable data, then we mark the file inactive under the record tab.

    If the applicant comes back the next year we just re-activate them for the new admission season. That way you have historical data and a fresh new checklist.

    Over the summer we will purge the file both in paper and electronically in order to remove the subjective items we are not allowed to keep on record.

    I hope this helps. Have a great day.

    Thanks, Julie

  • Kellye Allen
    Kellye Allen
    Fifth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1

    @Julie Winkeler So if a candidate wants to defer admission to the following year, do you “Inactivate” them and then “Re-activate” or “Re-apply” them for the following year? I don't want them to have to fill out another application.

  • Julie Winkeler
    Julie Winkeler
    Third Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Kellye Allen

    Hello Kellye,

    Yes, we will make them “inactive” for that admission year and place an official note.

    If they want to apply for the following year we bump them ahead, but they do have to re-apply and go through the whole process again, each year is a new year. By doing this process it allows us to have a fresh new checklist also. I hope that helps. Thanks, Julie

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