Sun. 1pm-10pm

Bonjour.  I live in a bilingual country and that’s all the French I know.  Shame on me.  Well, I do know a few other key survival words: champagne, croissant, brie, quiche!  So it’s about time I learned French and so I now own the complete Rosetta Stone French programme.

My package arrived last Friday and on Saturday I went to install the software on my computer.  Being somewhat of a tech idiot, I, to no surprise, had problems.  No worries.  There’s a 1-800 support number I can call.  I called it.  They were closed.  You feel my pain.  You, like I did, think I’m doomed to wait until Monday. 

Think again.

Rosetta Stone tech support is closed on Saturdays but open from 1pm to 10pm on Sundays.  I just had to wait 24 hours.  I spent those 24 hours being very curious about these odd hours.  So once I called tech support and got my issue resolved (shocking: I was inserting the dvd’s in the wrong sequence, despite their being clearly labeled!), I inquired about their support schedule. 

You know where this is going: people buy the software while running errands on the weekends and then attempt installation on Sunday afternoon.  So 5pm on Sunday and not 9am on Saturday is when RS support is needed and so that’s when they’re available!

When are we needed?  It was something we discussed at this year’s Essex Institute.  Shouldn’t day schools have evening open houses for busy two-income parents?  Maybe even interviews a few times at night during the busy season to accommodate those parents?  Boarding schools work with students from around the world and from many time zones.  Why do we force them all into our 9am to 5pm workday?  Or maybe we don’t and we’re losing families because we’re not available to support them when they need us.  Is it so crazy to ask a staff member to take a 4pm to midnight shift once and a while to be available on the phone or maybe an online chat?

I read something related just recently about social media.  (I apologize I don’t recall the source but I fully confess this isn’t my own idea.)  The advice was to look and see when our blogs and Facebook accounts are the most active and to post then.  Not to do so during our own 9am to 5pm work hours when our prospective students are in school.  Like good teaching, we have to meet them where they are.

My last post was about thinking what’s at the center of our offices.  I guess this one asks us to think about what time to be there.

Au Revoir!

At the center

 

Living in Canada, it’s been a while since I was in a Barnes& Noble.  And given with what haste big bookstores are closing, it’s no surprise.  They’re not easy to find.  But what was a surprise was when I walked in and found that the Nook display and sales area had taken over the center of the floor, replacing what had traditionally been the spot for Barnes & Noble customer service.

You remember customer service, right?  Helpful folks who would look up books for you and then walk with you into the stacks to find the book, as though you couldn’t manage the convoluted alpha-by-author’s-last-name filing system of Barnes & Noble.  Those friendly book geeks were eventually supplemented by kiosks, on which you could look up your own book, thank you very much.  But if you waited just a moment, someone would be right back from helping a customer over in 14^th Century Danish War and Religion and be able to help you next.  Amazon couldn’t touch this!

So imagine my surprise when there was no longer a customer service center in the middle of the store.  I write this as I head off to the Essex Institute for Enrollment Management.  I’ve lost track of how many years I have gone. 12?  14 maybe?  But I am suddenly remembering a conversation from last year’s meeting.  We were looking at school taglines or admissions mottos and were challenged to ask ourselves if the mottos were about the school or the student.  Where was your focus?  It was an insightful, interesting exercise and conversation.

Essentially, it asked what we had at the center of our schools: the school itself or the students?  Nooks or customers?

And this reminded me of an early post by Fran Ryan, Assistant Headmaster at Rumsey Hall School, on SSATB’s “Right On Time: the ALCBlog”.  Fran is a veteran at helping families navigate the waters of secondary school admissions but has recently had to “self-navigate” his family as they went through the process for his son.

Fran challenges us from his new perspective by stating, “In schools, admission processes seem to generally serve the efficient running of the office. That does not necessarily translate into creating a meaningful experience for a family examining a school.  Make sure that your process makes sense for your prospective families. Make sure that it is efficient and easy to manage, which is different from being easy.”

In other words, make sure that service, and not sales, is in the center of your “store”.

The next generation

What happens if you get hit by a bus this afternoon? Or, more realistically, hit by a Volvo station wagon driven by the parent of a child to whom you denied admission? Is there a member of staff remotely ready to step into the office of the dean or director? If you were to leave tomorrow—via ambulance or of your own choosing after winning the lottery—would there be any internal candidates for your post?

When the Admissions Leadership Council, on which I proudly serve, met this fall in Arizona, we were tasked with thinking about what our industry needs. My thought at the time—and it’s been rattling around my head ever since—is that we are not doing much as an industry to nurture, encourage, and raise the next generation of admissions directors. We do well bringing new hires into the fold and there are some opportunities for directors on the other end, but what about the middle?

For rookies, TABS offers the summer Admission Academy and SSATB has the Admission Training Institute (ATI) just before their annual meeting in September. For those at the director/dean level, SSATB also offers Senior Symposium. There is also the Essex Institute for Enrollment Management and the Crow’s Nest Institute, which are summer programmes aimed at more senior and seasoned professionals.

But what about those in the middle, those at the Assistant/Associate Director level? For them to be successful and able to remain yet move up in our profession, they need their own professional development. If we are not careful to support and treasure those we have, they may get their professional development by changing employers and seeing how things are done outside the gates of your own school and under a different dean.

It is a common cry among admissions directors that our profession needs professionalizing and that we need to demand/earn the respect (and pay!) our colleagues in development and advancement enjoy. One place to start is to take our own middle managers in the office more seriously and do what we can to make sure that we are raising the profile of the profession one assistant director at a time, both within and without our schools. Rather than shrink away, I would imagine they would welcome more responsibility, trust, and opportunity to spread their wings.

It’s a win-win-win. Win #1: you can alleviate someone’s workload (maybe yours!) by entrusting some duties to this person. Win #2: they feel good about being trusted and the opportunities to grow within your operation and may stick around. Win #3: when it’s time for them to move along (into your job or to another school), you have contributed to the next generation of our profession.

Win-win-win!

Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Hello from the Essex Institute, a wonderful (and rockin’) professional development opportunity for anyone in prep school admissions. I highly recommend it but just don’t let your spouse or head see where we stay.

This evening they made us do one of those hideous “get to know the person to your right and introduce them to the group” exercises. Actually, it was about a decade ago when I met my dear friend Pam McKenna from Hopkins Schools at the Essex Institute. We immediately bonded over our mutual loathing of such exercises. “I’m not here to make friends!”

Well, Drew Lineberger from St. James School had to introduce Craig from The Linsly School. This school is apparently the only boarding school in West Virginia (shocking!) and one of only two independent schools in all of WV. When this was pointed out, someone shouted out (was it you Shelia, from Packard Colleagiate??), “What’s your point”??!! Through the cloud of martinis, merlots, and beers, the question was actually quite valid. What was the point that they were the only boarding school in West Virginia?

Actually, I was next to Drew and my job was to introduce him. In our chat beforehand, he mentioned he had two kids. I asked him “who cares”? I told him that it was all about differentiation and that having two kids was nothing special. He then went on to tell me that he had two cats (I’ve forgiven him). Their names were “Ben” & “Jerry”. Bingo! Who cares he has two kids. Shortly after my introduction of him, someone across the table had two kids—of the same age! I elbowed Drew, hard!

Nobody will remember his kids—or the kids of the person on the other side of the table—but I bet you they remember “Ben” & “Jerry”. And who cares if you’re the only boarding school in all of West Virginia? Big whoop. Tell me something I care about and then I’ll remember your school.

Who cares about being unique. It’s all about being memorable and valuable. If you’re the only boarding school in a state/province that doesn’t care about boarding schools, what good does it do you? Being different doesn't fill schools or beds. Having value does.

On the other hand, do you think those two cats at St. James could fetch me some Chocolate Fudge Brownie or maybe some Cookie Dough??