Why Your Admissions Funnel is Misleading You
Many independent school leaders still view admissions as a funnel: families find out about you, attend an open house, apply, enroll, and then move on. Next family, please.
But anyone who has worked with admissions knows this isn't how families actually behave. They visit your website in March, disappear, reappear at a fall fair in September, go quiet again, then suddenly submit an application eighteen months after their first inquiry. Their attention doesn't follow a straight path through a funnel—it loops, maybe more than once.
Understanding this distinction changes everything about why the Net Promoter Score concept matters in school admissions.
The Myth of Linear Attention
Traditional admissions metrics track movement: inquiry to tour, tour to application, application to enrollment. These conversion rates feel scientific and manageable. Knowing one’s yield rate feels solid. We know—we ask schools for this information as part of our standard strategy on-boarding. But the numbers describe a reality that rarely exists.
Real families oscillate. They compare you to three other schools, get distracted by a job change, hear something at a dinner party that brings you back to mind, and then—only then—take action. The decision to enroll isn't the end of a journey; it is a moment within an ongoing relationship with your school's presence in their world.
This is why schools that optimize only for the top of the funnel eventually see their growth stall. They keep generating inquiries without strengthening the loop that actually converts them into enrolled families.
Where Your Net Promoter ScoreSM Enters the Loop
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures one thing: would someone recommend you? But that simple question reveals something profound about attention loops.
A high NPS means your current families aren't just satisfied—they are actively keeping your school on other families' radar. Every recommendation, every casual mention at a sports practice or neighborhood gathering, every positive comment in a parent Facebook or WhatsApp group creates a touchpoint that doesn't require your marketing budget or your admissions team's time.
A parent who scores you a 9 or 10 becomes infrastructure for other families' decision-making processes.
This matters because families trust other families more than they trust your viewbook (see our blog post on this here). When a prospective parent hears something positive about your school from a current parent, that recommendation holds more weight than a dozen beautifully designed emails. It also feels familiar rather than promotional—exactly the quality that makes attention loops work.
The Compounding Effect
Here's what the funnel model completely overlooks: attention that compounds over time.
A family that hears your school's name positively three times over two years is fundamentally different from a family that sees your Instagram ad once. The repeated exposure—especially when it comes from trusted sources—builds recognition that reduces cognitive friction when decision time comes.
Your promoters generate this compounding effect naturally. They mention your school at the right moments, in the right contexts, to the right people. They're not selling; they're simply sharing their experience. And that authenticity is exactly what keeps your school in other families' attention loops without needing constant reorientation.
Schools with low NPS scores face the opposite challenge. They must convince each new family from the beginning. There is no steady presence in the community or word-of-mouth momentum. Marketing must do all the work, which is costly and less effective.
Retention Is Admissions
The funnel model views enrollment as the final step. The loop model understands that your current families are your most valuable admissions resource.
When a family leaves your school dissatisfied, you don't just lose their tuition. You lose their presence in the attention loops of every family they know. Worse, you might gain a detractor—someone whose negative comments create friction every time your school enters another family's consideration.
This is why retention and admissions are interconnected strategies. The families with students currently in your classrooms are determining whether future families will be there three or more years from now. NPS provides a leading indicator of this trend. A decreasing score indicates trouble that may not appear in your enrollment numbers for years. An increasing score signals momentum that is still developing.
Practical Implications
If attention functions as a loop rather than a funnel, several implications follow for independent school admissions.
Measure what comes back. Track re-engagement, e.g., families who inquired once and returned, website visitors who come back repeatedly, and event attendees who've attended before. These return signals matter more than raw inquiry counts.
Treat current families as your primary marketing channel. Every interaction with enrolled families influences whether they'll recommend you. Parent communication, responsiveness to concerns, the daily experience of pickup and dropoff—all of it impacts NPS, which in turn affects your position in community attention loops.
Design for the second impression. When a family hears your name for the second time, what will they find if they look you up? Is your presence consistent enough that recognition builds, or fragmented enough that every encounter feels like starting over?
Invest in infrastructure, not just exposure. Exposure fades. Infrastructure holds. A robust parent ambassador program, a consistent communication cadence, a reputation for responsiveness—these create the conditions for sustainable attention loops.
The Long Game
Schools that understand attention loops accept a tough truth: the "screaming into the void" phase of admissions marketing often lasts longer than anyone expects. Building presence in community attention loops takes time. Trust compounds slowly.
But schools that keep widening the funnel without strengthening the loop underneath it eventually find their growth fragile. They're always chasing the next inquiry instead of benefiting from the families who already believe in them.
Your Net Promoter Score tells you whether you're building that foundation. A high score means your current families are doing admissions work you couldn't buy at any price. A low score means you're trying to fill a leaky bucket. The funnel will tell you how many families are moving through your process. Only the loop will tell you whether they'll still be talking about you next year—and whether what they say will bring others into your orbit.
Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, Net Promoter System®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ is a service mark of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.