Head of School: A View from the Middle
                     Head of School: A View from the Middle
Dartmouth Associates : Training Courses
Admission Department:
• Having been a Head of School, Director of Admission, an Development, I understand the 
united front that must be presented to the board by the head and the revenue producing 
departments of the school. 
• Obviously the board wants to have faith in you, the head, to manage these departments and 
maintain a steady stream of funding each year. 
• Furthermore, it is the Admission Department that brings in the lions share of the annual 
budget. That being said it is obviously crucial that you know the ongoing admissions stats, at 
very least monthly.
Admission Department:
• This book was written to both give your Director an entrepreneurial mind set as well as a 
new set of tools to be better prepared to help you school thrive in 2021 and beyond.
• Essentially, we want your Director to be allowed to have more latitude in his scope of 
decisions making and at the same time take a stronger role in managing the glandular 
expectations of admissions activity. 
• Being a strong believer in the axiom…” you can’t manage what you can’t measure” it is only 
reasonable that you should be able to  ask for some specifics about what activities were 
pursued by the team and what tangible results they achieved related to the admissions goals 
for the year. 
Admission Department:
• Seeing as how you need to be prepared for the random call from your board president asking 
about the “numbers”
• But however, you should be both supportive and ready to collaborate when your director 
says that they are trying a new marketing tactic heretofore only used by corporations. 
• You director must feel that you understand that as the new Admission Entrepreneur persona, 
I am asking , that besides spending far more time and energy preparing to execute activities 
that reach specific objectives for every persona and stage of the admissions funnel, I also 
expect that offices make regular, outgoing calls to create relationships with new potential 
referrals sources to send more potential inquires into the top of the funnel that has been 
shrinking over the last three years.  
Admission Department:
• Essentially, have asked them to look at their office as their own company that they must 
oversee it’s total success, and as an entrepreneur be prepared to make the necessary 
marketing and recruiting pivots to ensure the meeting of enrollment goals. 
• My Results Oriented Recruiting system forges a cultural paradigm shift from the past 
admission strategies of spending more money on the same approaches and expecting 
different results…I call it “The Insanity Strategy”
• This year over half the admission offices reported declining numbers from last year and I 
predict it will only get worse. 
Admission Department:
• So, as America continues to struggle economically in the short term, foreign 
embassies tighten visa restrictions and fewer kids are being born, I ask that 
you, admission, and the board continue to have discussions about the new 
challenges to schools and the best ways to find the right balance of mission 
appropriate students and supporting the core program.
Reference:
• https://www.dartmouthassociates.com/head-of-school-a-view-from-the-middl
e/
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