How to run school admissions online for 2027-28

Admissions is the one season when a school is judged by strangers. Every enquiry is a family deciding whether to trust you, and the way you answer, follow up and decide is part of that decision.

1. Set the season up before the first enquiry

The work that saves the most time happens before November. Write down, per class, the seats, the form fee, the admission fee, the age rule and the documents you need. Decide where families may apply: at the office only, on your school's admission page, in a parent app, or all three. Decide whether the form fee is paid online.

Then arrange the form: which fields you need, which are required, and the few questions that are your own. Set the merit criteria now, not after the applications arrive, and choose which messages families get at each stage. If you ran admissions online last year, copy last season's settings and change only what changed.

2. Take enquiries the same way you take applications

A walk-in, a phone call and an online form should land in the same place. Record an enquiry in ten seconds with the child's name, class and a phone number, and turn it into a full application later. When a family returns, their history is there. Applications that arrive online sit on the same board as the ones your office typed in.

Ask for documents as uploads from the phone, not papers at the gate, and mark each one verified when you have checked it.

3. Keep every child on one board

The question every principal asks in December is "where are we?". A board with one column per stage answers it at a glance: Enquiry, Draft, Applied, Under review, Offered, Waitlisted, Admitted, Not selected, Withdrawn. Assign applications to a colleague, set follow-up reminders, and watch the seats left in each class against the offers you have made.

4. If you hold an entrance test, hold it online

A paper test means printing, a hall, invigilation and an evening of marking. An online test can be built once per class, scheduled for a whole class at a time, taken at home on the family's phone, and marked the moment it is submitted. Families get the date, the time window and the link with a hall ticket by email and in the app; the school gets marks, time taken and rank per class when the window closes.

Keep it to objective questions for now: multiple choice, true or false, fill in the blanks and match the pairs mark themselves fairly. Decide in advance what parents see afterwards: qualified or not, the marks, or nothing until you announce.

5. Publish the merit list, then admit

Rank each class on the test score or on the points your criteria give, publish the list so each family sees its own position, and offer seats in order. When a seat is accepted, admission should be one step: choose the section, check the student ID, confirm. The student record is created from the application, so the details the family typed are the details in your records.

A checklist for November

1. Settings done. Classes, seats, fees, age rules, documents, form fields and merit criteria for 2027-28, on the 2027-28 session, not the running one.
2. The link is out. Your admission page on the school website, the WhatsApp status and the notice board.
3. Messages chosen. Which stages tell the family, and on which channel; email and app notifications cost nothing per message.
4. Test papers ready. One per class that tests, checked question by question before publishing.
5. The office trained. Everyone who answers the phone knows how to record an enquiry and where to find an application.

Mistakes to avoid

• Typing the same child twice. Every retyped field is a chance for a wrong date of birth or phone number in the student record.
• Running the season in a WhatsApp group. Messages scroll away; a board with stages and reminders does not.
• Deciding the merit rules after the applications arrive. Families notice, and the list is harder to defend.
• No follow-up on enquiries. Most families enquire at more than one school; the one that calls back first usually wins.