Happy Birthday 20 More Students!

One year ago, 20 More Students launched.

The idea had been encouraged for years by talented colleagues, friends, and mentors who understood something about me that I probably should have admitted much earlier:

at heart, I am an enrollment junkie.

I love this profession - the strategy, the data, the storytelling, the problem-solving, and, most of all, the people. That passion goes back more than 30 years, to when Arch Smith, then Headmaster at Trinity-Pawling School, gave me the opportunity to lead an admission office for the first time. I could not have known then where that opportunity would lead or how deeply enrollment work would shape my professional life. Thank you, Arch.

When I launched 20 More Students last August, I knew I wanted to build something different. I did not want to create a consulting practice built around generic solutions or one-size-fits-all formulas. I wanted to work alongside schools, understand their particular circumstances, and help them identify practical, strategic, and sustainable ways to strengthen enrollment.

The greatest affirmation of that idea has been the 15 remarkable schools that chose to partner with 20 More Students during this first year.

They have represented almost every imaginable type of independent school: large and small, day and boarding, schools in highly competitive metropolitan markets and schools serving more specialized communities. Their circumstances have varied, but the most productive work has almost always begun with the same kinds of questions: What could be possible here? What should we stop doing simply because we have always done it? Where do we need to strengthen the fundamentals? And how can we better align enrollment work with the institution's broader priorities?

Those questions have led us into many different areas. In some schools, the work has centered on admission operations, recruitment strategy, communication, or conversion. In others, it has involved pricing, revenue optimization, signature programs, parent engagement, international recruitment, market development, or the ways a school tells its story. Often, the most important work has involved helping people across the institution understand that enrollment success cannot be delegated solely to the admissions office.

That belief has only become stronger for me over the past year.

Sustainable enrollment is institutional work. It requires alignment among enrollment, communications, finance, academics, advancement, and school leadership. It requires a clear understanding of the market, a disciplined approach to data, thoughtful execution of the fundamentals, and a willingness to evolve practices that may have made sense in a different era.

That willingness to evolve matters because independent schools are confronting significant enrollment headwinds.

Demographic shifts, affordability pressures, changing parent expectations, new forms of competition, and growing questions about value are reshaping the landscape. Those realities are serious, but I do not find them discouraging.

In fact, one of the most encouraging things I have seen this year is how many schools are responding with curiosity rather than fear.

The schools doing the most interesting work are not looking for a magic tactic or a quick fix.

They are examining the entire enrollment ecosystem. They are asking harder questions about who they serve, how they communicate value, where they compete, how families experience the admission process, and how institutional decisions affect enrollment outcomes. They are willing to challenge assumptions while also recommitting to the fundamentals of strong enrollment management.

That is why the word "promise" has always mattered in how I describe the work of 20 More Students through which we “partner with remarkable schools to build best-in-class enrollment solutions as they prepare for a future filled with promise.” Promise does not mean ignoring the challenges ahead. It means believing that schools willing to think strategically, collaborate deeply, and act intentionally have meaningful opportunities to shape their own futures.

As I mark this first anniversary, I am deeply grateful to the 15 schools that trusted 20 More Students with important work, and to the many friends and colleagues who encouraged me to take this leap in the first place.

More than three decades after I first entered an admissions office, I still find enrollment endlessly fascinating. And as Year Two begins, I remain energized by the same question that has guided so much of the work this year:

What might be possible?

Thanks to all who made Year One at 20 More Students so remarkable and to all of the schools who imagine what is possible. Here’s hoping the year ahead for you is filled with imagining a future filled with promise.