AO compensation based on yield?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
21

In my opinion, all “the stuff” after the offer is extended is all part of “closing the deal”. From alumni and employees on this board, that offer to answer questions to events at the school to meet perspective parents and facility at the school and even all the activities of the revisit day. It is all done in an effort to have you come to their school. One can state it that they are excited to have you. They love you and want you part of the community but from a business perspective, they are “closing the deal”. Yield rate is an important metric that they boast about at almost the same level as how many students matriculate to Ivy+ and the school acceptance rate.

I have yet to read a poster or talk to a friend that didn’t say that the interviewer was in love with their child. I am not saying they are insincerely but I find that AO/interviewers love the candidates as much as my daughter loves room full of puppies.

“They LOVE my child”. “They think he/she would be a perfect fit in the community”. “He/She has an outstanding record”. – Moms eat this stuff up. :slight_smile:

22

So, what do you eat up, @laenen because you were obviously looking for something from AOs that you found lacking? They all have revisits and such, do they not? You’re the one griping that you weren’t feeling catered to.

23

Of course, they do manage yield and hope as many of those they have accepted as possible to enroll. There’s no doubt about that. The question is relative to other aspects of the school, how impactful can AOs be. I think the overall strength of the school is the determining factor. And AOs’ work can tip the scales for a few on the fence but not much more than that.

24

I have no gripes with AO’s role or how they interacted with our family. Most were good and some were not so good.

I merely presented a contrary experience to the statement that “AOs’ diligihence makes a difference in yield but I doubt it’s a determine factor.”.

In our experience it is a major determining factor. It affected the schools we applied to. It effected which applications we went forward with. And ultimately, it impacted the closure. I feel relationships matter and in our experience AO interaction is one of the most meaningful interaction we had in our application process.

In our situation, the coach was also very important.

25

@laenen is right. The AO is part of what forms an initial impression of a school, and along with the tour guide, certainly the biggest piece. On a typical school visit, you show up, meet your guide and go on an hour tour. Let’s face it - most of the schools are gorgeous with amazing facilities and full of smiling, happy, beautiful people. If the tour guide is great, that creates a positive impression of the school. If the guide isn’t so great, well, its just a student, its a negative, but won’t necessarily cause you to have a bad impression of a school. The AO, however, is the employee of the school you are very likely to have the most contact with. Their actions and demeanor are likely to define the school for the average interviewee. They are the face and voice of the school for the parents and interviewees at that stage of the process. Unless you are meeting with coaches and teachers, they are the only employee of the school you will interact with, so its natural that your view of the school will be colored by your interaction with the AO.

Based on your impression of the school, you may choose not to apply at all, or if you applied and were accepted, will likely influence whether you choose to revisit.

If accepted and you choose to revisit, your impression will continue to be influenced by the AO, but there are now other experiences and individuals that will color your impressions of the school, so that the AO’s influence is diminished.

the posters saying the AO has zero conflict on the actual boarding school experience are absolutely correct, but see paragraph 1.

Obviously, if your primary point of contact is a coach or teacher or other special interest representative, the AO has much less influence on your view.

26

How much contact did you folks have with AOs anyway?

Us:
Child interviews with AO
Parents chat with AO right after interview
Child sends thank you note
AO sends thank you/nice to meet you note or email
AO sends holiday greeting
Student receives acceptance (but that came from someone other than AO)
AO may or may not send personal congratulatory meeting after acceptance received
A little small talk with AO at revisit event
Child sends email to schools not chosen to say “thanks but no thanks and appreciate the assistance” to school/AO.

Maybe we were low maintenance but I don’t see many points of contact to let ourselves be swayed by AO behavior /conduct. We certainly made decisions on other aspects of the school not AO. Shrug.

27

@Korab1 @laenen I think we are agreeable that specific to yield, AO is not impactful. People tend to evaluate their viable options by looking at other factors such as school reputation, course offering, management/teaching styles, college placement, one strike policy or not, location, logistics etc etc more than how rhey liked their AOs. Does AO have an impact? Yes, but most likely it’s between two schools that are equally strong in other aspects. If not, why? They have accepted you. Whatever the “nightmare” you had with the AO was over. Why do you put so much weight on something that will virtually have no role in your future life?

28

I am not sure I agree that the AO is not impactful on the final decision. After an offer is extended, the AO and the school community work hard to corral in the yes. I would say that if my child was accepted to 2 schools and if they were fairly similar to us. Then the personal connection we had with the AO would have an impact.

The relationship would allow the AO to dig deeper into our decision making process to find out what is the major decision making criteria and where they might be able to address any issues.

They would able to do this without us feeling pressured. The AO then could try to round up the resources to put in front of us to help persuade us to make a decision in their favor. The AO could have parents call to alleviate concerns about a commute. They could have a coach follow up to answer any training questions. Have the science teacher call about summer internships etc. This would mostly be handled and coordinated by the AO.

I think I would be less receptive to this if I hadn’t developed a good working relationship with the AO.

I am not sure I have explained it well in previous posts. I am not discussing the point so much from the parent perspective. I am not saying that in offer 1 I am going to weigh an offer on: #1. academic excellence #2. student body #3. facilities and oh yeah – #4. the AO. The AO is not in the list of pro’s and con’s.

I am saying when I am weighing the 2 offers based upon our criteria ::: the academics, the student body, the facilities, etc, — AND the AO contacts us and asks us how things are going. Is there any questions we would like the school to answer.

In offer 1, the AO and I have a very good relationship so I disclose a lot of my personal thought processes. The AO takes notes and acts on it to address any issues and highlight the benefits.

In offer 2, the AO and I have a professional relationship so I respond with “Thanks for asking. It is a very tough decision. If I have any questions, I will certainly call”.

I personally find that the relationship I have with the point person of ANY organization that I am going to do business with is very important EVEN if I am not going to interact with them much after the contract is signed.

I can not conjecture how impactful the AO is to other parents. I can only say that they were very impactful for us and also a friend of ours.

29

@doschicos – I am going to keep your statements and insert our experience

Us:


[QUOTE=""]
Call the AO and discuss the school, the curriculum, etc to determine whether we want to go on the tour. Child interviews with AO Parents chat with AO right after interview Child sends thank you note The AO finds out what sports my child plays and makes sure that each coach speaks to my child before we go home.

[/QUOTE]

AO sends thank you/nice to meet you note or email
AO sends holiday greeting


[QUOTE=""]
We have questions about application and about FA. Contact a few times for clarification

[/QUOTE]

Student receives acceptance (but that came from someone other than AO)
AO may or may not send personal congratulatory meeting after acceptance received


[QUOTE=""]
We are invited to alumni/school parents night. AO makes a point to talk to every parent

[/QUOTE]

A little small talk with AO at revisit event


[QUOTE=""]
We are invited to a parent's breakfast with school presentation for Revisit day. AO and coaches again makes the rounds.

We are invited to faculty night. Oh look – there is the AO and coaches again. :slight_smile:

[/QUOTE]

Child sends email to schools not chosen to say “thanks but no thanks and appreciate the assistance” to school/AO.

==========
Maybe we are high maintenance.

30

Our coach interaction was handled directly through inquiries by kid to coach. So, yes my kid had ongoing coach contact but it wasn’t shepherded by the AO but happened more organically by student reaching out to each coach directly letting coach know background and interest in school which subsequently let to coaches making themselves available to kiddo by meeting us at the admissions office, introducing kid to the team/captains, picking one of the team players for a tour guide/revisit host. AOs weren’t part of it although they were aware and witnessed it. Ditto for arts related stuff - reached out directly to the appropriate people.

Sounds like you did use the AOs as a resource more actively than we did.

31

I really don’t know how it will play out throughout the whole process, but I can say that our “apply-to” list has been significantly shaped by our experiences with AO’s so far. At a school fair, where we were able to meet many AO’s at once, one school was entirely removed from our list after that encounter; and one went from a “definite apply!” to a “meh.” Yet another rose to a top spot in our “interest” list.

The websites and beautiful brochures answer empirical questions about the schools, but convey virtually nothing of culture. But an AO signals-- whether intentionally or not, whether properly interpreted or not-- much more about the school culture than (perhaps) they intend. AO comments can reveal biases and assumptions, can answer questions defensively, or answer with refreshing transparency. Those encounters matter.(Or at least they do to our family.)

Here is a great example (but not the one that irrevocably altered our list): we asked two different AO’s about the % of repeats at their schools. One AO’s answer was basically, “Duh! Repeating is great! It makes you a stronger college applicant and gives kids an extra year of maturity! We love repeats!” The other school’s AO (with a similar % of repeats at their school) answered by lamenting the situation and saying (paraphrasing here), “The parents of the non-repeats are unhappy about the number of repeats in their kid’s class at the start of the BS journey. But it’s the kids who repeat who are the one’s who aren’t happy with it by the end of the four years.” These very different approaches to answering the same question, with the same underlying data set of % repeats at the school, had an impact on our views of the schools.

Perhaps one can make an argument that it shouldn’t matter. That we are making a mistake by ascribing any value to the AO comments. Perhaps, one might say, we should be more spock-like in our evaluation, since both schools have the same empirical situation viz. repeats %. But our assumption is that a large age-span in a single class has cultural side-effects. Our trust in the second school (with the lamenting AO) to be cognizant of the impact of that age span is higher; our trust in the first school (Rah! Rah! Repeats!) to look critically at those issues is lower. In the end, for our family, that difference in trust level has an impact.

32

“Here is a great example (but not the one that irrevocably altered our list): we asked two different AO’s about the % of repeats at their schools. One AO’s answer was basically, “Duh! Repeating is great! It makes you a stronger college applicant and gives kids an extra year of maturity! We love repeats!” The other school’s AO (with a similar % of repeats at their school) answered by lamenting the situation and saying (paraphrasing here), “The parents of the non-repeats are unhappy about the number of repeats in their kid’s class at the start of the BS journey. But it’s the kids who repeat who are the one’s who aren’t happy with it by the end of the four years.” These very different approaches to answering the same question, with the same underlying data set of % repeats at the school, had an impact on our views of the schools.”

I think the answer that appeals probably varies on individual families and where they are coming from. Like you, @zixzax, I prefer to hear about the warts and someone who comes across as a straight shooter appeals more to my personality and decision making process. I could probably argue both opinions have some truth to them depending on the situation. I’ve definitely have seen examples of both and I think the truth lies in the middle.

I could see how it is easy to be more influenced by an AO if your first contact with the school is at a school fair as opposed to a school visit where you are physical on campus and interacting with several people and taking in the experience with first hand observations.

33

Zero.

I post this again to emphasize how superfluous this contact can be. In our son’s case, it wasn’t part of his admissions process, so it wasn’t part of his decision process. Given his wonderful years at Choate, I sure hope he would’t have passed on the school had a bad AO experience been part of the mix.

34

@laenen Why did you let the AO experience be “a major determining factor” in whether you choose the school or another? It sounds irrational to me. As I said earlier, when all things else being equal, AO could have an impact. But compared with all things else that would be affecting your enrollment decision, AO is not impactFUL. No?

35

@panpacific – I think there is a major disconnect between what I am writing and what you are reading.

When I said it is a “a major determining factor”, I am referring to the WHOLE process. The initial reception and whether you apply, the application process and whether they can assist in it, and finally in trying to gentle nudge a family in their favor.

For us, the AO had varying degrees of impact into each of those steps.

To me the AO is in some ways is a salesperson for the school. A salesperson isn’t always needed if the child is laser-focused on going to PEA but if the family is not so sure about which one of the top 5 they should pick. A great salesperson aka, an AO, can make a difference in getting the schools application #'s up, putting the right teachers/coaches in front of an applicant to impress them, and finally “helping” the family make a decision as a “trusted” adviser would.

I understand you may not have had the same experience or fundamentally disagree with the impactfulness of an AO but differences of experiences/opinions do not make them “irrational”

36

@laenen But the title of this thread says it all. It is about AO and the “yield”. Anyways, specific to yield, I think we are agreeable. Your clarification helped. Sorry if I misunderstood you.