CASE STUDY
Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School
How Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School Provides a Five-Star Experience for Families
With a pledge to excellence in all they do, the school needed an admissions and enrollment process to match. They needed an enrollment management platform that would help them give their families a five-star experience.
At A Glance
Strathcona-Tweedsmuir is a K-12 private day school located in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. Their motto: Nil Nisi Optimum, meaning “nothing but your best,” applies not only to the standards they hold for their students, but also the experience they offer to every family enrolled at their school.
The Problem: Lack of Online Accessibility and Information for Parents
“The main pain point for our admission and enrollment team was that families could not serve themselves via online means. Instead, families had to call or email and be in direct contact with the representative from the school for any business related to their child,” Eric Hawthorne, Assistant Director of Enrollment at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School, shared.
He went on to say that before using Finalsite Enrollment, the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir team used various online information systems to help them interact with and record details about their current and incoming families. The lack of organization and the absence of a cohesive system resulted in a lot of lost time.
Additionally, they lacked an efficient way to gather online applications and provide important information to families. Parents were left without an easy way to apply to the school or track their status throughout the admissions and enrollment process without reaching out directly to the admissions team.
“If you need direct support in implementing an online admission and enrollment program for your school, it's the best.”
ERIC HAWTHORNE | ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF ENROLLMENT
STRATHCONA-TWEEDSMUIR SCHOOL
The Solution: An Accessible Online Platform and Parent Portal
“It helps us organize our admission and enrollment work with an online application, enrollment, and information management program. We have a lot of details that we need to organize, coordinate, and track. The platform allows us to handle all of the concerns, questions, and requirements from our students in an online, easy-to-use manner.”
Eric and the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir team chose to implement the software so they could give parents access to an online platform and reduce the work required of both their families and staff. The parent portal provides increased visibility into where a family is in the admissions process and any further information or documents they need to provide. With so much information on hand, parents can easily complete the enrollment process online.
Another reason the team chose the software was because of the support—especially when it comes to customer support. As Eric shared, “We, as a school, know the value of direct contact with customers and with service representatives who can speak to solving problems as needed.”
Additionally, the long list of integration possibilities that allowed information to move seamlessly into the school’s existing framework.
The Results: A Top Tier Admission and Enrollment Process that Increases Ease and Convenience
Finalsite Enrollment allows you to build an admission and enrollment process that matches your school from start to finish. You’re able to use the framework that it provides to customize, tailor, and create a perfect process that matches all of the steps that you need. If your school does not have online capabilities in terms of receiving and processing online applications to your school, it will solve that problem for you.”
The product helps the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir admissions office remain efficient and allows the team to customize the admissions and enrollment process for their families. The office has been able to reduce overall costs and the amount of time they spend on more menial tasks.
They’ve also adapted to the new environment amidst COVID-19 with ease and taken all of the change in stride. Eric shared, “We’ve seen very positive results since we started. Our admissions and enrollment work continued seamlessly throughout the last admission cycle despite external turmoil and we’ve seen equal numbers of converted students in terms of total enrollment, total inquiries generated, and conversion rates from the various enrollments and admission statuses along the admission funnel.”
Eric also raved about the customer support saying, “The most exciting part is the experience of their customer support team. The team that responds to questions, helps with technical requests, and takes on feature implementation ideas has been outstanding. They’ve exceeded my expectations. The staff and support team is the best part of the experience.”
For anyone looking to invest in an enrollment management platform, Eric said, “If you need direct support in implementing an online admission and enrollment program for your school, they’re the best. Everything is very straightforward and they make it really easy to create a simple user experience.”
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