What's the word on the street about your school?
Not what's on your website, not what's in your enrollment brochure, not what you said at Open House, but what people are actually saying about your school. If a friend says to a parent, "We're thinking about making a change next year," what comes out of the parent's mouth in that moment, unrehearsed and unvetted, is your real brand.
That conversation is happening with or without you. The question is whether you've given her anything worth saying.
The Decision Isn't Just the Parents' Anymore
For a long time, school choice was a parent's call, full stop. That's not how it works now. Today it's a negotiation, sometimes a protracted one, between parents and kids, and in more cases than you might expect, the kid is winning.
83% of parents said their children were "great" or "very great" decision-makers in the application process*, which means that if your ambassador program is only built for the adults in the room, you're having half a conversation.
Here's the other number worth sitting with: nearly 80% of kids will ultimately attend their first-choice school. That sounds reassuring until you learn that roughly 30% of families switch their first choice between the research and decision stages. A third of your pipeline can shift before you've realized it's moving.
The simple lesson is to steward every family from the first inquiry to enrollment day, and don't assume anything is settled until it is.
Why Ambassador Programs Actually Work
Effective enrollment management requires student and parent ambassador programs as a core component of your recruitment. A well-designed program does three things.
- It organizes the parents and students who already love your school and gives them something real to do.
- It sends them into the community to build genuine relationships with prospective families.
- It tracks what's happening so you can actually measure whether it's working.
That last piece of tracking is what separates a real program from an organized group of enthusiastic volunteers. Both have value, but only one scales.
How to Build It: Each Step That Matter
- Start with the school leader, the principal, the president, or whoever is visibly in charge. They need to communicate the program's rationale directly to parents and students. It needs to come from the person whose name is on the letterhead, because that signal matters in a way that a forwarded email simply doesn't.
- Then find your leads. Look for parent and student ambassadors who can commit to one or two school years in the role. Consistency matters because relationships take time, and a rotating cast of ambassadors can't build the continuity you need to make this work.
- Hold separate interest sessions for parents and students. They have different motivations, different anxieties, and different things to offer. School leaders should be present at all of them. Their attendance communicates that this isn't an admissions side project but an institution-wide commitment.
- Follow up afterward. Send a thank-you. Be warm, personal, and responsive in exactly the way you're asking your ambassadors to be with prospective families. If you can't model the behavior, you can't expect to see it reflected back.
The Kick-Off Sets the Tone
The first meeting is everything. Use it to give a clear picture of what the program actually looks like and what ambassadors will be asked to do, how often, with whom, and to what end. Vague asks yield vague results, so be specific about roles, expectations, and what success looks like.
Leave time for ambassadors to share their own ideas. Some of them will surprise you. Before everyone leaves the room, set the date and agenda for the next meeting. Programs without a scheduled next step rarely develop one.
Year One: Pick Two Things and Do Them Well
The temptation to launch with everything at once is strong. Resist it.
A mature ambassador program might eventually include mass presence at community events, outreach to other parishes, support for admissions events, religious education outreach, personal contacts with prospective families, office hours, community canvassing, mentorship, outreach to local officials, and digital marketing support.
That's a long list. In year one, pick two or three items from it. Do them well, build trust with your ambassadors, then expand from there. A program stretched too thin in its first year rarely makes it to year two.
Good People Know Good People
This is the heart of it. Train your ambassadors to think seriously about their own networks specifically. Who in their soccer league has a kid entering sixth grade? Which families from their parish are currently in the religious education program? Who at work has a child starting kindergarten next fall?
People need to be invited to refer, so ask them directly, tell them what to say, and make it easy for them to do so.
After Enrollment: The Handoff That Sticks
The ambassador relationship doesn't end when a family enrolls. The best programs transition ambassadors into mentors, a warm presence for new families before the school year even starts.
Think about what it feels like to commit to a new school in the spring and then spend four months not knowing anyone. A phone call from a current parent, a casual get-together in August so the kids can meet before the first day, a note that says "We're glad you're coming, here's my number if you have questions", these things cost almost nothing, and they make new families feel like they made the right call before they've set foot in the building.
The Lead Ambassador Is the Program
Everything else is infrastructure. The quality of the lead parent ambassador determines whether the program has energy or just has meetings.
Look for someone who is genuinely involved, genuinely positive about the school, and comfortable starting a conversation with a stranger at a parish picnic.
Student Ambassadors: Be Selective, Be Structured
Student ambassadors deserve their own structure, not a scaled-down version of the parent program.
Not every student can represent the school well to prospective families, so be selective. Choose students who can speak honestly about their experience, including the hard parts. Prospective families can recognize a rehearsed sales pitch, so make sure that the student is genuine.
Give the program real structure: a teacher moderator, leadership positions for returning students, and clear expectations. Listen to feedback and ideas from your student ambassadors, too. Some of them have visited other schools and have specific, actionable insight into what prospective families are weighing. That perspective is valuable.
A handwritten note from a current student to a prospective one can do more work than a hundred email campaigns. Make it easy for your students to do that well, celebrate them publicly, and make the whole thing worth showing up for.
Your Online Reputation Is Part of the Program
Prospective families Google your school before they call you. They check Google reviews, Yelp, Niche, and Nextdoor, and what they find shapes what they think before you've had a single conversation.
Train parent ambassadors to leave thoughtful reviews on those platforms. These should not be scripted, but authentic reflections of their actual experience. Ask them to monitor those sites and flag anything that warrants a response.
Something as simple as a weekly "Testimonial Tuesday" where current families share a brief, genuine reflection on social media can meaningfully shift how your school appears online over the course of a year. It's low-effort, it's authentic, and the effect compounds.
The Conversation About Latino Enrollment
Any serious conversation about Catholic school enrollment growth has to include this.
The Latino population in the United States is more than 62 million people, the largest and youngest ethnic minority in the country. Just over half of all children under 18 in the U.S. are Latino. Latinos represent the largest ethnic group within the U.S. Catholic Church and have accounted for 71% of the Church's growth since 1960.
Right now, 4% of Latino Catholic children are enrolled in Catholic schools.*
If that number moved between 5 and 10%, we would not be closing Catholic schools. We would be opening them.
Peer-to-peer marketing, built on authentic community relationships, delivered in the right language through the right channels, is one of the most effective tools for reaching Latino families. It isn't the only tool, but it's a critical one.
The Word on the Street Is Being Written Right Now
Your school's best marketers aren't on your payroll. They're the parent who still gets emotional at graduation because they remember what it was like before their daughter found her footing here. The alumnus who came back to coach because this place meant something to him. The family that chose you twice, once for their oldest, then again when the youngest got to eighth grade.
Give them a framework, give them a purpose, then get out of the way.
The word on the street about your school is being written right now, in parking lots and parish halls and on soccer sidelines. A great ambassador program makes sure the right people are writing it.
*Sources: EMA's 2020-21 Ride Report, University of Notre Dame's Latino Enrollment Institute
Kyle Pietrantonio is a Senior Partner at Partners in Mission. He can be reached at kpietrantonio@partnersinmission.com.
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