December 10, 2015
If you have not had a chance to meet the Admission staff, please stop in anytime for a cup of coffee (we’re always well-stocked). The office is located in the Lower School near the 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms.
The team is made up of Angela Gerstner, Nathan Bander, Deepti Basnet and myself. Given how closely we work with Ellie Lijewski, MPA marketing and communications manager, we proudly consider her a member of the team as well. Our newest member, Nathan, is focused primarily on external outreach while supporting events and touring prospective families. Deepti is our database specialist, helping to ensure we have the data we need for communicating with prospective families and providing reporting to support data-driven decisions. Angela manages the office, serves as our event planner and visit coordinator, and works with our student and parent ambassadors. She and I work closely together with all new prospective students and parents. In addition, I work with the administration and other offices at MPA to manage the enrollment, re-enrollment and financial aid programs while also assisting with event planning, tours, and admission marketing. We hope to get to know you if we do not already.
I’m also pleased to report that we have been busy, which is always good in the admission world. Here are a few highlights from each division on what we’re doing to bring more wonderful students and families to Mounds Park Academy.
Lower School:
- Creating sustainable partnerships with area independent bookstores, including Valley Bookseller and Red Balloon Book Shop. These partnerships highlight the MPA community for patrons of the bookstores who have younger children and help to connect our families with great, local resources for children’s literacy.
- Targeting outreach to all lower, elementary, Montessori, and early childhood learning centers who are mission-aligned with MPA. We have visited nearly all schools within a 15 mile radius, have mailed to an even larger number of schools and have welcomed several school officials to campus to witness MPA first-hand.
- Recreating PreK Story Hour events to encourage prospective PreK and KG families to visit campus. These events will be interactive and fun and hopefully build upon our partnerships with area bookstores and libraries.
- Targeting digital, print, and media advertising to families in selected geographic areas that have lower school-aged children.
Middle School:
- Exploring opportunities to host more learning and athletic programs on our campus that are comprised heavily of lower and middle school-aged in an attempt to expose more families to MPA.
- Similar to our work in the Lower School, we are targeting outreach to all mission-aligned schools in our target markets in an effort to become an attractive option for families upon their time at their current schools coming to an end.
- Targeting digital, print, and media advertising to families in selected geographic areas that have middle school-aged children.
Upper School:
- Working to create partnerships with area athletic associations, faith communities, and community based organizations that support rising upper school-aged students.
- Building upon existing relationships with area middle schools and significantly expanding outreach to mission-aligned potential feeder schools in our targeted geographic areas. We have seen similar success in connections made and visits to MPA by school officials interested in sending students to our school.
- Targeting digital, print, and media advertising to families in selected geographic areas that have rising upper school-aged children.
