Admission season is the six weeks that set up your whole year: your enrolment, your cash flow, your class sizes, and — because parents talk — your reputation for the next admission season too.
Most of the pain is avoidable and comes from the same three places: enquiries that go cold because nobody followed up, documents chased in July that should have been collected in March, and a first week that feels chaotic to new parents.
Here’s the sequence that works, for a typical Indian school year starting in June.
Three months out (February–March): get ready to be found
Fix your fee structure first. Everything downstream depends on it. Decide and write down:
- Admission fee (one-time), tuition, and what’s genuinely extra (transport, meals, uniform, books, activity)
- Payment schedule — monthly, quarterly, or annual, and the discount for paying upfront
- Sibling discount, if any
- Refund policy if a family withdraws before the term starts, and after
- Late-payment policy
Publish the whole thing. Schools that reveal costs in stages get a reputation for it, and it’s the single most common complaint parents raise about preschools.
Prepare the admission form and document list. Typically: birth certificate, child’s photographs, Aadhaar (child and parents), address proof, immunisation record, and previous school records if any. Also collect medical conditions, allergies, and authorised pickup persons — you’ll need these on day one, not in week three.
Sort your enquiry capture. One place — a notebook is fine, a spreadsheet is better — with name, child’s age, phone, source, date, and next action. Enquiries lost to “I thought you were calling them” are the most expensive thing on this list.
Get the basics visible. Google Business Profile updated with current photos, hours and phone number; a working phone number that someone answers; the fee structure and admission dates somewhere a parent can read them.
Two months out (March–April): enquiries and tours
Answer fast. Preschool parents typically enquire at three or four schools in the same week. First to respond has an outsized advantage. Same-day response, always.
Run a proper tour. Show the classrooms in use, not empty. Let the parent see a teacher with children. Cover safety plainly — entry control, who can collect a child, staff verification, first aid, CCTV if you have it — because they’re too polite to ask and it’s their main worry.
Follow up twice. A message the same evening with the fee structure and admission form; a call three days later. Then stop. That’s the whole system, and it converts far better than nothing, which is what most schools do.
Log the reason for every “no”. Fee, distance, timings, or gut feel. Four weeks of this tells you more about your school than any consultant will.
One month out (April–May): confirm and collect
Convert on a deadline. Publish a date after which a seat isn’t held. Vague deadlines produce vague commitments and August surprises.
Collect documents at admission, not later. Chasing an immunisation record in July from a parent whose child is already attending is unwinnable. Make the admission incomplete until the file is complete.
Take the deposit. A booking amount, however small, is what separates an intention from an enrolment.
Allocate classes. By age band, with a firm view on ratios — see How Many Children per Teacher? Ratio Norms in India before you agree to squeeze in two more.
Set your enrolment cap now, and hold it. The two extra children you accept in May are the reason a teacher resigns in September.
Confirm staffing. Teachers and helpers per class, contracts signed, and a plan for the class you’ll open if enrolment overshoots.
Two weeks out (late May): the operational setup
- Class lists final; children assigned; name labels and cubbies ready
- Parent accounts created in whatever system you use, so day-one photos and reports reach them
- Allergy and medical list compiled per class, printed, and physically in the classroom
- Authorised pickup list per child, with photographs
- Emergency contacts verified — actually call two of them
- Transport routes assigned and shared with parents
- Uniforms, books and materials distributed before day one
- Teachers briefed on each new child’s specifics — the anxious one, the one who doesn’t speak Tamil at home, the one with an EpiPen
- The week’s timetable ready and shared (template here)
Run an orientation — an hour with parents, a walk-through with children. A child who has seen the classroom once cries less on day one, and a parent who has met the teacher calls less in week one.
First week: this is what gets talked about
The first week decides your word-of-mouth for next season. Two things matter more than everything else:
Stagger the start. Half the class on day one, the rest on day two, and shortened days for the first three days if you can. It’s the difference between a room of settling children and a room of crying ones.
Send something home every day, for every child. A photo and two lines about the day, to every parent, all five days. New parents are anxious and imagining the worst; a photo at 11am ends that. This single habit generates more referrals than any advertising you’ll buy.
Also worth doing: a check-in call to every new family at the end of week one, and a note in the child’s record of how they settled.
After the season: close the loop
Two things, while it’s fresh:
- Count the funnel. Enquiries → tours → admissions. Where did people fall out, and what did they say when they did?
- Ask new parents how they found you. Referral, Google, signboard, or the WhatsApp group of a nearby apartment complex. Next year, spend your effort on whatever actually shows up in that answer.
Then archive the enquiries that didn’t convert. Many of them are next year’s admissions — a message in February to a parent who toured last year is the cheapest lead you’ll ever get.
The one-page version
| When | Must be done |
|---|---|
| 3 months out | Fee structure published, forms + document list ready, enquiry log started |
| 2 months out | Same-day enquiry response, tours running, two follow-ups per lead |
| 1 month out | Deposits taken, documents collected, classes allocated, enrolment cap held |
| 2 weeks out | Medical + pickup lists in classrooms, parent accounts live, orientation done |
| First week | Staggered start, daily photo and note to every parent, end-of-week call |
| After | Funnel counted, sources recorded, non-converted enquiries archived |
Print it, cross things off, and the season stops being an emergency.