Rolling admission is the process of judging each prospective student as his or her application is completed without imposing deadlines by which materials must be submitted and interviews accomplished. While many schools, both K-12 and higher, implement such a program as their main form of admission, there are some distinct disadvantages to such a system. As such, here are some tidbits worth considering if you have (or are thinking about instituting) rolling admission at your school.
- A rolling admission process could decrease parents’ urgency and subsequent timeliness of records collection. If applications are considered on an as-received basis without a distinct deadline, it may result in parents forgetting to finish an application or feeling no sense of urgency to produce missing documents. On the other hand …
- A rolling admission process turns candidate pools into a first-come, first-served situation. If you evaluate students on a one-by-one basis, you could run out of seats before what parents may consider the end of the admission season, turning what should be a thoughtful process for both office and family into a frantic race to submit and evaluate applications before all seats are offered. This fight to get to the front of the line could result in a rushed and/or incomplete application process, skewed admission decisions, and a number of other unintended consequences.
Perhaps the most damaging possible result of a permanent rolling admission process is the perception that your school isn't selective at all—you’re just enrolling students for the sake of filling seats.
- A rolling admission process locks both school and family into potentially premature decisions. In this admission model, students are informed of a school’s decision as soon as the application is reviewed and evaluated. Consequently, schools may commit themselves to a student too soon (see point #2), and the families themselves may commit to your school before having a chance to truly vet other, potentially more appropriate schools.
- A rolling admission process turns record keeping into a nightmare. Keeping up with outstanding offers of varying deadlines can seem a great problem to have; squeezing one more student into a classroom after you prepared parents to expect a defined number is not. Besides, trying to stay on top of several different family inquiries during a rolling admission process—all at different points of the admission funnel—would be practically impossible to do without crossing wires at some point. Speaking of which …
- A rolling admission process can be a greater strain on your administrative allies and key staff members. Having established timeframes in which certain collaborative parts of the admission process—interviews, meetings, integrated class time—can help you schedule the necessary interactions without teachers or administrators feeling overburdened. Instead of consolidating this time, a rolling admission process can result in haphazardly implemented interviews and meetings, which decreases your efficiency and increases others’ inconvenience.
Additional ISM resources:
ISM Monthly Update for Admission Officers Vol. 11 No. 4 Wait Pools: Not All About the First in Line
ISM Monthly Update for Admission Officers Vol. 10 No. 4 Enrollment Contracts—What You Need to Know
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 26 No. 14 The Business Manager/Admission Director Team
