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In Why Should I Admit Your Child? I looked at the admissions process from the school's perspective. We discovered that schools were looking for specific criteria in their applicant pool. They wanted to make sure that any student they admitted was capable of doing the academic work. They also wanted to make sure that applicants would be a good fit for the school.

Now let's turn the tables and look at the question from a parent's point of view. There are many specific reasons why you would want to send your child to a particular school. You also want to make sure that the school is a good fit for your child. Let's examine the principal items on your school selection bucket list.

The school offers the amount of financial aid I require.

For most of us, financial aid is at the top of the list. It is a top concern when it comes to selecting a private school. Whether you need everything paid for or just a bit of help to make attending private school viable for you and your family, you need to calculate the amount of aid you need. Then be very clear with the schools which you have on your shortlist precisely what your financial requirements are.

Completing the Parents' Financial Statement as soon as you can before the end of a calendar year will help immensely. That data is sent to only the schools which you select. Each school then

In this overview of SEO for private schools, we take a look at what your readers see each time they visit your website. SEO for 91��Ƭ��s Part 1 explained some of the elements of SEO that happen behind the scenes. Now we focus on the exterior, or what your readers see and experience in 2026, where expectations for speed, clarity, and mobile usability are higher than ever.

Message

What is your message? If you do not have a message, then how can your readers determine whether your school is a good fit for them and their requirements? Many administrators still believe that parents must visit the campus to fully understand a school. While that remains true, families now make faster, digitally driven decisions based on first impressions, often within seconds.

Right on your homepage, sometimes called the splash page, your message must be immediately clear. Consider this example: A reader first sees the title bar in their browser. That is one place where your behind-the-scenes SEO work becomes visible. Visit to see how this works. As soon as the page loads, the title identifies the school as an independent boarding school. If that is not what the visitor is looking for, they know instantly.

The next element reinforcing your message is a well-structured navigation menu. The first item should typically be an “About” section, directly supporting your core identity. Combined with strong visuals that reflect your mission, these elements help visitors

In 2000 choosing a private school was at a crossroads. Back then you had the traditional ways of finding schools and finding out more about them. You asked around. Personal recommendations from family and friends were an important starting point. Indeed they still are. Then you contacted schools you knew about and requested a catalog or brochures. You could also buy a print directory of private schools, if indeed one was available. (I still have a vintage copy of The New York Times Guide to New York City Schools written by Grace and Fred Hechinger published in 1968.) And you could always hire an educational consultant. Researching schools was fairly labor intensive. It also took time.

It is remarkable how all that has changed in just a few short years. First schools adopted web sites as their primary means of reaching families world-wide. The transition from the printed materials to the digital media took time as there was a certain amount of worry about whether or not the web would reach families. As we adopted the web for just about all our day-to-day activities such as banking and shopping, looking for private schools on the web just made great sense. It is so easy and convenient.

Knowing what to look for and where to look

I think that the toughest part about finding anything on the web is filtering out all

As I have mentioned several times in other articles about choosing and evaluating private schools, you really must set foot on the campus in order to fully experience the school and what it offers. Visiting the private schools on your shortlist is really not optional.

Isn't it enough to visit schools virtually these days? Those professionally produced videos on the schools' websites are great. The students' YouTube videos reveal a bit of what life is like at their school. Right? Not exactly. These presentations are all professionally produced and edited marketing pieces designed to encourage you to learn more about their schools. After you do your in-depth reading of all the schools' materials, it's time for you to decide which schools to visit. You ideally will have 3 to 5 schools on your shortlist.

This video offers you a look at the Century Montessori School.

For example, let's say you had 8 schools that really appear to be a good match for your requirements and your child's needs. Then you should eliminate 2, preferably 3 schools from that larger list. This is especially important when you have selected schools located at a distance from where you live. Visiting 8 schools far away from home will be both time-consuming and expensive. Make that shortlist of 3 to 5 schools to actually visit.

The visits will take one of these forms:

Open Houses

Here is how an