International School of the Peninsula

For the full effect of the presentation, run in “SLIDE SHOW” mode

Date of creation: May 12, 2006

Admissions - Analysis of the 2005-06 year

James PaoDirector of Admissions and Financial Aid

2

Some Questions I’ll Answer Today … • Enrollment

– How much and in which classes have we grown?– How many applicants have we had to waitlist and/or reject?– When accepted to ISTP, do people come?

• Advertising– What ads are most (and least) viewed?– What, if any, is admissions’ seasonality over the year? – How cost-effective is our ad spend?– How much did we spend on Program-specific ads?

• Event Attendance– Which events have been working?– Is there a difference between Ch and Fr interest?– Are there a difference in grade-level interest?– How far is our geographic reach in the Peninsula?– How many believe ISTP is their 1st choice? Do they eventually come?

• Retention– How is retention for each grade compared to last year?

3

School Year (starting September of …) projected

Program Grade 2003 2004 2005 2006*Chinese N 8 12 20 18

PK 8 22 21 23K 14 23 25 251 13 10 17 252 12 10 8 173 12 8 9 94 9 6 7 65 5 6 7 5

Chinese Subtotal 81 97 114 128annual %age growth: -12% 20% 18% 12%

French N 12 23 13 13PK 34 42 46 46K 46 48 50 501 36 55 41 572 40 36 53 443 36 33 29 494 35 30 36 285 37 36 28 356 19 21 30 237 36 20 18 308 19 25 18 159 N/A N/A N/A N/A

French Subtotal 350 369 362 390annual %age growth: -10% 5% -2% 8%

Int'l. 6 14 11 14 4

Middle 7 N/A 10 13 11

School 8 N/A N/A 6 12

I.M.S. Subtotal 14 21 33 27annual %age growth: N/A 50% 57% -18%

Grand Total 445 487 509 545annual %age growth: -7% 9% 5% 7%

Enrollment - growth since 2003

•Chinese grew by 58% last 3 yrs.•We have “solved” the KC-to-1C transition “problem”•Largest ever 1st and 2nd grades bodes well for the future

•French grew by 11% last 3 yrs. •Strong 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades bodes well for the future

•New I.M.S. has grown to 27, but low enrollment for incoming 6th

•Total growth of 100 students, equaling a 22% increase, in 3 yrs.

4

Enrollment - new students for N, PK, and K

• We are increasingly seen as the top choice of applicants (when accepted, 80% come)

• We are a more selective school with a 50% accept rate vs. 60% last yr (waitlists of 62 vs. 40, and rejected of 14 vs. 2)

• Growth in NC and PC applicants has created big waitlists• Our NF/PF structure creates just enough PF demand

2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006yield yield waitlisted waitlisted rejected rejected

NC 72% 68% 22% 44% 0% 8%

NF 78% 56% 68% 60% 0% 5%

PC 78% 100% 0% 94% 18% 0%

PF 92% 81% 0% 10% 0% 3%

KC 50% 70% 25% 8% 0% 15%

KF 50% 44% 64% 43% 0% 25%

Aggregate %: 73% 80% 38% 41% 2% 9%

Aggr Numer: 46 52 40 62 2 14

Aggr Denom: 63 65 105 151 105 151

yield = # who accepted admissions / # given admissionswaitlisted = # placed on waitlist / total given admissions, waitlisted, and not admittedrejected = # not admitted / total given admissions, waitlisted, and not admitted

5

Advertising - all events

• Word of mouth works: “Friends” now tops the list

• “ISTP person” is strong 2nd• Gross #s much stronger• Total ad exposures grew by

30% (from 341 to 444)• ISTP’s website more popular

2003-04 best ads 2004-05 best ads

Overall Exposure to Ads

71 66

37 33 31 2821

11 9 7 7 7 5 4 4 3 3 3

94

0102030405060708090

100

Friends

ISTP personweb srchBAP SV

website ISTP

BAP SFMC PAPAW

Fr Consularticle

MVVPADGentry

MC SC/BMPAlmanacChYellowPgformer empl

MC RWCblank/other

2005-06

6

Advertising - did they apply/attend?

• Good word of mouth: “Friends” was a much stronger draw vs. last yr

• Best ads: the top six are all good (affects “applied” and “y”)

• First appearance of newspaper “articles” which yielded 4 applicants

• Coming to events did lead to applications: over half applied to ISTP, of which 37% ended up coming

ADS 2004-05 NO YES TOTAL

ISTP person 35 17 52BAP SV 35 13 48web srch 24 13 37Friends 25 11 36website ISTP 10 9 19

Ads 2005-06 appl n y TotalFriends 18 26 10 54ISTP person 23 22 4 49web srch 14 9 4 27BAP SF 7 12 4 23website ISTP 8 12 3 23BAP SV 7 15 3 25MC PA 1 8 3 12former empl 3 3PAW 3 5 2 10MPAlmanac 2 2 4Fr Consul 5 2 1 8PAD 4 2 1 7Gentry 2 1 1 4ChYellowPg 2 1 3FranceAmer 1 1JournalFr 1 1SJMagazine 1 1SM Daily 1 1worked at FAIS 1 1article 4 1 5bechtel 1 1MVV 1 4 5A/S classes 1 1LATC 1 1live nearby 2 2MC 1 1MC RWC 1 1MC SC/B 1 1PA childcare list 1 1post office 1 1YellowPg 1 1(blank) 13 32 17 62Grand Total 113 163 64 340

33% 48% 19%

7

Advertising - monthly ad views, last three years

• Ad views even stronger this year – (1.5x in Nov / 4.5x in Dec / 1.3x in Jan / March and April combo was about equal)

• We are building for next year – (April ‘06: 35 out of 45 were “future” applicants for 2007-08+ vs. April ‘05: 6 of 14)

21

95 96

28

50

76

18

10

44

33

90

120

28

3640

18

46

22

0

14

45

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr

2003-04 2004-05 2005-06

8

Advertising - spending

YEAR Chinese French I.M.S. General Total

2003-04 3,285$ 2,750$ 6,303$ 46,531$ 58,869$

2004-05 4,176$ 4,568$ 4,636$ 45,697$ 59,077$

2005-06 1,106$ 1,950$ 8,141$ 57,684$ 68,881$

• Increased spending of $10K mostly on “public relations”: PAW flyers to promote school events and upscale publications ( S.J. Magazine and So. Bay Accent)

• Reduced program-specific ads in Chinese or French (more spent on advertising in English to the general public)

• Increased ad spend for Int’l Middle School by $3,500 but this did not positively affect interest or enrollment for IMS

9

Advertising - cost/benefit

• For 2005-06: Most cost effective ads are BAP, MomClubs, PAW, PAD, and Gentry

• For 2004-05: Most cost effective ads were BAP, World Journal, and PAD (somewhat decent were PAW, Gentry, and Mother’s Clubs)

• For 2003-04: Most cost effective ads were BAP, SJMN, Yellow Pages, and MomClubs (somewhat decent were Independent, LATC, PAW, and Stanford Arts)

PUBLICATION COST#

AttendCost per Attendee # Apply

Cost per Applicant # Enroll

Cost per Enrollee

Bay Area Parent 16,194$ 59 274$ 20 810$ 6 2,699$ Mother's Clubs 1,575$ 30 53$ 4 394$ 3 525$ Palo Alto Weekly 17,244$ 10 1,724$ 5 3,449$ 2 8,622$ Palo Alto Daily 4,824$ 6 804$ 5 965$ 1 4,824$ Gentry 4,495$ 5 899$ 3 1,498$ 1 4,495$ San Jose Magazine 8,615$ 1 8,615$ 1 8,615$ 1 8,615$ San Mateo Daily Journal 3,976$ 1 3,976$ 1 3,976$ 1 3,976$ France-Amerique 950$ 2 475$ 1 950$ 1 950$ Journal Francais 700$ 2 350$ 1 700$ 1 700$ Chinese Yellow Pages 188$ 3 63$ 1 188$ 1 188$ Bechtel Int'l Center 180$ 1 180$ 1 180$ 0 too muchLos Altos Town Crier 465$ 1 465$ 0 too much 0 too muchYellow Pages / SBC 480$ 1 480$ 0 too much 0 too muchFrench Yellow Pages 300$ 0 too much 0 too much 0 too muchIndian Community Center 1,500$ 0 too much 0 too much 0 too muchLINK Homeschool 1,000$ 0 too much 0 too much 0 too muchSouth Bay Accent 4,020$ 0 too much 0 too much 0 too muchStanford Lively Arts 757$ 0 too much 0 too much 0 too muchWorld Journal (Chinese) 918$ 0 too much 0 too much 0 too muchGrand Total 68,381$ 122 561$ 43 1,590$ 18 3,799$

10

Program 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 Grand TotalBoth 6 10 16C 70 127 165 362F 76 128 140 344(blank) 2 2Grand Total 146 261 317 724

Event Attendance - Overall compared to Last Year

Interest in the two programs used to be equally distributed in 2004 and 2005

• Attendance increased by 21% overall (last year, our increase was 80%)

• Admissions Tours up 12%, Info Nights up 40% (last year was the reverse: tours way up, info nights slightly up)

But 2006 shows weighting towards Chinese program (18% more)

11

Families Attending Adm Tours

6

11

18

4

28

4

0

34

21

10

3533

29

12

35

24

32

36

27

16

25

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr

2003-04 2004-05 2005-06

Event Attendance - Tours

• Total number of attendees was only a little larger (195 vs. 174) • People came to events earlier (in Dec vs. Feb/Mar), which means a clearly

articulated admissions process works (even if the process happens early)• More people came in April to look for the future (2007-08+)

12

French Program

Event Attendance - Info Nights

•French attendance remains solid•No major changes•Spread out more evenly (Nov is getting more attendees)

•Chinese continues to grow rapidly•Dramatic increases from last year, for every single month

Chinese Program

13

CLASSCAME TO

ISTP% who came

APPLIED TO ISTP

% who applied

DID NOT APPLY TOTAL

future 71KC 6 25% 3 38% 15 24KF 2 5% 15 45% 21 38N 0% 0% 2 2NC 14 18% 22 47% 40 76NF 4 14% 10 50% 14 28P 0% 0% 1 1PC 0% 13 52% 12 25PF 12 40% 5 57% 13 30

Admissions Events - specific class interest

• Interest is building for 2007-08 already (71 vs. 40 last yr)

• On average, 47% of all event attendees applied to the school

• All key grades are in the acceptable range of 40% to 60%

• Interest level particularly high for NC (76 vs. 69 last yr)

• Despite some low “% who came” #s, we have still been successful, since we rejected and waitlisted many applicants

14

• New city to enter the top 5: Sunnyvale• Other popular cities have been consistently

near the top for the last three yrs• About 50% are local within 10 miles of us

(PA/MP/Sun/MV/LA/SC/B)

2003-04

2004-05

Admissions Events - where do they come from?

HomeCity# of

families% of total

Palo Alto 45 16%Menlo Park 28 10%Redwood City 27 10%Sunnyvale 22 8%Mountain View 20 7%San Mateo 15 5%San José 15 5%Los Altos 15 5%San Carlos 11 4%Belmont 11 4%San Francisco 7 3%Redwood Shores 6 2%Atherton 6 2%Portola Valley 5 2%Fremont 5 2%union city 3 1%monterey 3 1%Los Gatos 3 1%Burlingame 3 1%Woodside 2 1%Pacifica 2 1%Newark 2 1%moss beach 2 1%Half Moon Bay 2 1%Emerald Hills 2 1%E. Palo Alto 2 1%Cupertino 2 1%Other 12 4%

15

Is ISTP Your 1st Choice? - (and were you telling the truth!)

• Overall, 61% say ISTP is their first choice (vs. 48% and 34% last two yrs)

• For the committed, 56% applied and only 22% eventually came to ISTP

• Surprisingly, among the non-committed, 31% applied and 13% came

• We are now more competitive, because even if you want to come you may not be able to (see last row)

COMING? YES NO BLANK TOTALYes 33 2 11 46Applied 51 3 15 69No 65 9 57 131Grand Total 149 14 83 246Toal %age 61% 6% 34% 100%

%AGE OF 1st CHOICE STUDENTS WHO APPLIED:56% 36% 31% 47%

%AGE OF 1st CHOICE STUDENTS WHO CAME:22% 14% 13% 19%

16

• Overall retention of 87% (vs. 85% for 2005 and 78% for 2004), an increase of 2% = 10 students• Superstars include PC, 1C, 2C, 3C and 1F, 2F, and 3F which provide a solid base for the future• Small number of students hurts 4C and 5C; 6IBch and 6F challenged by other middle school options

Retention+18 +3 +9

+0 +20-19 -29 -6 +4 +9 -1 +10 -5 -4 -9 +18 +5 -21 +23+18

17

Summary • Enrollment

– Primary growth is from Chinese program, with steady growth in French– We are waitlisting or rejecting half of all applicants– Vast majority of accepted students do choose to come to ISTP

• Advertising– “Friends”/word of mouth now tops the list; people “talk about” ISTP– Total ad exposures way up by 30%– Biggest months were Jan. and Oct., followed by Nov.– BAP works best; PAD, PAW, MomClubs, and Gentry are good– Most cost-effective ad over last 3 years is BAP (Bay Area Parent)

• Event Attendance– Info Night attendance way up; Tours attendance steadily higher– Chinese now more popular than French by 18%– Consistent interest in all Cowper grades; strongest interest in NC by 2x– 50% of families come from the local 12 mile area– Increasingly larger %age say ISTP is first choice; but fewer can come

• Retention– Retention even better than last yr; solid early grades (PK, K, 1, 2, 3)