What is the EMA?

EMA stands for the Enrollment Management Association. Over 1100 Directors of Admission and Admission Officers are members of this association. Once annually, members are invited to participate in a conference where they share ideas and network with other schools and educational consultants (like us!) who help families find schools that are well-matched to their students.

Brad’s past experience as a Director of Admission and Director of Financial Aid in several boarding schools in New England means that these conferences provide a valuable opportunity to reconnect in person with old friends and new professionals throughout the independent school industry. Over the last 2 decades, he attended many of these conferences as an admission officer when he was working in schools. Still, each conference presents unique insights into what is happening now in school admission offices and current practices and trends in admission decision making. These insights and ongoing professional development help us to better advise our clients and guide them through the secondary school admission process.

One of the stand out presentations this year was from Hotchkiss and Exeter’s admission office who presented about data-driven factors for predicting successful students at their schools. Their talk, “Lessons Learned from Admission Research,” shared some interesting findings from their work with independent researchers to try and predict how applicants will perform at their schools. Berkshire School presented about aligning institutional priorities with financial aid decision making. Numerous other presentations covered topics like building a strong admission office team, designing a successful revisit day program, predicting yield (the number of students accepted to a school compared to the number that decide to enroll), how school culture impacts enrollment, supporting BIPOC students, and more.

The EMA provides valuable professional development opportunities for member schools and is also the association responsible for the SAO (Standard Application Online) and the SSAT (Secondary Schools Admission Test), which are used widely by independent school admission offices to streamline the application process for applicants and provide a common baseline metric for students applying from a wide range of backgrounds. Of course, other parts of the application are very important, too, and the SAO works to collect character references through letters of recommendation, and opportunities for students and families to share more information about a child’s interests and co-curricular talents.

We always look forward to the opportunity to meet up with former colleagues and new school admission professionals - be that at any one of the school events we attend each year or at formal programs like the EMA annual conference.