An admissions platform can save your team time. But can it help your school grow, and keep up as you do?
Every admissions platform promises to make life easier. Fewer spreadsheets, fewer chasing emails, fewer forms lost in someone's inbox. That's worth having, but it isn't the question most Heads and Admissions Directors really care about.
The question that matters is whether it changes the numbers.
Do more families apply?
Do more of them finish what they start?
Does the school fill its places?
And most importantly, what return does the investment deliver?
We wanted a proper answer, so we went back through eight admissions cycles of OpenApply data. The answer is yes, schools do grow. But the more useful finding is which schools grow fastest, and it comes down to one distinction: whether a school is managing admissions, or driving it.
How We Measured Growth across 900+ Schools
Our Admissions Performance Report draws on OpenApply system data on enquiries, applications, and enrolments, from 2018 to 2025. Over that period, more than 900 schools in over 130 countries have processed upwards of 4.2 million applications on the platform.
That's a big number, but it isn't the one we used to measure growth. Community-wide totals rise partly because more schools join each year, so they say more about OpenApply's reach than about any single school's results.
To see what happens inside a school, we looked only at schools with a clear multi-year run: at least two active admissions cycles on OpenApply. We excluded schools with no recorded activity or flat year-on-year records, so the figures reflect schools genuinely using the platform. The analysis is also supported by our School Admissions and CRM whitepaper (May 2022, 148 schools).
Nine in Ten Schools Grew, Most within Three Cycles
Nine in ten schools with a multi-year run on OpenApply grew their applications. Across those schools, the median school grew its applicant numbers 4.4 times over its time on the platform.
The median matters here. It means this isn't a story propped up by a few standout schools with unusual circumstances. The typical school more than quadrupled its applicant pool.
The growth also shows up early. Schools were typically more than doubling their applications by year three, and the median school saw most of its lift within the first three cycles. For a leadership team weighing up a change of system, that's a meaningful timeframe: results inside a normal strategic planning horizon, not a decade away.
The pattern holds across very different schools too: day schools and boarding schools, small nurseries and large through-schools, and every region we serve, from the UK and wider EMEA to Asia-Pacific, North America and Latin America.
Growth Comes from Capturing, Nurturing and Converting More Families
More applications don't appear from nowhere. In growing schools, the lift tends to come from catching more families at the top of the funnel, then losing fewer of them on the way to enrolment.
In practice, that happens at four points in the admissions journey.
Capturing every enquiry. A single, branded enquiry and application flow means fewer families drop out before they've properly started. Every lead lands in one place, rather than scattered across inboxes, web forms and spreadsheets.
Nurturing the pipeline. Many families aren't ready to apply on first contact. Built-in CRM tools let admissions teams follow up at the right moment, so warm families don't quietly go cold.
Converting with less friction. Online forms, document upload and payment in one portal remove the admin that stalls applications halfway through. Every step a parent doesn't have to chase is one less reason to give up.
Seeing the whole picture. Live reporting shows exactly where each family is in the journey. Teams can act on the pipeline while there's still time to change the outcome, rather than reviewing it after the cycle closes.
None of these is dramatic on its own. Together, applied every cycle, they compound.
Schools Using the Full CRM Grew 5.7 Times
The clearest signal in eight years of data is what happens when schools use OpenApply as a full admissions CRM. Those schools grew their applicant numbers by a median of 5.7 times, well ahead of the 4.4-fold median across all schools with a multi-year run.
By CRM, we mean actively managing and following up with families across the whole pipeline: tracking enquiries, prompting timely follow-ups and nurturing warm leads. It's the difference between a system that collects applications and one that works them.
This is where the question of managing versus driving admissions becomes concrete. A school that manages admissions processes whatever arrives, and processes it efficiently. A school that drives admissions goes after the families who haven't applied yet, and keeps them moving towards enrolment.
Both approaches make administration easier. Only one of them works the entire funnel, from first enquiry to enrolment. In our data, that's the approach associated with the strongest growth.
The Data Shows a Pattern, Not a Guarantee
Any report built on customer data deserves a careful read, so here is what these figures can and can't support.
They show what happened across our schools. They don't prove OpenApply alone caused it. Some schools were expanding for their own reasons, with OpenApply as the platform that supported that growth. The same caution applies to the CRM finding: schools that invest in active follow-up may also be the schools with ambitious growth plans.
The community-scale figures need the same care. Applications processed on OpenApply rose from roughly 155,000 in 2018 to more than 1,000,000 in 2025. That growth is real, but much of it reflects more schools joining the platform, not individual schools growing. We treat it as a measure of scale, not as a per-school result.
What the data does show, consistently, is that schools which use the full admissions workflow tend to grow their applicant pool. That's the finding we're confident in, and it's the one worth planning around.
Is Your School Managing Admissions, or Driving It?
So, do schools really grow after moving to OpenApply? Across eight years and more than 900 schools, most do. The median school more than quadruples its applicant pool, and the schools that use OpenApply to actively work their pipeline grow fastest of all.
The more useful question for your school is which kind of admissions operation you're running today. If your system mainly processes the applications that arrive, there's likely growth sitting in the families who enquired but never applied, or applied but never finished.
The full Admissions Performance Report sets out the data in more detail. Alongside it, our ROI calculator turns these patterns into a figure for your own school in about two minutes. When you're ready, book a walkthrough and we'll show you how schools like yours grew.
What Could This Mean For Your School?
The report shows what’s possible across schools using OpenApply. Your potential return will depend on your current admissions volume, conversion rates and goals. Use the calculator to explore the numbers for your school, or book a walkthrough to see how OpenApply supports the admissions journey.
