On November 3-4 we held our 6th admissions conference in Asia-Pacific and first in India. The conference was run at Oberoi International School alongside the ManageBac User Group Conference, allowing participants to join sessions of interest from either. We were thrilled to welcome over 35 participants representing 18 schools.
Day One opened with Regional Director of Asia-Pacific, RVenus Lai, and OpenApply Director, MacKenzie Hovermale, providing a company update on the latest features and community offerings for ManageBac and OpenApply. Next Puja Srivastava, IT Director at OIS, took us through the journey of implementing OpenApply and ManageBac fully at the school within one year. Puja's presentation featured an entertaining video with feedback on the systems from users around the school.
See the full list of participating schools and find the conference programme here.
Day One opened with Regional Director of Asia-Pacific, RVenus Lai, and OpenApply Director, MacKenzie Hovermale, providing a company update on the latest features and community offerings for ManageBac and OpenApply. Next Puja Srivastava, IT Director at OIS, took us through the journey of implementing OpenApply and ManageBac fully at the school within one year. Puja's presentation featured an entertaining video with feedback on the systems from users around the school.
Later in the morning Claire McQuillan, Secondary Principal from Overseas School of Colombo, discussed using OpenApply at OSC to manage and manipulate data, and how it has streamlined their reporting process. Next OpenApply Associate Danny Doherty led the group in workshop sessions on the Parent Experience and Processing Applications in OpenApply.
After lunch, MacKenzie ran workshops on Re-Enrolment and Managing Data in OpenApply, featuring information on importing, exporting, and analytics.
Attendees from both the ManageBac UGC and OpenApply Admissions Conference then came together for a cocktail hour and dinner at the beautiful Westin Mumbai Garden City.
The Head of School from Oberoi International School, Neil McWilliam, gave the morning Keynote on Day Two. Neil discussed today's rapidly changing technology and how it's important as educators to teach students to handle technology safely and ethically.
Monisha Sujlana from DPS International School kicked off the Admissions & Marketing sessions on Day Two with a discussion on the key elements that parents look for when choosing an international school. Monisha encouraged attendees to step back and hit refresh to make sure they are keeping up with the trends of what families need from an international school.
Next Leigh Fisher, Manager CSR External Relations and Partnerships, and Imran Bandeali, Dean of Admissions, both from Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad discussed Marketing for Schools and how storytelling can drive admissions growth.
After lunch and a school tour, Claire McQuillan from OSC shared how a small school does admissions and the similarities and differences compared to larger schools. Next Viivek Mashru, Director of Marketing, and Christopher Stachnick, Consultant Admissions & Marketing, from Indus International School discussed the other end of the spectrum: admissions for a school group. They shared the story of how they've revamped admissions at the Indus schools over the past year.
Anuradha Puri, Senior Manager Admissions at The British School New Delhi, closed out the day with a session on communications in the admissions office. Anuradha incorporated several activities to highlight the importance of good communications both internally and with parents.
The day ended with a short activity to help absorb all of the knowledge shared over the past two days. Participants were encouraged to focus on one idea and one change that they could make in their admissions office to put to action what they had learned at the conference.
You can see more photos here.
