Your First Week

Setting up your admissions pipeline

Quick answer: In Growth Suite, each student gets their own opportunity card. The pipeline tracks each student through stages (Inquiry → Tour → Application → Enrolled). Cards move from stage to stage automatically as parents complete actions. Set up the pipeline once, and the cards manage themselves.

How opportunities work in Growth Suite

This is the most important concept in this module:

• Parents are contacts. They're who you communicate with — email, SMS, conversations.
• Students are opportunity cards. Each student gets one card. A family with three children has three cards.
• The pipeline is the journey. Stages represent where a student is in the admissions process.

This separation matters because what you communicate to a parent depends on where each of their students is in the pipeline. The Smith family might have one child enrolled, one on a waitlist, and one still touring. Their parent record stays the same; the three student opportunity cards are in three different places.

Typical pipeline stages

Most schools use stages like:

1. Inquiry — parent expressed interest (form submission, phone call, email)
2. Tour Scheduled — booked a campus tour
3. Tour Completed — they visited
4. Application Submitted — family submitted an application
5. Application Reviewed — admissions decision pending
6. Offer Extended — accepted, waiting on family response
7. Enrolled — student is officially in
8. Waitlisted — eligible but no spot available
9. Declined — chose not to enroll, or not a good fit

You can customize these to match your school's actual admissions process.

Setting up the pipeline

1. Open Opportunities & Pipelines

1. Click Settings → Opportunities & Pipelines.
2. Click + Add Pipeline.

2. Name the pipeline

Most schools start with one pipeline called "Admissions 2025-26" (or whatever the relevant academic year is). Some schools later add separate pipelines for Re-Enrollment, Summer Programs, etc.

3. Add stages

For each stage:

• Name (e.g., "Tour Scheduled")
• Probability (used for reporting — what percentage of students at this stage typically enroll)

Drag stages to reorder them in the journey sequence.

4. Save the pipeline

Setting up automatic stage movement

The real power is automation. Configure workflows so opportunity cards move stages automatically as parents complete actions.

Common automatic stage advances:

Each row is a workflow you build in Automation. The pattern is:

1. Trigger: form submission, calendar booking, tag added, etc.
2. Find or create the student opportunity card
3. Update the stage
4. Optional: also send a confirmation email/SMS

Creating opportunity cards

Cards are typically created automatically when a family inquires (e.g., when they submit a tour request form). The form workflow:

1. Creates or finds the parent contact
2. For each student named on the form, creates an opportunity card in the Admissions pipeline at the "Inquiry" stage
3. Links the opportunity to the parent contact

You can also create cards manually from a parent's contact record — useful for families who reach out informally.

The kanban board view

The pipeline displays as a kanban-style board. Each column is a stage; each card is a student. You can:

• Drag cards between stages manually (overrides automation if needed)
• Click a card to see details (which parent, which student, recent communications)
• Filter by tag, by admissions officer, by date range

Tips

• Start simple. 6–8 stages is plenty. Adding more makes the board harder to read.
• Name stages from the family's perspective. "Awaiting Decision" is clearer than "Pending Review (Internal)".
• Use the probability percentages. They power forecasting — "how many students should we expect to enroll this year?"
• Don't combine pipelines for different programs. If your Pre-K admissions is separate from K-8 admissions, use separate pipelines.
• Train your team on the kanban view. Looking at the board weekly catches stalled cards before they go cold.

Related articles

• Setting up your booking calendar for tours
• Launching your first funnel page
• Setting up automatic follow-up for new inquiries