enrollment-and-waitlist-management

name	enrollment-and-waitlist-management
description	Run the childcare enrollment funnel and waitlist: inquiry -> tour -> application -> start, with a tour follow-up cadence, waitlist worked by age band, and the waitlist converted before tuition is discounted. Enrollment fills seats; retention keeps them.

Enrollment & Waitlist Management

Seats are filled by a funnel, not by hoping the phone rings — and a waitlist is inventory you already earned, not a courtesy list.

The loop

1. Measure the funnel by stage. Inquiry -> tour -> application -> enrolled start. Each stage has its own conversion rate; a "low enrollment" problem is really a leak at one named stage. Diagnose the stage before the fix — see the enrollment/waitlist tree in ../../knowledge/childcare-decision-trees.md.
2. Follow up on every tour with a cadence. The tour is the highest-intent moment. A defined sequence (same-day thank-you, decision-window check-in, waitlist-or-start ask) converts far more than a single hope-they-call. A tour with no follow-up is a lead discarded.
3. Work the waitlist by age band, not one list. Availability opens by room and age, so a waitlist is only useful segmented by age band and desired start. Convert the waitlist before you discount tuition — a discount on a seat someone was waiting for is pure margin given away.
4. Hand the billing route off cleanly. Once a family commits, the private-pay / subsidy / blended route is a billing decision — see ../tuition-and-subsidy-billing/SKILL.md.
5. Close the loop into retention. A start is the beginning of the relationship the center must keep; the seat you retain is far cheaper than the one the funnel refills.

Metrics

Metric	Reads	Note
Tour-to-enroll conversion	enrolled starts / tours	The funnel's headline; leaks most often at follow-up
Inquiry-to-tour rate	tours booked / inquiries	Low -> intake responsiveness / scheduling friction
Waitlist depth by age band	families waiting per age	Depth here means: convert before discounting
Time-to-start	commit -> first day	Long -> paperwork or start-date friction

Anti-patterns

• Giving tours with no follow-up cadence attached.
• One undifferentiated waitlist across all ages and start dates.
• Discounting tuition while a waitlist for that age band exists.
• Treating a start as the finish line instead of the start of retention.

See also

• ../tuition-and-subsidy-billing/SKILL.md, ../staffing-to-ratio-scheduling/SKILL.md.
• Template: ../../templates/enrollment-funnel-tracker.md.
• Best practices: ../../best-practices/enroll-the-waitlist-before-you-discount.md, ../../best-practices/family-communication-is-the-retention-engine.md.