Your mid-cycle pulse check: Real-time insights on K-12 parent search
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If you’ve followed Niche for a while, you’re probably familiar with our annual K-12 Parent Survey. For 2024, we decided to try something different — to equip you with data you can use right now, we conducted a pulse survey of nearly 400 K-12 parents and guardians over three weeks in the middle of the 2024-25 admissions cycle to get a real-time assessment of their search experience.
Whether your admissions season is well underway or you just opened applications in October, these results provide the insights you need to make timely adjustments to meet your enrollment goals for next year.
Don’t panic about AI search yet
Academics are still a top motivator for switching schools
Your event experience is crucial
Schools need to influence their influencers
Competition is as fierce as ever
Prospective families want to see you engaging in your community
Keep your “marketing mix” diversified
Have a strategy for marketing to prospective students
Don’t panic about AI search yet
AI isn’t going anywhere, and there are a lot of practical applications for using AI in school marketing and admissions. But when it comes to prospective families using AI chatbots or search engines to research schools, adoption is pretty low. Only 4% of parents surveyed reported using AI search engines like Perplexity and BingAI to research schools and 1% reported using AI chatbots.
The most dominant players at the start of the school search process were Google (50%) and Niche (25%). Only 2% of parents and guardians reported using other school search platforms in the process thus far.
Still, there are implications when it comes to how AI overviews are impacting SEO and organic website traffic that schools should be aware of and we’ll unpack that in a follow-up post.
Academics are still a top motivator for switching schools
In 2023 we introduced a question about what causes families to start exploring new schools in the first place, and academics are on track to be the top factor for the second consecutive year. Sixty-five percent of pulse survey respondents cited academics as their reason for looking to switch, followed by other schools earning higher rankings (26%), athletics (20%), fine arts (17%), class sizes (14%), campus safety concerns (14%) and cost (12%).
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that when evaluating new schools, 57% of parents and guardians said they’re strongly considering academic rigor.
Other factors for consideration were:
- The availability of clubs and social organizations (70%)
- Distance from home (66%)
- School rankings/presence on school search platforms (64%)
- Campus safety (63%)
- Class sizes (62%)
- Reviews from other parents (61%)
- A sense of community (60%)
Your event experience is crucial
An interesting takeaway from the 2023 Parent Survey was that for many parents and guardians (28%), attending an on-campus admission event was the first step they took to engage with the schools they were considering for their children. In our pulse survey, 38% percent of parents reported attending a school enrollment event as their first step this cycle — that’s more than any other action. Thirty percent submitted inquiry forms first, 18% called schools, 11% emailed schools and 3% have already applied without any other contact.
In addition to being one of the first steps a prospective family takes to connect with your school community, 98% of parents said school visits will influence their school choice for next fall, and 74% said virtual tours and events are influential.
Schools need to influence their influencers
Your current (and former) parents and guardians continue to be your biggest advocates or detractors. Seventy-four percent of respondents said negative feedback from other parents and guardians would cause them to remove schools from their list this cycle. And while your mind may immediately go to your current families or alumni parents, this also underscores the importance of ensuring that departing families leave on good terms — prospective families will talk to them too.
Other factors that would cause families to strike schools from their shortlists were:
- Negative visit experiences (70%)
- Negative interactions with school staff (67%)
- Tuition cost (55%)
- Difficulty finding parent reviews (30%)
- Challenging website navigation (20%)
Competition is as fierce as ever
We asked about the number of schools families are considering for the second time in this survey, and most families (60%) are considering three or more schools in their search, with 24% considering more than five.
Public schools (45%), nonreligious private and independent schools (43%), religious private and independent schools (39%) and charter schools (31%) were the most popular options for consideration. Only 7% of survey respondents are considering homeschooling.
For families considering charter schools, 50% are seeking an emphasis on STEM, 28% are looking for performing arts, 26% are looking for career and technical education (CTE), 19% are looking for International Baccalaureate programs, 17% are looking for health sciences, 16% are looking for language immersion, 11% are looking for liberal arts education and 9% are looking for business. Twenty-six percent of parents are not looking for a specific emphasis.
For families seeking private or independent schools with a religious affiliation, Catholic (57%), “other” Christian (39%), Baptist (22%) and Evangelical Christian (21%) schools are the most widely considered.
Prospective families want to see you engaging in your community
While it’s clear that your on-campus experience is important, it’s also important to have a strategy for engaging prospective families off-campus. Seventy-three percent of families said that school fairs will influence their school choice and 70% of parents and guardians said the same about schools’ presence at community events. So host that reading session at your local library or sponsor that event — those tactics matter.
Keep your “marketing mix” diversified
A key takeaway from this pulse survey is the importance of having a diversified “marketing mix” — a mix of strategies and tactics that are both digital and analog — as you think about student and parent engagement and any shifts you need to make before applications are due.
In terms of “traditional” tactics, brochures and viewbooks are playing a role for 61% of respondents, but numbers start to drop off for print ads (a still-surprising 39%), billboards (23%), swag (23%) and radio ads (15%).
On the digital front, school websites (91%), schools’ presence on search and review sites (89%), emails from schools (82%), online forums and social media groups (72%), social media (61%) and school blogs (60%) are having the greatest impact on survey respondents at this point in time.
Have a strategy for marketing to prospective students
Yes, they’re still in the mix — 71% of respondents said their children are playing a role in choosing the school they will attend next year. Marketing to students and keeping them engaged throughout the admissions process is table stakes now, and schools have to have a plan beyond starting a TikTok account. It’s essential to engage prospective students in ways that are meaningful, age-appropriate, on-brand and mindful of the pitfalls and challenges associated with various channels.
Demographics and methodology
This survey was posted to Niche between September 24 and October 14, 2024, and was available to both registered and non-registered users. We received 377 responses from parents and guardians with at least one child entering kindergarten through 12th grade in the fall of 2025. Forty-six percent reside in suburban areas, 37% are in urban areas, 11% are in small towns and 6% are in rural areas. Forty percent identified as Caucasian and 60% identified as an underrepresented minority. Seventy-eight percent identified as female, 19% identified as male and 1.3% identified as gender nonbinary.
Household incomes were well-distributed with 40% reporting a household income of more than $150,000, 22% reporting a household income of $90,000-149,999, 12% reporting a household income of $28,000-54,999, 11% reporting a household income of $55,000-89,999 and 7% reporting a household income of less than $28,000.