By Amanda Young ’11, Co-Editor-in-Chief
In four to five years, CCDS administrators plan for the school to have 830 students, about 60 students more than the current enrollment, with most of the growth coming in the Middle and Upper Schools. Last year, CCDS jumpstarted plans to grow enrollment with the Enrollment and Engagement series and increased financial aid, including the development of Founders Scholarships, created to attract top students as well as bridge the gap between full pay students and those who qualify for financial aid.
The initiatives were successful: CCDS enrolled 137 new students, 36 more than last year at this time. By the end of this school year, CCDS administrators hope to have 23 more new students to reach 160. For 2010 to 2011, the goal is tentatively 170 new students.
In addition to expanding aid further, other tactics to increase the number of students include grassroots word of mouth efforts and a marketing plan. While Head of School Dr. Macrae is making it a goal to enroll more students, he said he will not do so at the cost of quality.
Both Dr. Macrae and Upper School Head Stephanie Luebbers said that the current enrollment is too small to easily maintain the school’s current expansive academic and extracurricular offerings.
“We need to have a critical scale in programs and critical mass in the programs,” Dr. Macrae said.
In the Upper School, Mrs. Luebbers said that the goal is to increase the enrollment from 255 students to 280 or 290 in the near future, and eventually maybe 300 or 310. That would make the average class size about 70 in the Upper School. Currently two grades, ninth and eleventh, have enrollments of slightly over 70 students with grades ten and twelve enrollment at an average of 54 students.
“We offer this wide variety of classes. We’re running several different course levels in all disciplines and in almost all grade levels. It’s hard to that with 250 to 260 students,” Mrs. Luebbers said.
Without necessary scale, Dr Macrae said that “covering other expenses becomes harder.” “We’ve had to reduce staff,” he said. But, Dr. Macrae said CCDS has not had to make a reduction in staff in the past two years.
As a result, the administration is working hard to increase the number of students that both apply and matriculate to CCDS.
With the implementation of more financial aid last year, including the establishment of the Founders Scholarships merit aid program last year, CCDS has 137 new students this year compared to 101 in 2009. According to Director of Admissions Aaron Kellenberger, enrollment is up only 20 students schoolwide due to a slightly higher attrition rate of 10.3 percent as well as this year’s senior class having 53 students compared to 63 students in last year’s. Prior to the Founders Scholarships, only a handful of students were offered aid as part of a small merit scholarship program.
For the 2010-2011 school year, CCDS received about 240 applications for new students and accepted 70 percent with the acceptance rate being closer to 60 or 65 percent for the Upper School according to Mr. Kellenberger. Of the 137 new students that enrolled at CCDS schoolwide, Mr. Kellenberger said that 30 to 35 students were on need-based assistance and 23 were on Founders Scholarships.
CCDS expects to enroll about the same number of new students on financial aid next year, and bring in 25 to 30 Founders Scholars.
Dr. Macrae expects the Founders Scholars program to gain even more interest this year. “Having done a full year of a merit program, I think we’re going to have more momentum,” Dr. Macrae said.
Founders Scholars applicants are required to complete an extra application and go through an interview process.
“We look at transcripts with grades, test scores, and recommendations. We look at the complete package,” Mr. Kellenberger said.
While the process is holistic, Mr. Kellenberger said, “Most of the students were A-B students and somewhere in the top 10 to 15 percent of standardized testing.”
The Founders Scholars on average received an aid package of $9,400, but Mr. Kellenberger said they can earn anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000.
According to Dr. Macrae, the establishment of a Founders Scholars program is to help make CCDS the best school in Cincinnati. “We hope to continue to make CCDS affordable to a wider range of people and to make sure that we are attracting the best and brightest in Cincinnati,” he said.
Mr. Kellenberger said that the Founders Scholars program was also created to attract more middle class students to the School. “CCDS can’t be comprised only of families that can pay full-freight and families that are on need-based aid,” he said. “We cost $20,000 and some of our parochial high school competitors cost $12,000. We’re using merit money as a bridge between full pay and need based aid.”
Founders Scholarships are only available to new students because Dr. Macrae said they are “an enrollment tool” right now.
“Increasing the health of the school is helping our current students,” he said. Dr. Macrae also said that Founder Scholars and students on need based aid provide additional revenue with the tuition that they do pay, which CCDS wouldn’t be receiving without the aid enticement.
Overall for students across the divisions, CCDS awarded $2.5 million in aid for this school year to 23 percent of students. Five years ago, CCDS awarded $1.5 million to 18 percent of students.
According to Dr. Macrae, the increased percentage of students on aid is now closer to the national average as determined by the Joint Research and Planning Office (JRPO), which averages the data of 57 private schools across the country.
Other than the addition of Founders Scholars, Mr. Kellenberger said that the poor economy and tuition increases account for the higher number of students on aid.
“For the last two years in a row, we’ve had 15 current families that applied for tuition assistance for the first time,” Mr. Kellenberger said. “We didn’t want these families that had been here for 10 plus years to withdraw their children because of a downturn in the economy.”
Mr. Kellenberger also said that each year the tuition aid budget must expand simply to cover the increase in tuition.
Dr. Macrae said that the money for financial aid comes from a combination of CCDS’s $14 million endowment, operating budget, and a new scholarship campaign initiative.
In addition to offering expanded aid, Dr. Macrae said the school is working on grassroots efforts to attract students. The Enrollment and Engagement meetings, started in November of last year, are a way of promoting current parents to recruit more families that would thrive at CCDS. Dr. Macrae said the meetings emphasize “how you tell the story: what’s unique about CCDS” and encouraging parents to spread by word of mouth these attributes.
According to Dr. Macrae, the third part of the plans is to increase marketing.
Director of Communications Ralph Javens has already updated the CCDS website with a page titled “What’s unique about CCDS?” as well as a video library highlighting CCDS’s strengths directly from students, faculty, staff, parents, and alumni. Video topics range from academics to activities to diversity.
“I strongly believe we need to get people to campus,” Mrs. Luebbers said.
Dr. Macrae said CCDS is also considering working with a marketing firm to work on “visuals and a narrative.”
Mrs. Luebbers said other local private schools have recently “thrown a lot of money into marketing.” She said she has seen billboards, TV ads, and newspaper listings.
“There is only a small group of students looking to go to independent schools. We’re competing for a lot of the same students,” Mrs. Luebbers said.
Dr. Macrae, Mrs. Luebbers, and Mr. Kellenberger were all adamant that increasing enrollment will not decrease student quality.
“We have never changed our enrollment criteria,” Dr. Macrae said. “We’re never going to make a class of 53 larger by admitting kids who aren’t going to thrive at CCDS.”
“When we’re looking at increasing the size of any division, we need to make sure that the students we attract are motivated and have the potential to thrive academically here,” Mrs. Luebbers added.
Mr. Kellenberger emphasized that the quality of students will continue due to CCDS’s selection process. Admission decisions are made by a group of faculty in each division: three in the Upper School, and four in the Middle and Upper Schools.
“It’s a group of faculty that are looking for the same student today that they were looking for 20 years ago,” Mr. Kellenberger said.
Photo by Ilana Habib ’11, Photography Editor
