Unified Enrollment:

The Next Brilliant Thing

Unified Enrollment is a big idea. And for a city’s educational leaders, it offers huge potential. It’s about district and charter leaders working together to solve their toughest challenges. It’s a way to right decades of inequality wrongs. And when futures seem uncertain, it’s the bright path forward.

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Out of Many, One

Unified Enrollment (sometimes called common enrollment or universal enrollment) is a centralized way of assigning students to the schools they want to go to – and it’s done on a citywide level. Using a shared timeline, application, lottery, and family-facing website, every single public and charter school works together to fill seats for everyone in the community.

One Timeline

Every school uses the same dates for all enrollment steps, including application deadlines, acceptance announcements, and registration.

One Application

Application materials are standardized across schools. Families fill out one application to apply to multiple schools.

One Lottery

One centralized lottery matches students to schools, replacing school-level lotteries.

One Website

A single website provides families with all the information they need to know. It’s a one-stop-shop for school research, applying, and completing enrollment.

Predicting the Unpredictable

By centralizing much of the enrollment process, Unified Enrollment offers city, district, and charter leaders immense control over the uncertainties that have plagued education for years.

Control enrollment numbers. Control budgets.

Many Unified Enrollment cities use a single best offer matching mechanism, which factors in student preferences to generate one school offer per student. When families receive only one match, openings are filled much earlier. And more students match to their preferred schools, so fewer students shuffle on summer/fall waitlists, making the enrollment process significantly more manageable and efficient.

Fall enrollment predictions are not only possible, they’re accurate, so leaders can make budget, staffing, and other crucial decisions based on clearly defined needs and data – instead of planning in the dark.

Get the full story on family preference.

With a centralized matching mechanism, families can safely list their priorities in order of true preference. For city, district, and charter leaders, this creates a detailed picture of demand for schools across the city. Assessing the overall school mix can finally be done with real, precise numbers.

Unified Enrollment allows schools to specialize and differentiate. And major decisions to open, expand, or site schools can be made based on facts, not speculation.

Put family concerns at ease.

Unified Enrollment puts school choice messaging firmly in the hands of district and charter leaders. With greater transparency around offers and a robust online platform for school information, the enrollment process is streamlined and simplified. And by informing and engaging with families, leaders can build trust and show that fair policies are consistently enforced.

Integration 2.0

Increasingly so, the school choice status quo is becoming prohibitively complex for low-resource and minority families. Multiple applications, differing deadlines, and a lack of accessible school and policy information are creating an impassable nightmare that only the most savvy families can figure out. And in some cases, schools hide timelines or hold early lotteries to intentionally shape their pool of applicants.

Open to everyone.

Unified Enrollment allows families to apply to any public school within their district, improving equal access to school choice citywide. Enrollment is less burdensome for families, which empowers disadvantaged students to more easily opt in to better schools.

With fairness, and seats, for all.

When schools run their own lotteries, some students end up with multiple offers and others have none. But with Unified Enrollment, high-demand seats are fairly distributed and the playing field is leveled for all families, not just the best-connected or those most able to navigate the system.

Designing diversity.

By tailoring a centralized matching system for the concerns of the local community, city leaders create opportunities to solve decades-old issues. If neighborhood students are underrepresented at popular magnet schools, for instance, priority access can be guaranteed to nearby residents. Minimum thresholds for low-income or minority students can also be established at high-performing schools.

Look to the Leaders

Leading the Unified Enrollment way are the country's most forward-thinking educators. For these pioneers, we're proud to have leant the tools, flexibility, and expertise to help make it happen.

Denver, CO

To close gaps in participation between socioeconomic groups, Denver Public Schools became the first unified district, uniting all public and charter schools under the same enrollment process. Reducing complexities for families, they cut applications across the city from 60 down to one.

Camden, NJ

Different timelines in Camden were creating an unfair admissions process, and there was concern low-resource families were missing out on school choice as a result. Bringing various charter groups and public schools together, Camden Enrollment has centralized information and access under a fair, family-first process for all the city's schools.

Chicago, IL

For 8th graders transitioning to high school, Chicago Public Schools rolled out Unified Enrollment with GoCPS. More than 90% of all students who applied received an offer at a program they ranked, proving the selection/matching process was successful. Also a huge step toward equity, the city saw participation from 91% of 8th graders overall.

A Common Start? A Common App.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is unified enrollment. As interest is growing across the nation, SchoolMint is lighting the way. Many educators are starting their Unified Enrollment journey with our Common App, because any step toward equality is a step in the right direction.

Expore Common App

Other Products Making It Possible:

SchoolFinder

Empower all families to research all their options with a powerful, robust online portal. More

Application & Lottery Management

Align district applications and timelines in one platform. More

Registration & Re-enrollment Management

Reduce burdens & increase family satisfaction by going online. More

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