Imagine a prospective family searches for your school online and finds a bare-bones profile with no reviews, a scattering of one-star ratings from disgruntled outliers, or even a wall of well-meaning but hollow praise that says nothing more than “it’s a good school, and the teachers are nice.”
Now imagine that same family quietly moves on to the next option — a school whose online reviews brim with vivid, heartfelt stories about transformative teaching, thriving students, and a community that genuinely cares.
That enrollment inquiry you never received, that gifted educator who chose a competitor because your online presence didn’t reflect your culture, that philanthropist whose due diligence ended at your empty review page — these are the invisible losses most school leaders never even know they’re suffering.
The truth is, the families best aligned with your mission, the teachers who share your values, and the donors who rely on authentic stakeholder voices before writing a single check are all doing the same thing: reading what real people have to say about your school online.
The good news is that there is one straightforward, cost-free action that can fundamentally change what they find — and it doesn’t require a marketing agency, a technology overhaul, or a single dollar of ad spend. It requires something you already have in abundance: a community of parents, alumni, and supporters who love your school but have simply never been asked, in the right way, to say so publicly.
But before you ask anyone to leave reviews, let’s make sure your school’s digital house is in order. Although positive, specific testimonials are crucial, there are more tasks in building a strong reputation for your school online.
Here’s a foundational checklist that will guide you.
Claim Your School Review Profiles Everywhere
On GreatSchools, use the “Claim your school or district” feature to take ownership of your profile. This allows you to update contact details, link to your enrollment page, and respond to reviews. On Niche, use the “Claim Your School” option to partner directly with the platform. On SchoolDigger, ensure your school’s data is accurate and reflects your latest enrollment and performance numbers.
Optimize Your School Website for Search Engine Optimization
Your school website is the hub of your online presence. Ensure your school website’s SEO is optimized so that when anyone is searching for your school, your official site — not just third-party review sites — appears at the top of search results.
Use clear, keyword-rich page titles, keep your school information (programs, faculty, admissions) up to date, and link to your profiles on GreatSchools, Niche, and SchoolDigger. This cross-linking strategy strengthens your school’s online presence and helps you manage its narrative more effectively. Additionally, maintain active social media profiles and social media channels that link back to your school’s website, creating a cohesive digital ecosystem.
Keep Information Fresh and Accurate for SEO
Nothing erodes trust faster than outdated information. Regularly audit every platform where your school appears. Make sure your address, phone number, website URL, principal’s name, and key program details are current across the web. This consistency also improves SEO and helps platforms like Google surface accurate information about your school.
Mobilizing Your Community: Ask Families to Leave Reviews
This is the core of the strategy — and where most schools fall short. You cannot simply wait and hope that happy families will leave reviews for your school. You must create systems, moments, and gentle prompts that make it easy and natural for families to leave reviews.
Here’s how.
Identify Your Best Advocates
Start by identifying the parents and students who are most enthusiastic about your school. These are the families who volunteer, attend events, speak positively in parent meetings, and whose children are thriving. They are your review ambassadors. Reach out to them personally — a direct, genuine ask from a principal or teacher is far more effective than a mass email.
Create Strategic Touchpoints to Ask for Reviews
Timing matters. The best moments to ask parents to leave positive reviews include right after a successful parent-teacher conference, following a positive school event or performance, after a child achieves a milestone (academic award, team success, college acceptance), during re-enrollment season when commitment to the school is high, and at alumni reunions or homecoming events. At each of these moments, provide a simple, direct link to the review site where you’d like them to post. Don’t ask them to review on five platforms at once — pick the one that matters most for your current goals and make it easy.
Use Multiple Communication Channels
Encourage families to leave reviews through newsletters, email campaigns, your school’s website, social media channels, and even printed cards handed out at events. A short message like, “Love our school? Share your experience and help other families discover us!” paired with a QR code linking directly to your GreatSchools or Niche review page can be remarkably effective. The key is to gather feedback from parents consistently over time, rather than in a single burst that looks inauthentic.
Engage Alumni as a Secret Weapon
Alumni are an underutilized goldmine. Parents of current students may feel awkward writing reviews, but alumni often carry deep pride and nostalgia. Reach out through alumni networks, LinkedIn groups, and reunion events. Ask them to share how the school shaped their career, character, or community engagement. Alumni reviews carry unique credibility — they demonstrate long-term impact, which is exactly what prospective families want to see.
Coaching Stakeholders to Write High-Quality, Specific Reviews
This section is perhaps the most important in this entire article. A flood of vague, generic reviews does almost nothing for your school’s reputation. Reviewers who write “The school is great” or “the teachers are nice” are well-intentioned, but their reviews lack the specificity and detail that prospective families are looking for. High-quality reviews are the ones that move the needle, and your community needs coaching to write them.
Keep Prospective Families in Mind
When parents a research schools, they aren’t just looking for a generic thumbs-up. They want to know about specific programs, teaching methods, outcomes, and experiences. A review that says “My daughter’s 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Ramirez, used project-based learning to make science come alive — my child went from dreading science to begging for extra experiments at home” is exponentially more powerful than “Great teachers.” Specific reviews build trust because they sound authentic, provide useful information, and help prospective families envision their own child’s experience.
Community Engagement How to Coach Stakeholders for Reviews
When encouraging parents and students to leave reviews, provide them with a simple framework. You’re not writing the review for them — you’re helping them recall and articulate the specifics that already exist in their experience. Share a brief guide (via email, a handout, or even a short video) that includes prompts such as:
Name a specific program or experience
Instead of “The academics are good,” try: “The school’s STEM program gave my son hands-on robotics experience starting in 5th grade, and he’s now competing at the state level.” Encourage them to reference specific offerings like the school’s reading intervention program, AP course load, arts curriculum, or extracurricular activities.
Mention a measurable outcome
Instead of “My child improved,” try: “My daughter’s reading level jumped two grades in one year thanks to the school’s individualized literacy coaching.” Numbers and milestones are compelling.
Describe the community or culture
Instead of “The community is nice,” try: “When my family moved here mid-year, three different families reached out within the first week to welcome us. The parent volunteer network organized meals for a month. That sense of community engagement is what keeps us here.”
Highlight what makes the school different
Prompt reviewers to think about what distinguishes your school from others. Is it the small class sizes? The dual-language program? The college counseling support? The restorative justice approach? Help them articulate the school needs they feel are uniquely met.
What to Avoid
Coach reviewers to avoid writing reviews that are purely emotional without evidence (“Best school ever!!!”), that focus only on a single negative incident, or that compare the school negatively to other schools in your area. Reviews should feel honest, balanced, and specific. Ironically, reviews that acknowledge a minor challenge while enthusiastically endorsing the school overall are often the most credible.
Responding to Bad Reviews
No school will have a perfect review record, and that’s okay — a profile with only glowing five-star reviews can actually seem suspicious. What matters far more is how you respond to negative reviews and negative online commentary.
On platforms like GreatSchools, where you can reply to reviews after claiming your profile, always respond to negative feedback promptly, professionally, and empathetically. Acknowledge the reviewer’s experience, avoid defensiveness, and offer to continue the conversation offline. A response like, “Thank you for sharing your experience. We take this feedback seriously and would welcome the opportunity to discuss it with you directly — please contact our front office at [phone/email]” demonstrates accountability and care. Prospective families reading that exchange will often be more impressed by the school’s responsiveness than deterred by the original complaint.
Use negative reviews as constructive data. If multiple reviewers mention the same concern — long carpool lines, inconsistent communication, lunchroom issues — treat that as actionable intelligence. Fix the problem, and then update your community about the improvement. This transforms a reputational challenge into a demonstration of your school’s commitment to continuous improvement and creates organic opportunities for parents to leave updated, more positive feedback on your school.
Your School’s Online Reputation Mangaement Strategy
A one-time review push is not a strategy — it’s a stunt. To build your school’s long-term positive reputation, you need ongoing systems.
Designate an owner
Assign one person (or a small group) to monitor your school’s profiles on GreatSchools, Niche, SchoolDigger, Google, and any other review platform like Google Business Profile or Yelp on a regular basis. This person should track new reviews, flag concerns, draft responses, and coordinate outreach to encourage new reviews.
Set a review site schedule
Aim to generate a steady trickle of new reviews throughout the year — not a flood in September and silence until the next fall. Tie review requests to your school’s event calendar and natural engagement peaks.
Track your school reputation management progress
Use online reputation management tools such as review monitoring dashboards, Google Alerts for your school by name, and built-in analytics on platforms like Niche to measure how your reviews and ratings evolve over time. Connect these metrics to your enrollment funnel to quantify the impact — you may find that improved reviews directly increase conversions from website visitors to campus tour attendees.
Integrate with enrollment marketing
Feature excerpts from your best reviews (with permission) on your school’s website, in brochure materials, and on social media profiles. Authentic testimonials from real parents and alumni are among the most persuasive forms of school marketing available. This approach helps you attract prospective families using the very voices of your current community.
Your Community Is Your Greatest Asset for Reputation Management
The most important takeaway for every school leader is that you don’t need a massive marketing budget to build a strong online reputation. What you need is a genuine, thriving school community — and a simple, consistent system to help that community share its experiences publicly. Every parent who takes five minutes to write a thoughtful, specific review on GreatSchools or Niche is doing more for your enrollment pipeline than most paid advertisements ever could.
By claiming your profiles, optimizing your school website, coaching your stakeholders to share specific and meaningful stories, responding to feedback with professionalism, and sustaining these efforts year-round, you will not only improve your ratings on the platforms where families are actively researching schools — you will build a digital reputation that authentically reflects the best of what your school offers. That alignment between public perception and lived experience is the foundation of lasting enrollment growth.
Start today. Claim your profiles. Send that first email. Coach your first group of parent ambassadors. The reviews will follow — and so will the families.
And if you find you simply do not have the capacity to take on another campaign, contact Sylvia Marketing & Public Relations at 215-817-3095 or results@sylviamarketing.com.