HOW PARENTS AND AI ARE REWRITING FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The way in which parents and are comparing schools before they make a choice for their children is changing profoundly. Kushal Kundanmal reports.
Generated comparisons
A decade ago, choosing a school began with a recommendation from a friend, a visit to an open day, perhaps a glossy prospectus. Today, it begins with a screen. And increasingly, the first question isn’t typed into Google – it’s asked of ChatGPT.
This is not a prediction. A 2025 survey reported by Search Engine Land found that 37 per cent of consumers now begin their research using AI tools rather than traditional search engines. Among younger adults, adoption is steeper still. Millennial parents, now aged roughly 28 to 43 and the dominant generation of school-age decision-makers – are at the centre of this shift. They are digital natives who compare, review and shortlist online before making any major decision. Education is no exception.
Parents who interrogate
Parents, especially millennial parents, research schools as they research everything else. When making comparisons and reading reviews they expect clarity. They want to understand not only results and fees, but culture, wellbeing, support, values, and what everyday life actually feels like for a child.
Research from the Walton Family Foundation shows that millennial parents prioritise school culture and extracurricular offerings almost as highly as academic results. When they evaluate a school, they are looking for evidence that culture, wellbeing and values align with their own — not just league table positions. In many cases, they form an opinion before ever stepping onto campus.
The invisible school
This is not simply a marketing issue. It is a leadership issue.
A school may have excellent teaching, a warm community, and a strong sense of purpose. But if its digital presence is unclear, outdated, or difficult to navigate, families may never get far enough to discover that. School websites now influence 60 per cent of parents’ enrolment choices — more than in-person visits. Reviews from other parents on search platforms sway 67 per cent of families. Visitors form impressions of a website in just 50 milliseconds.
Increasingly, AI tools are shaping that early picture by assembling information from school websites, public reviews, and other online content. When a parent asks ChatGPT for the best schools with strong pastoral care in their area, the response is built from whatever digital footprint each school has left behind. Enrolment strategy firm Carnegie calls this challenge “Answer Engine Optimisation” — the practice of structuring content so a school is accurately represented in AI-generated results. If the digital footprint is thin or confusing, the school’s story may be told badly, or not told at all.
What parents are really searching for
Parents are not only searching for information. They are looking for reassurance. Will my child be known here? Will they be supported? Does this school’s culture feel aligned with our values? Academic outcomes still matter, of course, but they are rarely the whole story.
In that sense, the digital journey has become a new version of the school tour. Before a parent meets a teacher, sees a classroom, or speaks to admissions, they are already noticing how the school communicates. Is information easy to find? Are answers written in plain language? Does the site reflect a living community or simply a collection of static pages? Is there warmth in the communication, or only administration?
The schools that do this well are not necessarily the most polished. They are often the clearest.
Five things schools can do now
- Review the basics through a parent’s eyes.
Can a family quickly find answers to their most likely questions? Not just about fees and entry requirements, but about learning support, languages, transport, and what happens during the first few weeks of joining.
- Write for human beings, not institutions.
Many school websites are full of internal language that makes sense to staff but not to families. Parents ask simple questions. Good school communication should answer them directly.
- Keep content current.
Nothing quietly erodes trust like outdated pages, broken links, or contradictory information. In a busy school, this is easy to overlook. But families notice.
- Think carefully about responsiveness.
The School Choice Awareness Foundation found that 42 per cent of parents searching for schools want clearer guidance on options in their area. Parents expect the same immediacy from a school that they experience from every other service in their lives.
- Remember that digital communication is cultural communication.
Every page, message, and reply tell families something about how the school thinks and works. In my work at EduSight, where we help schools and universities rethink their digital engagement, the institutions adapting fastest are those treating their online presence not as a marketing add-on, but as an extension of the admissions experience, meeting families on WhatsApp, chat and social media, not just behind an enquiry form.
The welcome that matters
None of this replaces the real work of schools. Relationships, teaching, belonging, and community are, of course, at the heart of education. But in a world where first impressions are increasingly formed online, schools need to see their digital presence as an extension of those same values.
The first school tour may now happen on a screen. The question for school leaders is simple: what kind of welcome does that tour provide?
Kushal Kundanmal is CEO of EduSight, a platform that uses AI to help schools and universities build student recruitment and engagement.
FEATURE IMAGE: by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash
Support Image:  by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
