What happens when the office closes?

Choose an ordinary weekday evening. Open your institution’s website on a phone and approach it as someone who has never used it before. Start with a question, not a menu.

This exercise does not require new software. It gives your admissions, communications, and office teams a shared view of where people can continue independently and where they need help.

Try five real questions

1. How do I apply, and what will I need?
2. Can I arrange a visit or speak to someone?
3. Where can I find current costs and published aid information?
4. What happens after I submit a form?
5. Who can help with a question specific to my family or application?

For a K–12 school, add the current calendar and enrollment contact. For a college, try a program requirement and a transfer question. Use the wording people actually use when they call.

Watch the handoffs

Record each point where a person has to guess which office owns the answer. A page can be accurate and still leave its reader unsure what to do next. Look especially at transitions between the main website, department pages, PDFs, and application portals.

If you publish response times, make them reflect actual coverage. An acknowledgment that says when someone will respond is more useful than an unexplained form submission.

A review you can run this week

• Ask a colleague outside the admissions team to complete the exercise.
• Record the page that answers each question and its content owner.
• Check that the answer names the relevant year or term.
• Make sure the next step works on a phone.
• Choose the three confusing points to fix first.

Use these boxes during your review, or print the guide. Selections are not saved.

Make one person responsible for each answer

Keep a simple list: question, authoritative page, responsible office, and next review date. Start small. Ten dependable answers are a more useful first milestone than a large FAQ no one owns.