Head of Admissions, Alpha - $250,000/year USD (Palo Alto)
\Alpha School students, on average, experience 2.4 to 2.6 times the academic growth of traditional school students\ — Forbes Alpha is hiring. In the Bay Area, the strongest admissions people don't sell. They manage a waitlist, staff a committee, and protect a reputation built long before they arrived. This job is the reverse. In your market, almost no family has heard of us yet. You go find them. Alpha is a K-12 private school built on a claim we can prove: students complete core academics in two hours a day, learn faster than national benchmarks, and spend their afternoons on real skills rather than busywork. Bay Area parents are the hardest audience for that claim and the best one. Founders, engineers, physicians, and investors will not accept a warm tour and a mission statement. They will ask for the data, push on the trade-offs, and compare us to Nueva, Castilleja, Harker, Marin Country Day, and Branson in the same breath. Welcome that conversation. Be clear about what this is. It is a sales job with a mandate for selectivity. You generate your own demand: preschool and feeder-school relationships, community partnerships, local events, and referrals from families you have already earned. You carry a growth number. You also tell a family \no\ when the model is wrong for their child, in a market where saying \no\ to a well-connected parent carries consequences. Both halves are the job. One misaligned family in a small cohort costs more than an empty seat. Year one, you are the founding local face of a campus with a fledgling local brand, and most of your week happens outside the building. As the campus fills, the work changes. You stop chasing first conversations and become the leader parents ask for by name, with support under you and a playbook other campuses copy. What You Will Be Doing Building your own qualified family pipeline through preschool and feeder-school relationships, community partnerships, referrals, and local events. Owning every stage yourself: first inquiry, needs-assessment conversation, campus tour, student shadow day, enrollment decision, and onboarding. Leading tours, open houses, and information sessions where you defend an AI-powered learning model to analytical, skeptical parents. Holding 7 or more active family relationships at different stages, each with a tracked status and next action in HubSpot and our SIS (student information system). Reporting weekly on pipeline health and conversion quality, and rewriting the local admissions playbook, FAQs, and SOPs as you learn what works in your market. What You Won't Be Doing Sorting a waitlist. There is no inherited demand here. Routing decisions through an admissions committee or layered approvals. Working a script or a quota-first call list. Handing a family off between four coordinators, an events team, and a front desk. Managing a large team or spending your week in internal meetings. Head Of Admissions Key Responsibilities Grow enrollment at one Bay Area campus with families who will thrive in the Alpha model. Basic Requirements 3 years in premium client-facing roles where an individual or family was the buyer at $25K per client or $2K per month. You can name the employer and price point; business-to-business or enterprise sales alone do not qualify. Personal ownership of an end-to-end client, admissions, or enrollment journey: application, needs assessment, offer, decision, and onboarding. What you did, not what your team did. A measurable growth or customer-acquisition number you owned, including how you generated leads and built local partnerships to hit it. 7 or more concurrent client or family relationships at different stages, tracked in a named CRM or database. A concrete example of recommending against your own product because it was not the right fit. Hands-on use of AI tools in a client-facing workflow, such as meeting preparation, personalized outreach, conversation summaries, or follow-up. Experience personally leading in-person tours, presentations, meetings, or hosted experiences for high-net-worth clients, senior executives, or similarly demanding audiences. Strong written and verbal communication with executive presence: you can uncover needs, explain complex concepts simply, handle objections, and lead high-stakes decision conversations. Experience managing thoughtful, multi-touch client relationships over several weeks, including staying engaged with prospects who do not immediately commit. You live in or will relocate within 60 days to Palo Alto, CA, or San Rafael, CA (Marin County). This role is fully on-site, not hybrid. Authorized to work in the United States without visa sponsorship. Nice-to-have Requirements An existing network among Peninsula or Marin families, with relationships at local private preschools or feeder schools. Admissions or enrollment experience at a selective independent K-12 school, or a program with more applicants than seats. Background in luxury hospitality, private client services, concierge medicine, private wealth, membership clubs, or high-end residential real estate. About Alpha Join the team building school around student growth Alpha reimagines the school day around faster learning, stronger mentorship, and more time for students to build real-world skills. Education work that pays like it matters Alpha offers six-figure roles for people ready to help build a radically better school experience. A culture built for builders Alpha is fast-moving, ambitious, and student focused. It’s for people who want to improve the system, not maintain it. Alpha is where you can do the most meaningful work of your career. There is so much to cover for this exciting role, and space here is limited. We look forward to meeting you! Working with us This is a full-time, W2 employee position with immediate access to benefits (https://support.crossover.com/article/7581-w2-benefits-u-s-paychex-paid-only). All roles are year-long positions. The compensation level for this role is $250,000 USD/year. The payment period is weekly. Consult www.crossover.com/help-and-faqs for more details on this topic. Crossover Job Code: LJ-5811-US-PaloAlto-HeadofAdmissio.009 J-18808-Ljbffr
