Admission season runs from January to March for most of the international schools Femi works with — and during that window, he's typically juggling a dozen active families at once, each with their own deadlines, document quirks, and (understandably) anxious questions. We asked him how he keeps it all from falling apart.
"The chaos isn't the applications. It's the tracking."
"Every family thinks their situation is uniquely complicated — and honestly, in small ways, it always is. Different school, different required documents, different deadline. The applications themselves aren't hard. What's hard is not losing track of which family needs what, by when."
A typical Tuesday during peak season
- 7:00am — Check overnight messages from families in different time zones
- 9:00am — Submit a completed application packet for one family, mark the milestone for review
- 11:00am — Follow up with a school registrar about a missing transcript for another family
- 1:00pm — Video call with a new client explaining the document checklist for their target schools
- 3:00pm — Chase down a notarized translation that's a day from its deadline
- 5:00pm — Update milestone statuses for three families so parents can see exactly where things stand
The one rule that saves him every season
"I never accept a client during peak season without giving them a written timeline first — every deadline, every document, every step, before we start. It sounds like extra work up front, but it's the single thing that prevents chaos in February. Families that know what's coming don't panic when it comes."
Use milestone descriptions generously. A client who can see "transcript submitted, awaiting school confirmation" worries far less than one staring at a vague "in progress" status.
By April, Femi's inbox finally quiets down — until the next intake cycle starts the planning all over again. For the families he's helped get their kids into a new school in a new country, the chaos behind the scenes was invisible. Which, he says, is exactly the point.