Known for fostering a rich learning environment and strong commitment to character and community, Pembroke Hill School’s holistic approach to education prepares students not only for college, but for a life of thoughtful leadership and impact. Located in the heart of Kansas City, a hallmark of the Pembroke Hill experience is its deep-rooted emphasis on service, where students give back through meaningful community partnerships and service-learning opportunities.

This same spirit of care and intention extends to the way Pembroke Hill engages with their families. 

“On the forefront of our minds was how we could make the process of getting a Pembroke education more accessible for families,” shared Laura Linn, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Pembroke Hill School. 

“With our previous vendor, there were multiple points of frustration for our families that put them off completing the application,” explained Linn. “They had to upload documents they didn’t necessarily have at their fingertips, there was a three to four week lag time for the file to be verified, and then, if a family went through initial review and subsequent documents were requested, the whole process would stretch out for even more weeks,” she continued.

“We wanted to create an experience that didn’t frustrate families, and that also helped them meet the deadline that we set in front of them. Then we found Clarity.”

Life-Changing Time Savings

“I would say I get at least 60% to 70% fewer questions from families now, and that saves me about 80 hours of work in the heart of the financial aid season.”

“The way the Clarity application is worded and formatted makes it easy for families to complete on their own, so I’m not having to answer questions like ‘what am I supposed to provide here?’ anymore.”

“Having those four to five hours a week back allows us to create more meaningful conversation with families. It also means that I don’t have to carry my work into the night as much as I used to because I’m able to get so much more work done during my day.”

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Awarding More Accurately

Streamlining their financial aid process not only provided time-savings for the Pembroke Hill team, it also gave them the visibility they needed to do more consistent, data-informed awarding.

“With our previous system, we were so locked into accepting the number they provided for the family contribution. We would make our own professional judgments, but we wouldn’t necessarily have the data to back it up,” explained Linn. 

“Clarity gives us confidence by allowing us to see the effects that different scenarios and considerations have in real-time. I think it has increased the accuracy of our awarding because we have full transparency, so we’re not just relying on intuition or a hunch anymore.”

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Making Budget Optimization Easier

With greater transparency, Linn and her team also gained the ability to make more strategic budget decisions.

“Clarity has certainly allowed us to track progress towards our budget in a really easy way,” explained Linn. “We can clearly see, for example, whether a certain grade is financial aid heavy and we have to scale back. Or, say we have 10 students ready for admission but we may not be able to support all of them, we’re able to make more informed calls about how to prioritize,” she continued. 

“We used to do all this work in a spreadsheet, but it’s so much easier to have it in one place where the whole committee can quickly understand what's happening, however we slice the data.”

“We’ve never had this level of focus and detail before, and it allows us to monitor all our different levers much more carefully.”

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A Trusted Partner in Financial Aid

“When you've used the same system for over 10 years and you implement something new, there's definitely some nervousness at the beginning,” Linn shared. “But working with our dedicated Client Success Manager gave us all confidence that we were using the right methodology for us.”

“It's nice to have someone who’s an expert on the system, but who’s also someone to discuss financial aid philosophy with because she’s done this work for over a decade. It really feels like having an additional colleague.” 

“Now we're excited to do our analysis and see what adjustments need to be made for next year, and we know Clarity will be there to support us at every step.”