Founded in 1972, the International School of London (London campus) was one of the first schools in the world to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma Porgramme.

Today, the school also offers the Primary Years Programme and Middle Years Programme, and is recognised for integrating mother tongue languages into its curriculum. The student body is comprised of 52 different nationalities.

Why OpenApply

ISL London followed suit implementing OpenApply starting in September 2013 after the successful implementation at ISL Qatar. Maintaining a consistent application process and a unified look and feel was important to the ISL group, and going paperless was an extremely attractive idea to Head of Admissions Yoel Gordon.

ISL London admits students throughout the year, provided there are seats available, so tracking applications and enrolment in real-time is vital. OpenApply’s analytics and the easy interface for both parents and staff were an important part of the decision. In particular, ISL London uses OpenApply to closely track enquiries and applications.

Lastly, ISL London set up direct credit card payments for application fees via OpenApply. (The system integrates with leading credit card processor Stripe.) This was a critical step for the admissions workflow, as parents must now pay the application fee in order to successfully submit an application.

Implementing OpenApply

The ISL London OpenApply account was set up within a week, applying all the school’s customised branding, as well as copying across forms already developed at ISL Qatar. After a few customised tweaks to the application forms, the school was ready to go live with the system.

The link went live on the ISL London admissions website a few weeks later, and the school started only taking online applications. Credit card payments were processed smoothly on the system, ensuring that all submitted applications had been paid for.

Today the account is used most heavily by Head of Admissions Yoel Gordon and Admissions Registrar and Parent Liaison Officer Juliette Bolon.

Benefits of OpenApply for ISL London:

• Enhanced communication between the admissions team and parents.
• More convenient method of collecting reports and documents to complete applications.
• Easier to collect application fees.
• Low risk of mistakes.
• Better appreciation from parents!

International School of London Group of Schools

International School of London Group of Schools was founded in 1972 and currently comprises three schools in London, Surrey and Qatar. Shortly after the Qatar campus implemented OpenApply, the Surrey and London campuses also moved forward.

Despite having smaller campuses and significantly different concerns – for example the Surrey campus tracks enquiries vs conversions very closely – OpenApply has similarly provided a smoother workflow for the admissions teams.

For example, both the London and Surrey campuses have setup Stripe as their payments processor to collect application fees by credit cards only, and are now able to see application payment statuses in real-time, eliminating guesswork on fee payments.