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The Hotchkiss School

Silverpoint is as thrilled to be working with The Hotchkiss School in 2011 as we were when they first hired us in 2004. Hotchkiss is simply an amazing place – beautiful, energetic, ambitious, complicated – and Silverpoint has been challenged ever since to continue to meet their needs, and always proud of the fact that year after year we do.

• Data Integration
• Online Decisions
• Campus Tour
• Volunteer Center

The general rule of thumb when it comes to look and feel is that a design can hold up for three or four years. But for Hotchkiss, with only one modest design enhancement in 2009, their design still holds up even after seven years, which makes their initial investment more valuable and reinforces the vision of Silverpoint designers.

Integration is the name of the game now, but it was also the name of the game then between Silverpoint and Hotchkiss. Their open-source SIS called Minerva is one-of-a-kind, but Silverpoint’s talented developers were able to connect to it in 2005 using what few people even knew as web services, pulling parent data in real time, and populating their database with inquiries automatically for review so that with one click, the data could be pulled into their system of record. This system still works well and the School is continuing to build on a fully integrated system. Right now, students and parents can get their transcript, advisor and dorm letters, grades and comments all via the website, which pulls information from Minvera and displays it.

Speaking of integration, users of the Hotchkiss site also don’t have to worry about additional logins for ancillary third-party services like HIT and Pick-a-Time. These kinds of Single Sign-On implementations make the difference for parents who have high expectations for service and what the School should be providing.

On the admissions side, Silverpoint has implemented online decisions for 5 years running. Hundreds of applicants login on March 10 to find out their decision, which gets served from Silverpoint’s servers and has tailored content and a letter for every applicant, as well as information about re-visit days and next steps for those who have been accepted. This has been a huge success.

On the development side, a vibrant alumni community has always been a big feature of the Hotchkiss website, but the volunteer system Silverpoint built and implemented is also really impressive, allowing a class agent to login and view gift histories of those classmates they are being asked to solicit. These kinds of simple utilities make all the difference.