Families show up to the open house with a shortlist.
Find out whether AI helped write it.
Parents used to build a list from friends, a school fair and a few websites. Now a parent can simply ask ChatGPT or Gemini for the best private elementary schools nearby, or which ones have real financial aid. The answer names a few schools and describes them in a sentence. MentionedOn shows you whether yours is named, which schools are named instead, and what the answer says about your tuition, grades and admissions.
Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: up to 6 priority questions on paid scans. Results may be reused for up to 7 days; availability varies by question.
What are the best private elementary schools in Raleigh with financial aid?
Wren Hill Country Day School
PK through 8, established need-based aid program, bus routes
Oak Hollow Day School
small classes, extended day until 6pm
Lantern Grove Montessori
Montessori from age 3 through grade 6, sliding-scale tuition
Your result is not known yet
Run your own scan to see whether your private school is named in the completed answers.
See what AI tells your future families
Sound familiar?
What heads of school and admissions and enrollment directors at independent, faith-based and Montessori schools and preschools are seeing
The shortlist exists before the first tour
Families tell you at the open house that they are looking at three schools, and you are the one they added last. The list was made before they ever filled out your inquiry form.
Inquiries ask about things you don't offer
A parent asks about the bus route or the tuition figure they read somewhere, and neither matches your school. They got that answer from a source you never saw.
Parents quote rating sites and a big-name school
Admissions conversations keep coming back to a letter grade on a review site or the best-known school in town, even when your program fits the child better.
Learning-support families go somewhere else first
You support students with dyslexia or ADHD, but families searching for that help hear about another school with a better-known program and never call you.
The common thread: the shortlist now forms inside an AI answer, before anyone visits your site, calls, or fills in a form. Your name is either in that answer or it is not.
What you're already paying for, and where it stops
None of this is wasted. Each one does its job. None of them was built to put your name in an AI answer.
Niche and GreatSchools profiles, including paid profile upgrades
Those profiles are only as current as the last update, and the grade on them belongs to the site, not to you. AI blends them with other sources, so a stale field can outweigh your own current facts.
Open house ads and paid social
Ads fill the room for an event. By then, many families have already narrowed their list, and an AI answer is not an ad placement you can buy.
Word of mouth and parent ambassadors
Your current parents are still your best advocates. They are not in the room when a family new to the area asks an AI assistant where to start.
A website redesign and a new viewbook
Beautiful pages often keep tuition in a PDF, aid details behind an inquiry form and grades served in a photo caption. AI assistants answer from plain text they can read, so they fill the gaps from elsewhere.
Association and accreditation directory listings
They lend credibility, but most entries are a line or two. They rarely answer the practical questions parents ask about cost, schedule, transportation and support.
What a missed decision is worth
A family who never hears your name does not show up in any report. Put your own numbers in to size what that costs over the years they would have stayed.
Example numbers. Replace them with yours.
Lifetime revenue from one year of missed families
$210,000
per family per year × years they stay × missed per year
Take your net tuition revenue divided by enrolled students for the per-student figure, and use your average length of enrollment from your student information system; siblings and fees are not included, so the estimate stays conservative.
The questions parents ask AI about schools like yours
Examples written for Raleigh. We track the questions your future families ask in each market you serve. Daily priority checks on ChatGPT and Gemini, plus a weekly sweep across all four assistant families.
See the full methodology →- →What are the best private elementary schools in Raleigh?
- →Montessori or traditional preschool in Raleigh: which schools should we tour?
- →Which private schools in Raleigh offer real financial aid or tuition assistance?
- →What's the best school in Raleigh for a kid with dyslexia?
- →How much does private school tuition cost in Raleigh, and what does it include?
- →Which private schools in Raleigh have before and after care and bus transportation?
- →Is it worth switching from public to private school in Raleigh for middle school?
- →Which independent schools in Raleigh are accredited, and what do parents say about them?
What AI gets wrong about schools like yours
Things to check in the answers about you. The evidence explorer keeps the full text of every answer, so your team can read exactly what was said.
Tuition and what it includes
Check whether AI quotes last year's tuition, a single figure for all grades, or leaves out fees for lunch, trips, technology or extended day.
Grades served
Check whether AI still describes you as K to 8 after you added a preschool program or a high school, or lists grades you no longer offer.
Admissions deadlines and process
Check whether AI says your deadline has passed when you admit on a rolling basis, or leaves out the assessment or shadow day a family needs to schedule.
Tuition assistance
Check whether AI says you offer no aid, or implies aid works differently than it does. Families who think they cannot afford you never inquire.
Transportation and extended day
Check whether AI invents a bus route, misses one you run, or gets before and after care hours wrong. For working parents that detail can end the conversation.
Learning support and affiliation
Check whether AI describes your learning-support services or your religious affiliation and enrollment expectations accurately. Getting either wrong sends away families who would have been a good fit.
Your first 30 days
Steps your own team can take, in this order. Monitoring shows which of them moved the answer.
Ask the parent questions and read every answer
Run the questions above in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity for your town and the next town over. Record which schools are named, how each is described, and every statement made about yours.
Publish one plain-text admissions at a glance page
Grades served, tuition by division and what it includes, how tuition assistance works and its deadline, admissions steps and dates, transportation, before and after care hours, and learning-support services. Plain HTML text, not a PDF or an image.
Make every outside profile match
Update your Google Business Profile, Niche and GreatSchools profiles, and association directory entries so grades, tuition range and contact details agree with your site. When NCES sends the Private School Survey, make sure your answers match too.
Answer the comparison questions on your own site
Write short, honest pages for the questions parents actually ask: how your Montessori classroom differs from a traditional one, how your learning support works and where its limits are, what switching in middle school looks like.
Check again and share what changed
After two to four weeks, rerun the questions and compare with your first notes. Share any wrong facts with your admissions team so they can correct them on tours and calls.
The plan that fits most private schools
Local
$99/mo
One location, 100 tracked questions.
Most schools operate one campus, and the Local plan tracks up to 100 parent questions for it. Schools with several campuses, or a group of schools under one network or diocese, fit Growth, which covers up to five locations or brands.
A mention is not a signed family. We measure whether and how you are named in sampled AI answers, show who is named instead, and rank the fixes. We do not promise placements.
Questions heads of school and admissions and enrollment directors at independent, faith-based and Montessori schools and preschools ask us
Most of our families come through word of mouth. Does this matter for us?+
Word of mouth still starts many searches, but a parent may check what they heard by asking an AI assistant. If the answer describes a different school, or gets your tuition or grades wrong, that recommendation loses force. Families new to the area often have no word of mouth at all.
Isn't Niche or GreatSchools what parents actually look at?+
Parents still use them, and AI assistants often draw on them. That is why the plan includes making those profiles match your site. What the rating sites do not show you is what the AI answer says, which is what we record.
We're a mission-driven nonprofit. Isn't this marketing for businesses?+
The work is mostly making sure accurate information about your school is easy to find. Families are making a years-long decision; they deserve correct facts about tuition, aid and support, and so do you.
Does this involve student records or anything FERPA covers?+
No. MentionedOn only asks public questions of AI assistants and records their answers. It never connects to your student information system and never needs data about a student or family.
Can you get us named as the best school in town?+
No one can honestly promise that. We show whether and how your school is named in sampled answers, which schools are named instead, and a ranked list of fixes. A mention is not an application, and the choice stays with the family.
What if AI is saying something wrong about us right now?+
You will be able to read it. MentionedOn records the full text of every answer, so your team can see exactly what each assistant says about your school and fix the source pages that feed it.
See what AI tells parents about your school
Run a free scan in about 30 seconds. You will see whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity name your school, which schools they name instead, and the full answer text so you can check the facts yourself.
Check what AI says about us →