How we measure — and what we don’t claim.
A figure is only citable if it can be explained. Here is where every number comes from, how it is calculated and where its limits are.
The non-negotiable rules
- No names. Only aggregates are published. No school, university, owner or director can be identified. We don’t publish minimums or maximums, because an extreme value can point to a single institution.
- Median before average. A single 7,000-student school moves the average and misleads. We publish the median, quartiles (Q1 and Q3) and n; the average is included in the download for anyone who needs it.
- No figure based on fewer than 5 institutions. Not a metric, not a group.
- One row per institution. Tests, archived records and duplicates are excluded; if an institution has two Enrollment X-Rays, the most recent one counts.
- Amounts in pesos, with their currency. Institutions that charge in dollars are excluded from monetary figures (they count in everything else). Every amount carries its currency: MXN or USD.
- What directors believe is reported as belief. The reasons families didn’t enroll, or how directors rate their own marketing, are not measurements.
- It’s our sample, not the country. These are institutions that requested a diagnostic. We say so in every data point.
- Plausibility filters. Occupancy up to 150%, conversion up to 100%, tuition from $300 MXN, among others: an impossible value is discarded, not corrected.
Enrollment X-Ray series
The Enrollment X-Ray (Rayos X de Inscripciones) is a SuperLeads session with the owner or director of a private institution to put its admissions numbers in order: capacity, enrollment, leads, visits, enrollments, tuition, retention, advertising, team and tools. The director reports the data during the session; derived indicators (lifetime value, cost per student, unused capacity) are calculated with the Enrollment X-Ray model.
October 2026 edition. 110 completed Enrollment X-Rays, exported on 2026-10-29 at 18:08; 102 institutions in 69 cities remain, with sessions between 2026-03-06 and 2026-10-28.
The groups
- Primary schools (35): offer primary school and have no higher education.
- High schools (14): offer high school (preparatoria) and have no higher education. A K-12 school counts here and in primary.
- Universities and graduate schools (42): offer bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral programs.
- All (102): the full sample, including academies, online schools and others.
What each indicator means
| Indicator | Definition |
|---|---|
| Occupancy | Current enrollment ÷ reported installed capacity. |
| Enrollment | Students enrolled today. |
| Installed capacity | Students the institution can hold, according to the director. |
| Empty seats | Installed capacity − enrollment. |
| New leads per day | Families or applicants who inquire, across all channels, as reported by the director. |
| New students last cycle | New enrollments in the most recent cycle. |
| Lead-to-enrollment conversion | New students last cycle ÷ leads per year (values ≤ 100% only). |
| Close rate at the visit | Enrollments ÷ families who attended a visit, according to the director. |
| Retention | Average months a student stays, according to the director. |
| Monthly tuition | Reported average monthly tuition; peso-denominated institutions only. |
| Enrollment fee | Reported enrollment fee; peso-denominated institutions only. |
| Student lifetime value | Monthly tuition × months of retention, per the Enrollment X-Ray model. |
| Annual value of unused capacity | Empty seats × tuition × months in the school year, per the Enrollment X-Ray model. |
| Extra revenue from +1 point of conversion (per year) | Leads per year × 1% × tuition × months of retention, per the Enrollment X-Ray model. |
| Monthly advertising spend | Reported monthly spending on ads. |
| Cost per lead | Advertising spend ÷ leads. |
| Cost to acquire a student | Advertising spend ÷ new students. |
| Arrive by referral | Share of students who arrive through referrals, according to the director. |
| Arrive through ads | Share of students who arrive through ads, according to the director. |
| People in admissions and marketing | Admissions director + marketing + community manager + advisors (fractions = part-time). |
| Admissions advisors | People who handle leads. |
| Students on scholarship | Share of students on scholarship, among institutions that offer them. |
| Average scholarship | Average scholarship discount. |
| Years in operation | Age of the institution. |
| Campuses | Number of campuses. |
What was left out, and why
- Return on advertising: the formula behind the field isn’t documented; it won’t be published until it is.
- Enrollment events per year: the median is zero; it doesn’t say anything useful yet.
How often
A new edition with the accumulated data comes out every six months; the next one in April 2027. Previous editions stay published so the series can be followed over time.
The Reality of Education series
The starkest statistics on education in Mexico and Latin America, taken without embellishment from three SuperLeads market documents (July 2026). Every data point keeps its official or international source (OECD, SEP, INEGI, Coneval, UNESCO, academic and industry studies). When the source gives a range, the data point gives the range; illustrative models are labeled as such.
- P1-01 · The Reality of Public Education in Mexico: 11 data points.
- P1-02 · The Invisible Report Card: How Mexican Families Choose a School: 10 data points.
- P1-03 · Private Education in Latin America: An Analysis: 5 data points.
Corrections
If you spot an error, write to us: ricardo@superleads.mx. Corrections are published, with their date, on the data point’s own page.