Your school is already listed here. Take it over.

Why your school is already here

Polish Perfect has a directory of nail schools for every city in the country, next to our directories of salons and supply stores. A directory with missing schools doesn't help a student who's searching. So your school gets a page even if you've never heard of us. The page has the basics a student needs to find your door: your name, street address, phone number, and often your hours.

The catch is that the basics are all it has, and nobody is keeping them right. Say your admissions line changed last spring. The page still shows the old one. Say you moved to a bigger campus across town. The map pin didn't move with you.

An unclaimed page can send students to a dead number for years. You'd never know, because those calls never reach you.

Claiming is how you take that page over. It's free. The only thing we check is that you can answer your own school's phone.

What claiming changes on the page

Three things change the moment your claim goes through. Your listing gets a Claimed badge that visitors can see. Everything on it becomes yours to edit, and whatever you type stays put. And your school moves up a group. On the city page and the program pages, claimed schools are listed above unclaimed ones before anything else is counted.

That's why claiming matters more than anything else you can do for your listing. A school with one photo and a Claimed badge sits above an unclaimed school with everything filled in, in the same city, on the same day. The rankings guide walks you through the whole order. The short version: claiming is the only step that moves you up a whole group.

How the claim works: a search and a phone call

The claim rests on one thing only your school can prove: you can pick up its phone. You don't upload documents, take a photo of a license, or mail anything. Here are the steps, start to finish. Want to see each screen first? Walk through the claim step by step.

1. 01Sign in or create a free account. You have to be signed in to search, so every claim is tied to a real account. If you start from this page, the search brings you right back after you sign in.
2. 02Type your school's name. Results show up as you type. Each one is labeled by type, so you can tell a school from a salon with the same name. If the name is common, pick your state to shorten the list. A school someone has already claimed shows Claimed instead of a button.
3. 03Pick your school and check the preview. It shows the name, the address, and the last four digits of the phone number we have. That's the number we'll call. If it isn't your school's line, stop here and read the next section.
4. 04Press Submit Claim. Within a few seconds, an automated call rings the school's number and reads out a six-digit code. Nobody from our team is on the line.
5. 05Type in the code. It's good for 10 minutes, and you get five tries. Missed the call? Wait 30 seconds and press Call again. It reads a new code to the same number.
6. 06You're verified on the spot. The right code approves your claim right away. Your listing now shows Claimed, your account becomes an owner account, and a Go to Dashboard button takes you to your listing.

The code always goes to the number on the listing. It never goes to a number you type in. That's what makes it hard for anyone else to claim your school. A stranger would have to answer your front desk phone.

It also means the number we have has to be right. The next section covers what to do when it isn't.

If the call can't go through

Some listings have no phone number at all. Some have a number that no longer rings. Some have a line that can't take an automated call, like one that goes straight to a menu. Your claim doesn't fail in any of these cases. It stays open, and a person on our team looks at it.

• No number on the listing. Your claim goes straight to our team for review. You'll see a note saying so, and a button to your dashboard.
• We can't reach the number. Same thing. Your claim is saved and waits for a person to look at it.
• The number is wrong. The call would go to whoever has that number, and that isn't you. Don't submit the claim. Email the correct number to support@polishperfect.co with your school's name and city, and our team will review it.

A person does the review by hand, so it takes longer than the three minutes above. You can keep using your account while you wait. If you leave partway through a claim, it picks up where you left off when you come back.

You can only have one claim waiting at a time. So finish the first one before you claim a second campus.

What you can edit once it's yours

Your dashboard opens on an overview of your listing. From there, you can change every part of your public page. Here's what you can set. It covers the questions a student asks before they call.

• The basics: name, phone, website, address, and a description in your own words.
• Hours for each day of the week, with your time zone, so Open now is right.
• Programs. Pick from a list of 10: nail technician, cosmetology, esthetics, barbering, makeup artist, permanent makeup, lash extensions, instructor training, salon management, and continuing education. For each one, add the clock hours, length, tuition, and kit cost. Tuition shows in large type on the program card, with the kit cost under it.
• Accreditations and approvals: NACCAS accredited, state approved, financial aid eligible, GI Bill accepted, Pell Grant eligible. Up to two show as badges under your school's name. All of them show in their own section.
• Outcomes: your state board pass rate, job placement rate, and graduation rate, as percentages. They show in the quick facts at the top of your page and in a Student Outcomes section.
• Up to three specialties. For example: a student salon on site, evening and weekend classes, small class sizes, kit included, job placement services, career counseling, or financial aid available.
• Photos. Upload your own, choose the one that goes first, and decide which of the photos already there stay. A photo you don't approve is never shown.

Most of these also count toward how complete your listing is. Among claimed schools, that's the biggest thing that decides the order. Programs with tuition count the most, then accreditations and photos. The rankings guide has the full order. Once the page is yours, you can show it on your school's website. How to add your verified badge.

What only a claimed school can do

Editing your page is the part you'd expect. Your dashboard does more than that.

• See who's looking. Your overview shows views this week and in total, and how many of them were nail techs. It shows where you rank in your city. It also shows how many people tapped your phone number, asked for directions, or opened your website.
• Post an open house. It can be an open house, a free workshop, a tuition discount, or an enrollment special, and it stays up seven days. It goes in the feed for techs and salon owners near you, on the public school deals page for your city, and on your listing. How the feed works for schools.
• Post a referral reward. Choose a student referral with a reward from $100 to $500 or your own number, an instructor referral, or a salon partnership. It stays up 60 days.
• Post a job. Instructor, admissions, or front desk. You pick salary or hourly and the programs the job covers. It stays up 30 days, and applications come to your dashboard inbox.
• Turn on Featured. Your school sits at the top of your city page, above the list, from the day you turn it on. Boost starts at $5, and every claimed school starts with free credit toward it.

If your school isn't listed yet

A new school, or one we missed, won't come up in the search. Add it yourself. The search page has a link for that, or go straight to add your school. The form asks for the same basics a claimed listing has. A few things work differently from a claim.

• We check for a match first. If a school with the same phone and address is already listed, we send you to claim that one, so you don't end up with two pages.
• The code comes by text to the number you enter, because we don't have a number for your school yet.
• The listing is yours right away. It goes public after we do a quick check that the school is real. You can keep editing while you wait. The day it goes live, it's listed with the claimed schools.

The first ten weeks

A newly claimed school gets a lift in the order. It fades a little each week and is gone after about 10 weeks. The lift is there so students see your school while you fill in your listing. Claiming alone doesn't hold your place. So use those weeks.

1. 01The day you claim: fix anything that's wrong. Phone, address, hours. When these are off, you lose students.
2. 02The first week: add your programs with tuition, your accreditations, your pass rate, and two or more photos of the school. These count the most toward a complete listing, and tuition is what a student compares.
3. 03The first month: write a real description and pick your specialties. Then post your next open house.
4. 04Every month after: change something. A complete listing that nobody touches slowly loses ground to one that's kept up to date.

Do that and it won't matter when the lift fades. By week 10, your listing holds its place on its own. Find your school and start.