For freshmen and sophomores, the College Counseling Office hallway is usually just an alternate way to get to their science classrooms from the Commons. However, for juniors and seniors, the office is a frequent destination as they prepare for and take on the college application process.
The College Counseling team believes the winter of junior year is when students are developmentally ready to begin the college search process, College Counseling Co-Director Sharonda Dailey Thompson said. To formally start the process of applying to college, the team hosts their annual kickoff event at the Upper School for juniors and their families at the end of January. This year, it happened on Jan. 25.
“The kickoff is, for many students, their first real exposure to the college process,” she said. “Our hope is to ‘kick it off,’ meaning we want everyone to start the process and feel like they have the same sort of base level of knowledge to work from.”
Staffed by four counselors and an office manager, the College Counseling Department aims to support students at the school as they navigate their future plans.
“Our goal is to offer student-centered support with the college search and application process,” Ms. Dailey Thompson said. “That means that the student’s goals, interests, needs, and wants are prioritized.”
Instead of talking about rankings, the counselors focus on finding the right fit and community for a student.
“We work really hard to try to broaden students’ awareness of what’s out there,” she said. “Fit, match, and student-centered, I would say, are three keywords for our process.”
The kickoff began with a panel of admissions officers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Colby College, Case Western Reserve University, and Washington University in Louis. A fifth representative from University of California Los Angeles who was scheduled to participate was sick and unable to attend.
“We open with a panel of college admission officers who come to shine a light and answer questions that many families have in regards to how they view applications, what they see as trends in the admission world, what they’re hoping to see from applicants.”
On top of answering questions, the panel also helps bolster confidence in the College Counseling team, Ms. Dailey Thompson said.
“The counselors can talk all day, but hearing from the actual people who will read applications if you were to apply to their institution can be really meaningful and make sure that you know they support what we say.”
The College Counseling Office aimed to include voices from many types of schools, she said.
“Every institution is so different, and we really think it’s important to have different types of institutions represented on that stage, so you get to hear from a small liberal arts college, a large research university, a school on the East Coast, a school on the West Coast, something in the Midwest.”
After the panel, the families separated into smaller groups to examine case studies of “Gerry Nichols” and “Jeanie Buckingham,” pseudonyms for two former students, whose profiles were slightly updated to reflect the current college process.
Led by an admissions officer, each group discussed the two students’ transcripts, which included their grades, recommendations, and extracurriculars. Groups were given historical acceptance rate data and a marking from the students’ college counselors on whether a school was “highly unlikely,” “unlikely,” “possible,” or “likely” and were encouraged to predict the final admissions outcome for each school and student.
The counselors redesigned the case study two years ago to better reflect the entire application process, not just the results, Ms. Dailey Thompson said.
“Usually, with a case study, you just look at an application and make an admission decision based on what you see. But this case study focuses on really analyzing the college list and thinking about the balance of a college list and the workload that’s involved with applying to colleges.”
Families ended the event with a panel of six held students: Andreu Beltran, Naomi Hammerschlag, Olivia Lee, Lila Sullivan, Aleeza Riaz, and Wyatt Welu (all ’25). The current seniors talked about their experience applying to college, sharing how and why they made decisions throughout their process.
Lorenzo Blackston ’26 said the event was informative and educated him about what to expect in the application process.
“I think this was an amazing event. It definitely gave me a lot of insights about what the college process is going to look like, especially with having someone that is a college admissions officer.”
The event was well-timed, Lorenzo said.
“I think it’s a good time for people to start. If you started in, let’s say, September, I feel like I’d be really stressed out. Junior year is already a stressful year for everyone. If you’re already starting the college said process then, I feel like I’d be overwhelmed, but in com January, you’re halfway through the year and more adjusted and comfortable with junior year.”
Annie Zhu ’26 said she wished there was more time to engage with the panelists.
“If I were to change one thing, I would give the students a designated time to go up to admission officers and ask questions.”
She wished she had access to a college counselor while selecting courses for junior year, she said.
“Since I think junior courses are a big part of how no your college process is going to turn out, if you could ofc have had guidance about what courses to take, what APs, what honors, it would have helped a lot more this junior year and in preparation for colleges.”
Although Wyatt changed his major halfway through his college process, he felt supported by College Counseling Co-Director Julia Kobus, his som counselor, he said.
“I initially wanted to do mechanical engineering, said and I shifted to physics. She really helped guide me through that.”
Wyatt said he appreciated Ms. Kobus helping him stay organized over the large workload of applications.
“When they say, ‘It’s your process, we’re just here to help and guide it,’ they really do mean it. It can be really stressful with all the sheer amount of stuff you have to do, but it’s been really easy because they just structure it perfectly.”
