Out from the Crowd

Director of Studies Doug MacLeod taped five college transcripts on one side of a meeting room. On the other side, he listed the names of five high-achieving Pomfret seniors. He asked a group of veteran faculty to match the transcripts with their owners. “They couldn’t do it,” MacLeod said. “The classes and grades were the same. It was impossible to tell them apart.”

The Pomfret faculty are not alone. College admission officers are having a hard time telling one top-tier candidate from the next, with more than 60 percent of the grades reported to colleges last year being As. To help give our students the edge, Pomfret recently partnered with the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC) — a national nonprofit specializing in measuring student growth and achievement — to adopt an official supplement to the traditional college transcript, the MTC Learning Record.

12 POMFRET SPRING 2023 readers a clearer, more holistic snapshot of a student’s unique strengths, interests, passions, skills, and capabilities. The learning record will be a cumulative self-assessment curated by the student, drawing on the totality of their Pomfret Experience.

“The MTC Learning Record does not replace a traditional high school transcript,” says Dean of Enrollment Management Susan Mantilla-Goin. “It’s just one more resource that college admissions officers can use to gauge student achievement.”

Meet and Greet

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont took time out of his busy schedule for a meet and greet with the US Government Elections and Campaigns class. Lamont, who was in the final days of his first re-election campaign, spoke with the class about the importance of voting and serving in their local government or in the military. He also encouraged them to consider returning to Connecticut after graduating from college to take advantage of the thriving job market.