College Placement by Design

Fred White, Santa Catalina’s director of college counseling, sits on a large, U-shaped sofa in the College Counseling Resource Center. On this crisp spring morning, he has the room to himself, but soon a junior will join him for a one-on-one meeting. In a normal, non-pandemic year, students would also be sitting where he is now, listening to one of roughly 100 college representatives who visit campus throughout the year. Colorful college pennants and posters cover every inch of available wall space, and student doodles dot a pair of whiteboards. Outside the office, a bulletin board is smothered in paper stars on which students have written the names of their college acceptances: Princeton, Rhode Island School of Design, Wellesley, UCLA.

Fred is discussing Catalina’s college counseling program, a sophisticated system built on communication and care. The program’s stated philosophy: “We want each graduate to go on to achieve great personal and professional success, and that begins with making the best college choice—her ‘best fit’ financially, academically, and personally.”

College counseling at Catalina goes hand-in-hand with Journey, our four-year advising program. Students first encounter the college admissions process as freshmen when they are introduced to the POINTS Portfolio in Journey. (POINTS stands for Personal Objectives in Navigating Toward Success.) Over the next four years, students use this tool to map out and reflect on their journey to college and beyond. They record their academic plans, save important self-reflections, log their activities and achievements, and archive examples of their best work. A well-developed POINTS Portfolio keeps students organized and focused as they begin the college search.

As sophomores, students are encouraged to take advantage of opportunities to familiarize themselves with colleges and career paths. Typically, they take part in a college tour during Journey Day, a full day of activities that also includes a college and career panel for juniors and seniors featuring Catalina alumnae. This year, sophomores visited Santa Clara University and UC Santa Cruz to compare a small, private university with a large, public one. Catalina has also offered college tours in Southern California.

We want all of our students to be ambitious and aim high, but we also want to be really confident that they’re going to be happily situated in college.

Each fall, all Upper School students, but especially juniors, are encouraged to attend sessions with college representatives. In the spring semester of junior year through the fall semester of senior year, college counseling kicks into high gear. Through one-on-one meetings and Journey classes, Fred helps students shape their college lists, finesse their essays, gather teacher recommendations, schedule test prep, meet deadlines, and understand the nature of the college admissions landscape. Senior advisors provide an extra layer of support to ensure that the process is as worry-free as possible.

From their first one-on-one meeting with Fred, students zero in on what “best fit” means for them. The first factor in that decision is financial. “It is absolutely essential that parents have a frank discussion about family finances, and what they are and are not willing to do for their daughter, before she sits down with me for the first time to start building her college list,” he advises. The next factor is academic fit based on GPAs and test scores. Fred’s goal is for each student to have an even mix of reach, target, and likely schools on her college list, determined by data. “Reach” schools are those for which admission is a long shot but still achievable if the student is a strong fit for the college; “target” schools are ones at which students’ GPAs and test scores are in the middle 50 percent of the most recent class admitted; and “likely” schools are ones where a rejection would be quite surprising. Finally, the third factor in fit is personal. Fred works with students to get a sense of what kind of college experience they are looking for: large or small school, urban or rural environment, Division I sports or vibrant arts scene, and so on.

Taking in all of this information, he draws up an initial list of 20 to 30 colleges for students to consider. As he continues to meet with the students through the fall of senior year, he helps them winnow their list down to 8 to 12 applications. “We want all of our students to be ambitious and aim high, but we also want to be really confident that they’re going to be happily situated in college,” he says. He offers one caveat: “Even if a school is a tremendous fit in every respect, students are still going to have to make the right choices once there to make the most of it.”

There are many aspects of the job that Fred enjoys, but he particularly loves that it plays to his natural strengths as a writer. That talent proves useful as he works with students on their college essays and personal statements, often guiding them through several drafts. And it is especially beneficial when he sits down to craft that “all-important college counselor letter” in which he hopes to shape a “very vivid, three-dimensional, and highly complimentary portrait of each student” for college admissions officers. To accomplish this, he sends out questionnaires, solicits peer recommendations, and draws on his own personal knowledge of the students. “I conceive of my primary job as this: to get colleges to fall in love with our applicants, each and every one of them.” With assistance from Registrar Julia Dubiel, Fred also writes a weekly newsletter for parents and students full of reminders, upcoming events, scholarship opportunities, enrichment experiences, and news from the wider college landscape. The newsletter is central to his efforts to communicate clearly and often with parents and to demystify the application process. He also hosts events on campus to give families an overview of college admissions and how to navigate financial aid. This year, Fred partnered with other local private schools to establish a Monterey edition of Bay Area Case Studies, a popular event designed to help students and parents understand the application process from the admission officer’s perspective. Santa Catalina hosted the inaugural Monterey event, which drew nearly 40 colleges and universities, in April.

“We do a very good job of making sure that all of our parents and students feel beyond fully informed about what college admissions is like these days,” Fred says. “Information is power, and the more that every aspect of the admissions process can be made transparent, the more you will be able to relax.”

Student Success Story

“Applying to college, especially international programs, seemed like a big feat to overcome, but I was instantly reassured once I met with Mr. White. He was very flexible in recommending schools specially catered to what interested me and was very helpful when I applied to a relatively new bachelor's program at the French school École Polytechnique. I'm so thankful for the guidance." — Alix Detrait ’22