Where Today’s Scholars Meet Tomorrow’s Challenges

College Counseling

Where Today’s Scholars Meet Tomorrow’s Challenges

Westminster’s students take advantage of the many opportunities to pursue excellence that we provide for them while they are here on the Hill, from demanding classes to top-tier athletic competition. As a result, they routinely head off to the nation’s best colleges and universities with all of the knowledge, skills and habits of mind they need to achieve great things.

WESTMINSTER COLLEGE COUNSELING | 43

44 | WESTMINSTER COLLEGE COUNSELING

Tomorrow’s Leaders

Our graduates are at an advantage in everything they do because they have an internalized spirit of grit and grace. Because grit and grace have come to characterize the way they live their lives, they tend to make a nearly seamless transition to colleges and universities, where they excel academically and where they also become prominent members of their communities. A large number of Westminster graduates, for example, captain their college teams or serve as elected-student leaders, newspaper editors and heads of various clubs and organizations. Because they have absorbed the lessons of the past and prepared themselves for the changes of the future, they have become young adults ready to make their marks on the world. Our alumni frequently cite grit and grace as the unique character traits that have enabled them to move into rewarding careers, to feel confident in their ability to overcome life’s inevitable adversities and to understand and embrace their responsibility for contributing to the greater good in whatever ways they can.

m “I suspect that in every Westminster teacher there is a corner that will forever be a student, and that empathy— fundamental to the success of any collective effort—will always push us to share with them the drive for mastery and individual success, to hunger for the support of teammates and peers, to comfort their anxiety about the future and to offer the strong spirit and steady hands needed for the occasional foothold necessary on the climb to adulthood.”

charlie griffith

history teacher, soccer and hockey coach

WESTMINSTER COLLEGE COUNSELING | 45

The College Counseling Program

As one of America’s leading college preparatory schools, Westminster takes the challenge and the responsibility of college counseling very seriously. A team of experienced professionals facilitates Westminster’s college counseling program in the Cromwell College Counseling Center. Like most programs at Westminster, this one, too, succeeds because of close personal relationships, relationships between students and their college counselors and between counselors and parents. College itself is the ultimate opportunity, so we want to make sure that our students have every resource possible at their hands.

The mission of the college counseling office is to help students find a home in college that will be every bit as important and inspirational to them as their home at Westminster is. In order to assist students in finding matches for their abilities and their aspirations, college counselors work closely with them and their parents, as well as with their teachers, coaches and advisors. The college office provides students and parents with the latest college search technologies, as well as the many online and print resources they need to make these difficult decisions.

Over the years, Westminster has had great success in college placement. Why? First of all, Westminster’s students present themselves as bright, multi-faceted and personable candidates. Secondly, the office is staffed with knowledgeable and experienced college advising professionals who themselves have established personal relationships with admissions officers at colleges and universities across the country and who work tirelessly as advocates for our students. Finally, as a kind of secret weapon in the college search process, Westminster’s students can rely not only on themselves, their parents, and their college counselors, but also on the rest of the Westminster community. In a community in which everyone knows everyone else so well, it is easy to find advice and support.

Personal attention throughout the college search process, close relationships between students and faculty in the community, and an impeccable institutional reputation, bolstered by decades of successful Westminster alumni, lead to outstanding results. In recent years, approximately 65 percent of our students gained admission to colleges and universities ranked as “Most Competitive” by Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges, and approximately 90 percent gained admission to colleges and universities ranked as “Most or Highly Competitive.”

m “Westminster students are impressive, multi-faceted candidates as a result of their liberal arts experience and balanced life. The college office helps each student develop the strongest possible choices from which to select a school that is ‘the right fit.’”

greg williams

director of college counseling, basketball coach

46 | WESTMINSTER COLLEGE COUNSELING

The College Process at Westminster

The college search process is structured to assist students in investigating future opportunities without taking away from the experiences at hand. Because of the close personal attention students get throughout this process, they feel empowered to make choices and to take charge of their own futures.

Fifth Form Year Fall and Winter Terms: Students are invited to visit the college counseling office to begin checking out the college admissions process. Fifth Form College Weekend in January offers students and parents an overview of the college admissions process, and opportunities to connect with college counselors and representatives from top colleges and universities. Spring Term: Students, along with the college counseling staff, attend a local independent-school sponsored college fair. Individual meetings between students and their counselors result in the creation of a preliminary college list by the end of the Fifth Form year. Counselors then help students and their families plan out summer visits to colleges all over the U.S. and abroad.

Summer Before Sixth Form Year Students are asked to draft their “college essays.” The school’s counselors then work closely with the rest of the faculty to provide students with a network of mentors in this process. The English Department’s team-taught senior course opens with a unit that focuses on personal and expository writing, designed in part to help students as they finalize their essays.

Sixth Form Year Fall Term: Students continue to work on their applications. Students have the opportunity to meet with some of the over 100 college representatives that visit Williams Hill annually. Winter/Spring Term: The college office assists students in compiling and submitting necessary materials for applications. Students continue to consult with counselors regarding the schools they are considering.