OPINION: Trust Catlin’s college process
By Lewis Anderson ’24
Photo by Derek King of Lewis discussing admissions offers with College Counselor Joanna Frady.
To many students, the college application process may seem overwhelming, but the college counseling office did an amazing job helping me navigate it.
The college counseling process is led by college counselors Blythe Butler and Joanna Frady, both of whom have previously worked as college admissions officers.
The college counseling office provided a very useful framework and support throughout the process. They organized many events and information sessions, with the most impactful listed below, giving out information at the proper time to use it, rather than an overwhelming info dump you don't know what to do with.
Here are the events or workshops that the college counseling office organizes that were the most impactful on me:
The college counseling process starts in the first semester of junior year. The first activity I remember from college counseling was a visit to Oregon State University. This visit was similar to normal college visits, allowing me to better understand what a college visit is like, and how to prepare.
Around 20 colleges visited campus, setting up in the library for an anonymous college fair. This event gave me some much-needed practice judging colleges and asking questions while not just thinking about the school's reputation before the admissions officers revealed what colleges they represented.
In late December, college counseling released a forty-nine-question long survey for each junior to fill out, telling the counselors the factors that every student was considering. At the same time, students were encouraged to look through MaiaLearning and find a few colleges to add to their “considering” list that interested them.
I found Maia Learning to be a helpful platform that allows you to search for colleges, get a basic overview, jot down notes about each school that counselors can see, and look at my admissions chances.
Then, the college counselors looked over our survey responses and the criteria for colleges we were considering and added schools to our list that they thought would be based on our survey responses. We then researched them, forming our opinions on which ones we liked and how well they fit our criteria.
This was especially helpful to me as some of these suggestions were colleges I had never heard of before, and are now among my top choices as I am choosing which offer of admission to accept.
Everyone had at least two meetings with the college counselors, an individual one, and a family meeting. These meetings were extremely helpful. I used mine to talk about how I was feeling about each school, what I was looking for, and my plans for Spring Break.
We were encouraged to visit our top schools over Spring Break, something that I would highly recommend, as it is hard to understand the feeling of a school by looking online. Of the four schools I visited, two moved up on my list, and the other two fell to the bottom. In particular, I would suggest attending as many college classes as you can, that was how I learned the most about the school culture and made those choices.
Throughout the second semester of junior year and the first semester of senior year, we had PODS, a time to work on and discuss information about colleges. This included specific criteria to compare, good questions on college tours, how to ask for a letter of recommendation from teachers, and how to write a resume helpful both when writing our activity lists and as another data point for the counselors to write recommendations based on.
After that, the college counseling office hosted Case Studies followed by a college fair, where we looked over applications with admissions officers to understand how colleges read and judge applications, along with giving us a sense of what a finalized Common Application (Common App) looks like. Afterward, about 40 or 50 schools set up tables, where we could talk to admissions officers.
This was one of the most helpful exercises for me, being able to see what a good essay and transcript looked like. Then being able to ask college admissions officers from all of the schools I was interested in about which applicants would have been accepted at their school was extremely helpful for me.
In the last week of Junior year, we started working on our admissions essays. We were invited to participate in optional workshops with William Ouellette, the former counselor who retired at the end of last year, and Butler to discuss and read our essays as we drafted them.
While these workshops were optional, it would have been a mistake not to attend, as it was an opportunity to get feedback on our essay ideas or drafts from people who have read thousands of these essays, and know what makes a good one.
Frady and Upper School English Teacher, Maureen Reed, helped me read and revise, not only my Common App essay but also all of my supplemental essays.
College counseling coordinated all of the letters of recommendation and submitted transcripts. In addition, the college counselors wrote a letter of recommendation based on the written reports we had gotten from teachers and our interactions with them.
Throughout the college application process, I felt really supported by the college counseling office. Even when Ouellette retired and Frady took over, it did not disrupt the process. Both Ouellette and Frady were always available to talk, even if it was just about a trivial idea or worry.
I also liked the way that the college counseling stressed to parents that their role is to support and that they should help when asked, but otherwise, they should let students drive the process. That reminder reduced my and my parents’ stress, as college counseling was guiding the process, which meant that my parents did not feel the need to be constantly checking in on how the process was going.
The first of the two main suggestions I would give to students based on my experience going through the college counseling process is to follow the instructions of the college counseling office, and everything will end up where it should be. The process is broken down into manageable steps, and as long as you complete each one at the right time, it works well.
The second is not to underestimate the amount of supplemental essays you must write. Most schools will tell you to write a supplemental essay. I spent far longer working on my supplemental essays than on my main essay, the opposite of what I had been expecting.
You should do as many of your essays as you can over the summer, as senior year is hard enough without trying to write them simultaneously.
“My experience was pretty good,” said senior Olivia Morrison, “I went into it feeling very overwhelmed about all the stuff I didn’t know, and all my different options, and through PODS and all the college fairs that they gave us I came away with a better sense of what I wanted and felt a little less overwhelmed with all of it.”
Upper School Registrar, Kimberly Herbst, who has had two seniors go through the college process, said the message she got from college counseling was “if your child comes to you and says ‘hey I need help with this’, absolutely jump in and help, but otherwise trust that they will manage the process on their own.”
“The first time, … it was a little bit scary to trust that process but having gone through it with [my first child], I realized that oh, college counseling is on top of it, they absolutely do have it and my kid will be well cared for, so the second time I was much more at ease,” said Herbst.
Herbst’s advice to students and parents of seniors and juniors was to “trust the process.”
Butler's main advice to students is: “If you invest in the process, it's going to be okay. If you want to go to college, you will go to college.”
The college counseling process is like a guided rafting trip, as long as you stay in the boat and work when and how you are supposed to, you will end up where you want to go.