When It Comes to College Counseling, St. Andrew's Strives to Help Students Find the Right Fit

Whether they are headed to Vanderbilt, NYU, Yale, Virginia, Georgetown, Emory, Smith, Davidson, Case Western, Northeastern or Rochester Institute of Technology, they are headed to a school that’s the right fit for them.

 

Michelle Serry, Director of College Counseling, said this process of finding the right fit for students begins in January of junior year when students fill out a 19-page questionnaire about their Upper School experience, family college affiliations and ideas about what they would like to do after they graduate.

 

“I want to know about all the factors that are going to contribute to how this process may pan out for these students,” Serry said. “Questionnaires are very helpful; it gets them thinking about things that are important to the college application process that they may never have had discussions about at that point.”

 

Once the college counselors receive a student’s questionnaire, they schedule a meeting with the student and their family to “talk about everything,” ranging from teacher recommendations to testing plans, Serry said.

 

Serry said she checks in with students after they visit colleges to better understand what type of school could be the best fit.

 

“I’m looking for links. I’m looking to connect the dots,” Serry said. “If he doesn’t like small, rural, Greek life, then I’m not going to suggest schools that are similar to that. But if he liked the fact that he felt like faculty knew students, I’ll think of schools that will be similar.”

 

She said she’s also paying attention to what schools make the shortlist and whether the choices set up a student for success.

 

Some graduating seniors said they knew their college choice was the right fit because it felt like St. Andrew’s. Caroline Robertson `17 said she was drawn to Smith College for the same reasons she decided to attend St. Andrew’s.

 

“It has that feeling of encouraging you to not just find your passion, but stick with it and follow through with it,” Robertson said. “They encourage you to go after your goals, not just define them.”

 

WIlliam Yeo `17 said he chose to attend Davidson College because it’s St. Andrew’s “on a larger scale.” He valued his close relationships with teachers here and is looking forward to similar, individualized learning experiences at Davidson.

 

“You never really feel like you’re in a course (that was too challenging) because you have the teacher there to help you, especially in AP classes,” Yeo said. “You feel challenged at home, but when you come back to school you don’t feel that extreme (stress) level, which is really good.”

 

Justin Harmon `17 is headed to Michigan State to pursue his passions for performing arts and zoology. He said he was not confident he would get into Michigan’s zoology program, but he credits Serry with raising his spirits.

 

“Ms. Serry encouraged me and told me how much the school loved me when they came to visit,” Harmon said. “She helped me a lot on my decision to Michigan State.”

 

May Wallace `17 will attend Santa Clara University and said conversations with Serry, which included discussing pros and cons of her top two schools and connecting with an alumnae at Santa Clara, helped her make her final college decision.

 

“Overall, I liked how supportive they were and how they let us spill out all our emotions, because this process was more than stressful,” Wallace said. “We knew we could talk to them whenever, and having that opportunity to talk about all this stuff with them knowing what we were going through really reduced some of that stress.”

 

“Ultimately this is their process,” Serry said. “I don’t ever want them to walk around having regrets, saying ‘I should have tried for ‘X’ selective school.’ At the same time, I don’t want to set them up for failure, where they have to go to ‘X’ school because it’s the only school they got into. I’m always making sure there is balance in the list of schools they’re still considering.”