College Counseling
Looking beyond Wheeler, our expert College Counseling team works with students and their parents or guardians to evaluate, explore, select and apply to colleges that are good matches for you. Meeting every week beginning in the junior year, our counselors know each student and family and work with you to craft and support your choices.
In the College Counseling Office, our goal is to help students select and apply to colleges that are good “matches” much like the decision-making process you and your family made to come to Wheeler. For some, this match might be a large, urban institution on the West Coast, while for others it might mean a small, rural college in northern New England. Some students may even decide to take a gap year and explore a new part of the world before enrolling in college. What is key is that we work together with you, your parents/guardians and faculty to guide (rather than direct) the process of finding a college which will further develop your academic and personal growth. Moreover, we should all remember that it is not so much where you go to college that makes the difference; it is what you do once you get there that is most important.
The college admission process at Wheeler includes the following steps:
- Evaluation: Helping students and parents to understand the criteria that colleges use to decide admission, and then evaluating the potential range of college options based on the entirety of the student’s record;
- Exploration: Helping students explore the range of options available using a wide variety of resources;
- Application: Helping students with their applications, providing technological and personal advice and support to make their application as strong as possible;
- Financial Aid: Helping families access the resources available to apply for financial aid;
- Matriculation: Helping students to decide where they want to be after graduating from Wheeler.
Ultimately, the goal of the College Counseling Office is to help students make good choices. If students are responsible and thorough in the college admission process — and parents provide appropriate support — each student will find a college, or post-graduate experience, for which they are well-matched academically, intellectually, socially and personally.
Resources for enrolled students and their parents are available on the Grade Groups when you log into the website through your parent portal.
You can learn more about our personalized and comprehensive College Counseling program in this Q&A with Director of College Counseling Amy Baumgartel Singer ’89, P’20, P’24, and we invite you to watch the recording below of “College Counseling in the Age of COVID and Beyond.”
