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Meet MKA’s New Director of Admissions and Financial Aid
Alyson Waldman ’99 Alyson returns to MKA from working at The Dwight School in New York as Director of Admissions, Grades 1-8, for the past eight years. Announcing her appointment, Tom Nammack said: “After a nationwide search, it was clear to all who interviewed and met Alyson – administrators, staff, faculty, trustees, parents and students - that we had found an exceptional candidate for MKA. Alyson’s background as a teacher, her experience and expertise in the competitive world of Manhattan independent schools, her engaging and dynamic personality and her first-hand knowledge of MKA make her the perfect fit. We are fortunate and proud that Alyson has chosen to ‘come home,’ and we know she will do great things for MKA.” Tell us a bit about yourself: After graduating from MKA, I attended Hofstra University and received a dual-degree in Elementary Education and Psychology. I attended Graduate School at Columbia University’s Teachers College and earned an M.A. in Curriculum and Teaching. I became a classroom teacher, working in pre-school and 3rd grade before making the transition to private school admissions in 2006. Prior to coming to MKA, I worked at Dwight School, a private international baccalaureate school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, for eight years.
I am incredibly proud that my husband (Matthew Waldman, ’98), sister (Amanda Rosenthal, ’03) and brother-in-law (Louis Waldman, ’01) also graduated from MKA. Matt and I met during my junior year at MKA, married in 2008 and have a two-year-old son, Archer. We lived in Manhattan and Hoboken for many years and finally made the exodus to the suburbs over the summer. We are thrilled to be “back home”! What aspects of private school admissions - particularly in regard to MKA - are the most challenging? Private school admissions is very competitive. When you have a limited amount of time with each family, it is a challenge to communicate everything that makes a school distinctive. Every school needs to stand out and be unique in its own way. It is the admissions team’s goal to have each prospective family walk away with a greater understanding of MKA and why it could be the right fit for their family. There is a personalized approach to admissions that I believe is essential to a family’s experience. There are many good schools out there, but it is up to our community as a whole to showcase MKA and all of its strengths. Looking in from the outside, how different does the school seem to be from when you were a student and in what ways? Physically, one of the biggest transformations has been the Upper School locker/study area and the newly improved Arts Wing. Also, I am very impressed with the Middle School’s Dining Hall, as well as the main gymnasium and field space. It
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