“… there aren’t just 15 amazing schools—there are so many more! That’s the mindset that’s difficult to crack.”
College Counseling Director Sean Logan encourages Rhea Lewis ’13 to talk about herself and her goals as they work through her college opportunities.
SL: We need to create a better education system, for kids and parents. They don’t need to spend $5,000 each summer to make their kid look impressive for college. They don’t need to spend any money to do that. In fact, if the student gets a job at The Gap selling clothes, that could be as interesting and as important as getting a research internship at MIT. College admission people know that sometimes those things are very much socioeconomically driven. It’s about kids following their interests. I completely understand why parents get caught up in the vortex, worrying that they are disadvantaging their kid by not doing “X”—getting a personal trainer for their child to make him or her a soccer star, or an SAT tutor in ninth grade, etc. And they are asking the CCO, “Please help keep me sane!” And that’s what we have to do. SH: What impact is our need-blind admission policy having on college admissions? SL: I came to Andover partly because of its need-blind policy, so I’m a huge proponent of that. Since the economic crash in ’08, many more colleges now have less need-based aid to give out. We saw “gaps” of $10,000-plus in students’ aid packages last year. Because we have more students applying for aid, we need more time to work with that group and be fluent with all kinds of financial aid issues. It’s a complex, challenging situation for some kids, and you have to have the support there. But from a college counseling perspective, that’s added a whole extra level of work and involvement. It’s interesting work. But you have to create time for it. SH: So how do you raise interest in lesser-known, meritbased schools? SL: Plenty of places would love a PA kid! Last year, we had students win merit awards ranging from $5,000, to full tuition at schools like USC, Tulane, Northeastern, Boston University, etc., and a lot of these merit programs also give students first choice of classes, best choice of housing, and stipends to do summer work. There are Andover families that qualify for aid here but not in college. There are also fami“We lies that won’t qualify for aid but might be very incan’t terested in opportunities to reduce the cost of college. We need to make sure that we expromise plore merit options with all families. So where you need to talk about financial aid students are in a broader way now. We have to make sure we’re educating going to get in. What those families up front.
we should be able to promise is a quality college 48 Andover | Winter 2013 counseling process.”
SH: What kind of communication do you have with colleges these days? SL: A lot of parents think, “This is Andover, so you’re going to be able to pick up the phone and advocate for my child.” We’re going to be able to do that in the application process, but in most highly selective schools now, the numbers don’t permit phone calls. I worked at Stanford in the mid-’90s. They had 18,000 applications. They admitted 2,100 students. Last year Stanford had 37,000 applications, and they admitted about the same number. The time frame hasn’t changed, but they need to evaluate almost double the applications. Because of that, Stanford’s not taking a call from us to advocate for our students. But they may call us and say, “We really like this student. Can you have him/her submit something else? Or can you give me a little bit more?” Great. I’ll be the student’s biggest advocate. But every spot is precious, so they’re not giving them away. SH: Where does college counseling need to be at Andover? SL: We can’t promise where students are going to get in. What we should be able to promise is a quality college counseling process. I can understand why you’d be incredibly disappointed if your child didn’t get in to the first-choice school. That’s natural. But I want the family to be able to say they were well informed and supported in our process. And I think part of my job description was connected to the idea that Andover is a private school with a public purpose. It was clear Andover wanted the CCO to become a national model, talking about access issues on the national level. I’d like to expand some of that piece. The job is interesting to me because it has that national piece, and I think it’s important to keep that national perspective. But for now, we’ve got to be able to promise a more comprehensive process for our current students. SH: You‘ve got to have the resources—and the personnel. SL: We’ve had a very positive response from faculty and the senior administration about some of the changes we’re proposing. I’m not worried that this isn’t going to happen. But it’s going to be gradual. I’m not going to get everything I want. Every department here has needs. We feel very supported. When people think of Andover, they think of excellence. I want you to be able to think of excellence when you think of the College Counseling Office at Andover.