Visiting our Graduates’ Likeliest Colleges and Universities: Washington University in St. Louis

On behalf of Fort Worth Country Day, I make a habit of visiting colleges when I travel on school business. Having worked a few years in the College Counseling Offices of two independent schools where I taught back in the ‘80s and ’90s, I know just enough to ask Kristin Larsen, our Director of College Counseling, to identify the places I might spend my time most wisely. 

My goal in my campus visits is to meet with the school’s Dean of Admission to make sure they know about the caliber of our school and our students. Dean Chapin James at Washington University was true to my experience over the last nine years: She confirmed that we are well-known and respected for the caliber of students we send off to universities around the country. 

The routine I follow on these visits is to review with the Dean what is called our school profile, a report that is adjusted annually for each of our graduating classes. I want to make sure the people reading our seniors’ applications are seeing what we want them to see: a rigorous upper school curriculum with extensive opportunities beyond the purely academic classroom for students to develop artistic and athletic abilities. I also want to confirm what I know to be true with Kristin’s expert guidance: that we are, as a school, keeping up with best practices in presenting our students’ cases. Is our profile in the best practices form for 2024? (Yes!) Are we best off maintaining our traditional transcripts as opposed to adopting the Mastery Transcript some of our peer schools have adopted? (Yes, at least for a while!)

The best version of my college visits allows me to tour the campus with an FWCD alum enrolled at that school. Gage Fowlkes ’22 gave me one of those best-version tours. I want to know if our alums feel well-prepared for the challenges, academic and otherwise, of their chosen college. I want to know why our alum chose the college or university and whether their impressions in making that decision have been borne out by their lived experiences. And, of course, I am always exceedingly curious to know about our alum’s path: What are they most fascinated by? Do they know what they want to do after college?