College Advising Philosophy
The Covenant School is a college preparatory school. Our teachers, students, administrators, and parents collaborate to create a culture that continues to be rich in the values important to those who founded the school in 1985. The school’s college advising program is both dynamic and individualized, one in which every junior and senior meets with the college advisor to evaluate academics, extracurricular activities, test results, interests, and personal qualities as they shape a list of colleges to which they will apply. Through this process, students are encouraged to challenge their own assumptions about themselves and about the colleges they are considering.
Preparing young people to attend college after high school is a job we take seriously and is manifest in our mission, our curriculum, and the academic qualifications of our faculty and staff. We believe we have personal and professional responsibilities to train our students in the intellectual, moral, physical, and social skills they will need in life after graduation. For the vast majority of our graduates, the college experience will follow immediately upon graduation, and we are obligated to help them find a comfortable match at an appropriate college or university. We are committed to creating open lines of communication, honest feedback, and a spirit of cooperation among our students and families, the faculty, and the College Advising Office. We create a safe environment characterized by patience, a sense of humor, and an understanding that we can all learn from each student’s unique experiences in the college admission process. We can even have fun.
Although the obvious thrust of the College Advising Office is to introduce students and families to the college admission process and to work with them for the duration of that process, an underlying goal is to train our young people to solve problems, to set goals and work hard to achieve them, and to take personal responsibility in seeking and earning offers from the colleges to which they apply. We encourage them to be the force behind the process: to make use of the support of family and school but ultimately to take ownership of their plan for the future. The long-term benefits they reap for short-term efforts are immeasurable, and Covenant wants to play a part in such an education.
A successful college advising program places its graduates in the best possible setting for higher education following high school. The Covenant School has such a program.