Admission Process in the Upper School
The first half of this academic year has flown by, and I find myself looking ahead towards the many things that happen between now and the end of the year. Once we get to January, we also turn our attention towards the next calendar year. Believe it or not, the Curriculum Guide for 2020-2021 will be assembled soon, and shortly thereafter students will register for next year’s courses. We know of at least one teacher position in science that needs to be filled and, accordingly, the interviewing process for this new position has begun. In the meantime, the various divisional admission committees have begun meeting to discuss which applicants we would like to invite to join our community next year.
I very much enjoy interviewing prospective students, meeting their parents, and reading application files. Even as educational competition in Denver has increased dramatically, CA remains in an enviable position: our application numbers are on a record pace this year, and we are fortunate to have many excellent candidates from which to choose. Prospective students and their families often ask me what we are looking for when we are reading through files and making decisions on applicants. There is no easy answer to this question, as we consider many different variables in the process. When the Upper School committee reads and discusses applications, we are certainly looking for strong transcripts, a reasonable track record in standardized testing, a demonstrated interest in athletics, the arts, and other activities outside the traditional classroom, along with essays that demonstrate a student’s ability to express themselves in writing, and a clear sense of why an applicant thinks CA would be a good match. We also read applicants’ teacher recommendations very carefully, hoping to find evidence of students who are engaged in their education in a way that makes them a joy to have in the classroom. Regardless of their achievement in classes, students who exhibit effort and perseverance are looked upon positively.
Ultimately, especially when we are looking at next year’s Freshman group, we are building a class. We want a motivated, dynamic group of kids representing a diversity of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, interests, previous school experiences, and perspectives. We of course also take into consideration the nature of the current Eighth Grade class at Colorado Academy, the vast majority of whom will be staying on to enter the Upper School. Students that we add to the mix in Ninth Grade must complement the group of students already here.
This is certainly no easy undertaking. Further complicating our task is the fact that these students are still young and relatively “unformed.” They are still growing and maturing, and when you also consider the inevitable vicissitudes of adolescent development, you can see that we are faced with the daunting task of trying to predict what kind of high school student a current 13- or 14-year-old will become. I’d like to think our professional experiences and the student’s own past history help guide us to make very good decisions, but nevertheless admissions work is not an exact science. There is no formula to guarantee admission, nor should there be.
The class of 2020, whose graduation day is now only a few months away, includes many students that the Upper School committee helped to admit. As I look back on it, I can still recall what was written about these students in their files, what they wrote about themselves, and what promise I personally saw in each of them. It has been gratifying to watch these students mature and grow throughout the past three or four years. Some grew in ways we might have predicted; others went in different directions. (The boys, especially, grew physically in ways we could only imagine! What happened to all those small boys of four years ago?) But all have found their niche in positive and productive ways and have fulfilled the potential we saw in them. Time flies, but the changes brought by time are amazing to see.
I am very proud of the holistic and individualized way we handle admissions at Colorado Academy. The dedicated committee, consisting of members of the Admission Office as well as Upper School faculty, spends time on every completed application. Everyone serving in this capacity invests dozens of hours into interviewing and file-reading, devoting themselves to finding the best fits for our Upper School. It will be an exciting few weeks, culminating in decisions going out February 21.
I am very proud of the holistic and individualized way we handle admissions at Colorado Academy. The dedicated committee, consisting of members of the Admission Office as well as Upper School faculty, spends time on every completed application. Everyone serving in this capacity invests dozens of hours into interviewing and file-reading, devoting themselves to finding the best fits for our Upper School. It will be an exciting few weeks, culminating in decisions going out February 21.
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