The first half of this academic year has flown by, and I now find myself looking ahead towards Prom, Interim and Commencement, all of which will be here before we know it. But even as we look towards the completion of this year, we also turn our attention towards the next calendar year. The Curriculum Guide for 2014-2015 is being prepared as we speak, and soon students will register for next year’s courses. Similarly, we will also be unveiling the Interim offerings for May of this year. A few new staff and faculty need to be hired and, accordingly, the interviewing process for those positions has begun. In the meantime, the various divisional admissions committees have been 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 has increased, 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. (A recent college visitor from Tufts University noted that competitive colleges and universities approach their admissions process in much the same way.) 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 or other activities outside the traditional classroom, interesting personal statements that demonstrate a student’s ability to express him or herself 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 always 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 8th 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 9th 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 an inexact science to be sure. There is no formula to guarantee admission, nor should there be.

The class of ’14, whose graduation day is now only a few months away, includes many students the Upper School committee helped to admit. In many cases I can 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 incredibly 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 look forward to welcoming the class of ’18 next August.