Counseling Director Turned Admission Officer

Journal of College Admission, Spring 2007 by Vellines, Mary Karen

Bost Sides of the Desk

Six-something: Years of Wonder

In first grade, there must have been something magical about my teacher, because that's when I decisively determined that I wanted to be a teacher too. I never wavered. When I review the evolution of my career in education, I am reminded that it covers almost four decades and the idea of 'decades' is bound to make one feel a bit old. I have been in the profession long enough to turn from "old" to "dinosaur" and feel that I have not only been on "both sides of the desk," but also on top of the desk and under it-from kindergarten to community college; from inner city junior high school to independent day school; and then on to Hamilton College (NY). If there is a common thread that strings together these decades of education, like so many pearls, it has to be the relationships.

Twenty-something: The Age of Idealism

When I first left home to conquer the great wide world, I arrived, unemployed, in Atlanta with $50 in my pocket. I somehow believed that a college diploma would certainly be sufficient to land a teaching job. Eventually, I did get a job, but only because the seventh graders had run their former teacher out of town, and I was idealistic enough to think I could tame that class. I then married someone (who was unemployed) and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. How's that for 1970's idealism? And it got worse. I then took a job at a high school in South Carolina teaching ninth grade science and was quickly fired for teaching evolution. In one stroke I learned how powerful parents can be, how conservative educators can be, how naïve I could be, and how idealism has certain limits.

Thirty-something: Motherhood, Teaching and Questioning

At Charlotte Country Day School (NC), you name it and I probably taught it. I was the reading specialist, the study skills expert and the "Elective Queen," including SAT Prep and vocabulary courses. (Perhaps I was the precursor to Stanley Kaplan). Because my daughter was very young and I was newly divorced, I sometimes wondered what the corporate world might hold for me-a lot more money and a little more respect? I had grown weary of grading papers every night for three or four hours and essentially being on call 24 hours a day for upset kids, or parents who were irate, needed some TLC or just wished to do me the favor of reminding me that they paid my salary. In the late afternoon, my daughter would regale me with the day's stories, but I had so little emotional fuel left at the end of the school day that I could only mumble. At least my schedule allowed us to drive home from school together, a claim not many of my current (traveling) admission colleagues can make.

Perhaps because of inertia or the specter of only two weeks vacation, or the gruntwork at corporate entry-level positions, I decided to stay in education. Or, likely, it was because I was offered the college guidance director position at my current school. This career move re-affirmed that education is about relationships, about making small differences that might not even be recognized until many years later, about setting standards and widening horizons.

Forty-something: College Guidance, College Admission and U.S. News

College guidance isn't just about finding the right match for kids. There were October deadlines for every scholarship, NACAC functions to attend, letters of recommendation to write, and National Merit deadlines that hit you at the beginning of the school year. There were programs to plan, hands to hold, butts to kick, applications to process. And no sooner did those get planned, held, kicked and processed than it was time for new juniors-and the cycle started again.

There were the unrealistic parents who are the very definition of stress (and they also inhabit both sides of the desk). I recall the time a father came into my office and said, "Little Joey wants to be an engineer, but I think he needs a small liberal arts college. I understand that Davidson College (NC) has a 3-2 program. What do you think?" Well, I thought, considering that "little" Joey has a 1.47 GPA and SAT's under 1000, it's going to be a very interesting conversation. The good news: those letters of recommendation (with no time to write them) go away when you switch sides of the desk. Hallelujah!

Yet, it's not so different on the college side of things. There is travel to plan, interviews to conduct, parents to appease, student emails to answer, applications to read, schools to visit, and counselors to call. I entered education to teach and I would like to think that I am still doing so. College counselors and college admission officers are all in the same profession of helping and enlightening kids.

Enter U.S. News and World Report. I believe this is when the landscape started to change. Previously, I remember having to inform and educate kids at Country Day that there were good colleges outside of North Carolina. We talked about whether a given college would be a good match, not where it ranked in U.S. News. Perhaps my memory has grown rosier with time, but I also remember candidly telling a Hamilton College admission officer in the late 1980's that one of my students had not yet earned the right to come off the waitlist. College admission officers and college counselors had honest dialogues without fear of repercussions from headmasters, parents or trustees. It seems that some of us have simply succumbed to rankings, impressive school profiles and pleasing the paying clientele. Our profession has changed because the pressures have changed. I am not so naïve as to think that we can ignore the numbers and the dollars, but voices from my 'Age of Idealism' tell me that beyond the numbers and business models we simply must keep the best interest of students at the center of our universe.