The College Counseling Journey

Let’s take a hike in the woods, shall we? First you get to choose from two options. You can head out solo with a knapsack filled with a few snacks, spotty cell service, and flip flops on your feet. 

Or you can join a group of seasoned hikers, with a surplus of food, the latest gadgets, and a first aid kit should something go awry. In this option, you also get a pole for steadying your balance and boots made for rugged terrain. 

Your trails in each scenario? Both come with obstacles—creeks to cross, fallen trees to negotiate, and forks that require decisions and adjustments. Your treks have similar destinations—and yet potentially very different outcomes determined by the option you choose. 

This hike you’re taking? It starts in high school and ends the day your student enrolls in college. 

The GPS College Counseling team is your seasoned group of hikers poised to come alongside you as you plan for, better understand, and navigate the often-shifting terrain of the college admission landscape. With more than 3,000 four-year college destinations for your daughter to choose from in the U.S. alone, with widely varying degree programs, cocurricular offerings, and costs, you need more than a knapsack with cookies and a juice box to successfully complete your journey.

Prepared and Focused

Starting with a GPS student’s sophomore year, she is paired with a college counselor, either Director of College Counseling Andrew Reich or Associate Director Anders Swanson. But even before then, she has spent years preparing for what’s to come, packing her rucksack, so to speak, with classes, clubs, arts and athletic offerings, and adventures designed to build her self-confidence and better identify and hone her unique interests and personality.

Andrew works closely with Beth Creswell Wilson ’96, PhD, Associate Head of School for Academics and Head of Upper School, as they make programming decisions that are mission aligned for GPS. “We discuss what types of students are compelling to colleges, but we don’t make curricular changes in a vacuum based on what colleges might be trending toward,” Andrew says. “That’s a constantly moving target and we want our decisions to first align with the mission of GPS and the needs of our girls.”

Since Beth and Andrew joined GPS in 2022, they have made adjustments to the required course load, as well as initiated changes to the grading scale to better position students for success in various college applicant and scholarship pools. As part of the school’s strategic plan, they have also assessed the school’s signature programming, making adjustments to ensure GPS students become attractive college applicants and leave GPS with passions they can carry to and through college.

“Colleges have shifted their focus to find students who are genuinely passionate about something and who can showcase a common thread, or throughline, within their application,” Andrew says. “This is when leveraging our community partnerships proves beneficial.” From the Class of 2024, both Tess Azzouz and Odessa Young parlayed their passions and experiences into finding colleges that fit.

Tess is studying international relations and political economy at Tulane University (New Orleans, Louisiana). While at GPS she played lacrosse, was a GPS Ambassador, and volunteered at the IRONMAN and Chambliss Children’s Center. She also attended a summer academic intensive in Sevilla, Spain and then completed a significant project through her AP Research class where she completed a year-long study examining the relationship between community engagement and involvement in their mosque for Muslims in the Chattanooga area. 

“At first, the college counseling office helped me understand what I wanted and didn’t want in college,” Tess says. “This was an essential first step because it let me see my college decision clearly before things like grades and finances altered my ultimate decision. Then, when writing all my essays, my college counselor, Andrew Reich, helped me work through my writing and constantly asked me personal questions to help me stimulate ideas. I was not an easy student to work with at times, constantly in a state of distress and self-doubt, but the college counseling team helped me calm down and see the bigger picture of it all: You will end up where you are meant to be.” 

While involved in a wide variety of activities at GPS, Odessa homed in on Terpsichord, GPS Singers, and the musicals. “GPS really helped me find what I am passionate about, which is the arts, specifically dance, as well as social justice and environmental studies,” Odessa says. “GPS made it possible for me to have multiple different passions and acknowledge that I can balance them all if that's what I want.” She is pursuing performance and communication arts as well as social justice at St. Lawrence University (Canton, New York).

Her college counselor helped her determine what she needed to look for in her college search. “The college office helped me find colleges with programs that I was interested in and that had strong need-based financial aid and merit scholarship funds, as well as helping me connect with specific schools I was interested in.”

Adaptable and Agile

The pandemic detoured students’ college admission process like a washed out footpath across an already treacherous trail. Prior to 2020, liberal arts and sciences colleges were more likely to be test-optional; many universities followed suit in response to limited test-seat availability during the pandemic, but have since returned to requiring test scores, including all public universities in Georgia, all University of Tennessee campuses, and several highly selective schools. 

Then last year, the U.S. Department of Education redesigned the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) in an effort to simplify the process and instead was late with the rollout, which even then was riddled with errors. Unfortunately, last spring, “many students across the country were left without financial aid packages,” Andrew says.  

Now enter AI into the equation. While about half of all college admission offices use some level of AI to review applications, “most have pretty explicit policies with regards to a students’ applications and essays being their own,” Andrew says. “One of the great strengths of our school is that our students are eager to share their unique voices and are strong writers thanks to our humanities curriculum and faculty. However, we are also aware that AI is likely an inescapable part of our future, and that it may ultimately serve as a widely accepted tool for students navigating college applications. We aim to stand ready to embrace it when the attitude toward AI fully shifts.”

Another recent trend has been the increasing popularity (and decreased admission rates) of Southern universities that a significant number of GPS students have historically attended in larger numbers—those with mild temps and exciting social opportunities—such as University of Tennessee-Knoxville, University of Georgia, Auburn University, Clemson University, and University of South Carolina. While this has caused some concern for our students, it’s also helped them branch out, weigh other options, and consider schools initially outside their periphery. 

“Our girls are going to schools all over the country,” Andrew says. “They’re thinking for themselves and finding schools that are a good fit—financially, academically, socially—for them and their families.” The 85 members of the Class of 2024 attended 52 unique colleges and universities across the country.

While many of the requirements associated with college applications vary from school to school, Andrew and Anders have a good understanding of how to help families be strategic and build affordability in the college search process. “We’ve built a trust with our parents and can be direct about the feasibility of realistically affording one college over another,” Andrew says.

Tricks and Trends

Andrew and Anders have the deep knowledge of regional schools and the capacity and experience that lies well beyond the well-worn familiar trail. “We tell girls that you can have a transformative experience at a university in the Netherlands. You can have an amazing experience at a small college in Maine. You can have a life-changing experience at a school in California,” Andrew says. “We believe in them and hope they will have broad lists.”

At a time when confidence in higher education is waning—a 2024 Gallup poll revealed that only 36 percent of Americans have “quite a lot” or a “good deal” of confidence in higher education, down from 57 percent in 2015—GPS families resolutely believe in the value of an education for their daughters. “One hundred percent of our students are admitted to four-year colleges and attend because they see a college education as a crucial step on the path to their professional goals,” Andrew says. For most GPS students and families, there’s still a nearly unanimous belief in the “value” of a four-year degree.

In addition to widening the scope of where they could go, GPS girls are challenged to consider what they can be. Historically, while boys score better in college aptitude tests, girls tend to perform better in traditional classroom settings. “When a student tells us she wants to be a nurse, we think that’s great and then ask if she’s considered becoming a doctor,” Andrew says. “We want them to believe in themselves and see beyond gender stereotypes, to be thoughtful, bold, open to chances, and well-educated so they will thrive in the world.” 

Isn’t that what college is all about? Students take the success of their high school experience and build upon it, knowing that the destination might not be the one they initially planned for but, with passion and a good understanding of the available resources, growth and maturity will follow.

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Meet the Team