The members of the Audit/Review/Consultation Teams are diverse not only by geography but also by the type of school and expertise they can bring to your questions. Below are the biographies of some of the members.

Carl Ahlgren

For five years Carl has directed the college counseling office at Gilman School in Baltimore, where he also serves as a teacher and coach. Prior to his arrival in Baltimore, he served in the same role at University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. At Casady School in Oklahoma City, from 1999 to 2003, Carl was college counselor, teacher and coach. He has recently concluded a term as national delegate (06-08) for the Potomac Chesapeake ACAC, where he continues to serve as Chair of the Fund Development committee. From 2002 through 2005, he has been a Mentor and committee member in the Camp College program for New York State ACAC and Michigan ACAC. From 2004 to 2006, he was director and faculty member for NACAC's 'Tools of the Trade' program for new college counselors, and in the fall of 2008 he began a term of service on the national Admission Practices committee for NACAC.
BA, cum laude, in History - Queens College, CUNY, 1990; MA in History and Religion - Duke University, 1993

School Profile at: Profile available upon request

 Brennan Barnard

Brennan Barnard currently serves as the Director of College Counseling and Public Relations at The Derryfield School, a 6-12 independent day school in Manchester, New Hampshire. Previously he worked as an admission officer, college counselor, teacher, coach, and dorm parent at a number of schools throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic. These institutions include Westtown School, The Hyde School, Northfield Mount Hermon School, and The St. Paul's School Advanced Summer Program. Brennan is a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College and worked for the College as the Regional Dean of Admission for New England. He holds his M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from The University of Vermont and has worked at the college level in a variety of roles in student affairs. He lives at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, where his wife teaches humanities."

School Profile at http://www.derryfield.org/ftpimages/43/download/DerryfieldProfile2009-10.pdf

Jay Beebe

Presently, Jaye is the Director of College Counseling at The Kiski School, a boys boarding school in Saltsburg, PA, a rural community 30 miles east of Pittsburgh. He's held that position since 2002. In the summer of 1977, Jaye took a position in the admissions office at Macalester College in St Paul, MN. He's been involved in college admissions ever since. After leaving Macalester in 1983, Jaye's held college counseling or admissions positions at Wyoming Seminary Kingston, PA, the Prairie School, Racine, WI, Eastern Montana College, Billings, MT, and South Kent School in Connecticut, before joining the staff at Kiski. In addition to college counseling, Jaye has served as Assistant Headmaster, Dean of Students and History Department Chair at different schools. Coaching, teaching, and dorming have also filled his days at different schools.

School Profile at http://www.kiski.org/podium/default.aspx?t=111986

Gretchen Bergill

Gretchen began working in college admissions at Colby College, her alma mater. After four years, she began a masters' program but continued her association with Colby, serving as a part-time interviewer for the college. After ten years of management experiences with Patagonia, the outdoor clothing company, Gretchen decided that she missed school life and took a job as Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Sage Ridge, a new day school in Reno, NV. A year later she became the school's first Director of College Counseling and had the opportunity to create a college counseling program from scratch. In 2005, Gretchen joined the College Counseling Office at Phillips Exeter Academy. Outside of her college counseling duties she is particularly interested in issues of equity and inclusion, and also serves as an academic adviser to boarding students, and as an occasional chaperone for the Ski Club. Interested in national college counseling issues, Gretchen has been involved with ACCIS from its first open meeting at NACAC. She was a volunteer and session presenter at the first Summer Institute at Kenyon College in 2008 and in 2009 helped coordinate the Summer Institute's "Content Committee" and worked again as an organizational volunteer at the Institute at Colorado College. Last year, Gretchen focused her ACCIS efforts on implementing and directing the first-ever ACCIS Colloquium which took place at Colby College. She continues to contribute to the Colloquium program as an adviser to the current organizational teams. Working at a founding school, Gretchen has had the opportunity to witness ACCIS' growth since infancy and feels tremendously vested in its future.

School Profile at http://www.exeter.edu/documents/Profile_2010_four_pages(1).pdf

Ali Bhanji

A first-generation, international applicant to college, Ali came to the USA from Kenya in 1987.  After earning his BA in English but before earning his Ed.M in higher education administration, he spent two years working with first-year students at Middlebury College as they adapted to college life.  Following graduate school, he worked as a college counselor, English teacher, and dorm parent at Concord Academy (MA). Having also directed the college counseling programs at The Roxbury Latin School (MA) and The Potomac School (VA), Ali has spent almost two decades in independent schools which span day, boarding, and single-sex environments. Beyond his professional life at school, Ali is a frequent presenter at ACCIS, NACAC, and College Board national conferences.  He reads scholarship applications for The Presidential Scholars program, The Point Foundation, and The Aga Khan Foundation, and he served on the ACCIS Executive Committee from 2006-2010. Philosophically, Ali is committed to finding ways in which independent school students can remain at the center of their own college searches in the face of overzealous adults and aggressive marketing practices--the ever present forces that often complicate what should be an important period of self-reflection in a young person's life.  

School Profile at: Profile available upon request 

Andrea Brownstein

Andrea is the Director of College Counseling at MICDS (Mary Institute and St Louis Country Day School), a Pre-K through Grade 12 independent day school in St Louis, Missouri, where she has been a faculty member since 1987. Beginning in 1970, she taught English in independent schools in Lexington (Kentucky), Chicago, and St. Louis. At MICDS, she has served as Head if the Middle School, as Director of Transition when Mary Institute and Country Day School merged, and as Assistant Head of Upper School; she continues to teach--currently, a course in Ethical Reasoning and a course in the European Holocaust. A graduate of the University of Illinois, she has pursued graduate work at the University of Kentucky and the University of Illinois. In the office, Andrea is a strong proponent of technology and at all times is eager to find Book Buddies with whom to share enthusiasm for good writing and thinking. She lives in St Louis with her husband, a research scientist at the Washington University Medical School, and their malamute, Loki.

 
School profile available at https://www.micds.org/ftpimages/243/download/MICDS%20Profile%20and%20SSR...

William J. Cardamone

Will is currently the Director of College Counseling at the Manlius Pebble Hill School (MPH) in Syracuse, NY.  He acted as Co-Director of College Counseling and Dean of Students for four years before moving into the Director position.  Before joining MPH, Will was Associate Dean of Admission at Hamilton College.  Prior to that, Will pursued a law practice specializing in employment and education legal matters.  Will started his career as a high school social studies teacher for four years and received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship.   After graduating from the Canterbury School in Connecticut, Will attended Hamilton College.  He is a graduate of Vermont Law School and is admitted to practice law in Vermont and New York.  He is also a graduate of the Upper Valley Teacher Training Program in Lebanon New Hampshire.  Will is published in the Syracuse Law Review and enjoys speaking at state and regional education conferences.

School Profile at http://www.mph.net/pdf/Admissions/10-11SchoolProfile.pdf

Rhody Davis

In her 19th year in college counseling, Rhody Davis is Director of College Counseling at Viewpoint School in Southern California. Rhody earned a BA in English from UCLA and an M.Ed. in Counseling from the University of Houston. Using a counseling perspective in her work with students and families, Rhody worked previously as a college counselor at the Latin School of Chicago and The Kinkaid School in Houston. Rhody also spent four years at the University of Chicago as associate director of admissions and as director of international admissions. In her work at the University of Chicago, Rhody visited many high schools around the U.S. as well as in Europe, Canada, and Asia. She also planned recruitment events and managed the production of all admissions publications, working closely with Chicago faculty, designers, photographers, writers, and printers. Other educational experience includes teaching English, coaching basketball and softball, chaperoning international trips, sitting on administrative committees, supervising independent studies, and mentoring student leaders.

School Profile at http://www.viewpoint.org/program/college/welcome/

Betsy Dolan

Committed to the field of education for over thirty years, Betsy's career is one of service to young people and their mentors. Betsy began her profession as a secondary school teacher and a coach at R.L. Thomas High School, in New York. She then completed her Masters degree in Clinical Psychological Counseling from Tufts University, in Massachusetts, while earning a position on the United States Field Hockey squad. During graduate school, Betsy coached the university's field hockey and lacrosse team and acted as an athletic liaison to the admissions office. At the time, her clinical research, which focused on stress management for adolescents and young adults, became her hallmark as a therapist. Combining a variety of skills, Betsy then committed herself to college admissions at Tufts, where she remained for ten years. Becoming one of their senior associate directors, she was responsible for the development and implementation of policy, enrollment management and financial aid for their undergraduate admissions office. Now in her thirteenth year at Phillips Exeter Academy, Betsy directs the College Counseling Office and is using her diverse experiences to make a difference at the independent school level. Beyond advising students, parents, faculty, alumni, and college admissions colleagues about the journey associated with the college admissions process, Betsy is one of the co-founders of the national organization ACCIS - Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools. Whether conducting workshops or panels on the college admissions process at the national and local level, or participating in discussions about the developmental issues associated with adolescents, Betsy has established herself as an active participant in the lives of young people and their mentors.

School Profile at http://www.exeter.edu/documents/Profile_2010_four_pages(1).pdf

Peter Jennings

Currently serving as Director of College Counseling at Concord Academy where he has been for over a decade, Peter's professional career has always centered on the transition to college. Beginning in the admissions office mail room of his alma mater, Connecticut College, Peter's career officially began with a five-year stint at Pomona College where he was Assistant Dean of Admissions. Peter followed that with three years as Dean of Juniors and Seniors at Harvard-Westlake School, where he also taught tenth-grade English and coached cross-country and track.
In addition to shepherding students and families through the college process at Concord Academy, Peter has been active with coaching, serving as a residential house parent, teaching English, and advising the International Student Organization. During a 2009-2010 sabbatical, Peter joined the Tufts University Staff as Admissions Officer and Counselor-in-Residence.
Concord Academy's college counseling program is distinguished by its consideration of economic equity in the college process, its on-going work with young alumni, and the prominence of students taking gap years (typically 10% of each senior class). Recently Peter has written about the role of grandparents in the college process.

School Profile at http://www.concordacademy.org/links/CACCOProfile1011.pdf

Sean Kennedy

Sean has been involved in college counseling at Forsyth Country Day School in Lewisville, NC for seven years, with the last three as Director of College Counseling. An independent school graduate (Chadwick School in California), Sean has spent his entire career working in independent schools at FCDS and in San Diego, California, where he was dean of students, dean of counseling, A.P. English teacher, and a football and basketball coach at Army and Navy Academy. Sean also worked for UCLA Undergraduate Admissions for two years as a freshman application reviewer. He has chaired accreditation steering committees in California and North Carolina and has served as the Counseling representative for the California Association of Independent Schools' Professional Services Committee. In 2004, Sean was one of 70 educators nationally to receive the NAIS E.E. Ford Fellowship for Aspiring Heads of School. Sean earned a B.A in English from the University of Arizona and a M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

School Profile at http://www.fcds.org/academic/upper/college_counseling/college_profile.pdf

Nikki Magaziner Mills

Currently the Director of College Counseling at St. Albans School, an all-boys independent school in Washington DC, Nikki Magaziner Mills has worked in the field of college counseling and admissions for her entire career. Prior to her five years at St. Albans, Nikki was for seven years the Director of College Counseling and an English I teacher at TASIS, The American School in England, where she worked with both American and international students as they applied to universities all over the world. She has had the opportunity to serve on two different Curriculum Committees and on two school Administrative Committees, and she has presented at conferences in both Europe and the US. Before moving abroad, she was an Assistant Director of Admissions, supervisor of student recruitment services, and scholarship coordinator in the admissions offices of Rice University and her alma mater, Washington and Lee University. Although she has worked on both sides of the Atlantic ocean and on both sides of the college admissions desk, in both an international, co-ed, boarding school school setting and in a single-sex day school setting, she has learned that when working with students applying to college, one thing always remains constant: the college search and application process works best when the student is empowered to take charge, engage, reflect, and grow.

School Profile at www.stalbansschool.org/document.doc?id=259

Gunnar Olson

Since 2003 Gunnar Olson has been the Director of College Advising at the Indian Springs School, an 8th-12th grade day/boarding school outside of Birmingham, Alabama. In addition to his college advising duties at Indian Springs, Gunnar is the assistant PSAT/AP test coordinator and serves on various committees, including the Academics Committee and senior administrative Cabinet. Additional duties have included coaching, and serving as both grade team chairperson and as an admissions representative. Outside of Indian Springs, Gunnar has served as Chairperson of the NACAC College Fair in Birmingham and consulted in the creation of a college advising program at a local private high school for students with learning differences. Prior to Indian Springs, Gunnar worked as a Dorm Parent and College Counselor at Saint Marys Hall in San Antonio, TX, and in the admission offices of Kalamazoo College in Michigan and Adelphi University in New York. A graduate of a boarding school in Maine, Gunnar has participated at various national and regional conferences and presented on such topics as college fairs, recommendation writing, and surviving board-mandated evaluation audits. Gunnar holds a B.A. in German from Gettysburg College and a M.L.I.S. in Information Studies from the University of Alabama.

School Profile at: Profile available upon request

Christine L. Pluta

Since 1997, Chris has worked in college admissions counseling, as Regional Director at the University of Pennsylvania (1997-2001), an Assoc. Director of Admissions at Barnard (2001-02), an independent consultant at College Coach, LLC (2002-05), and an Assoc. Director of College Counseling at Horace Mann School, Bronx, NY (2005-08). This is her third year as the Director of College Counseling at Lycee Francais de New York in Manhattan, where she works with a largely international student body and their families. She pioneered the use of Naviance at both Horace Mann and Lycee Francais. Chris has led panels at the NACAC national conference, the College Board Forum, and has been quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education and US News & World Report, most often on the emotional and behavioral effects of the college admissions process on adolescents. Chris is an avid supporter of ACCIS, the Blackberry River Conference, the Education Conservancy, the Skaneateles Institute, and is a board member of the Clambake Institute at St. George's School. She also serves as the Representative for Admissions to the Bryn Mawr College Alumnae Board. Chris is devoted to simplifying and humanizing the college admissions process for all students and their families, and is an activist for undergraduate admissions reform.

School Profile at: Profile available upon request

Timothy Pratt

Tim has worked in a variety of roles in secondary education since 1989. He began his career as a classroom teacher, first at Hebron Academy and then for nine years at Tabor Academy, before moving to St. Paul's School in Concord, NH in 1999. Tim joined the College Advising Office at SPS in 2003, and also spent the 2008-2009 school year as English teacher and college counselor at School Year Abroad in Rennes, France. He has been director of the SPS College Advising Office since 2009, during which time he has overseen the expansion of both the office and its operations. Tim and his staff benefitted from a comprehensive visiting team review of their office in the winter of 2011, and he is active in a number of professional organizations. He has a rich appreciation for the many aspects of boarding school life, having spent 23 years as a teacher, administrator, house adviser, and coach of ice hockey, soccer, baseball, tennis, golf, and squash.

Education: B.A. in Political Science from Middlebury College in 1989; M.A. in English from Middlebury College in 1995.

Katie Ryan

Currently Director of College Counseling and Academic Dean at Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma, Washington, Katie has over 20 years of experience in the field of college admissions and college counseling. She began her career in education at her alma mater, Occidental College in Los Angeles, where she served as Assistant Director of Admission, then moved to Cate School in Carpinteria, CA where she was Associate Director of College Counseling. In addition to college counseling at CWA, Katie has worked with admissions and advised the student council. She runs the senior internship program and, as Academic Dean, assists the Upper School Head with all aspects of the academic program including academic advising, scheduling, and curriculum. She has been a member of NACAC and its regional associations for 22 years, and recently completed a three-year term as an elected member of the Guidance and Admission Committee of the College Board Western Regional Council.

School Profile at http://www.charleswright.org/college.html

Joanna Schultz

Currently, Joanna is Director of College Counseling at The Ellis School, a PK-12 school for girls in Pittsburgh, PA. Before assuming her current position, Joanna taught English at Ellis, the Shady Lane School, and through the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project at the University of Pittsburgh. She spent six years teaching in and then directing PACAC's four day training institute for secondary counselors and college admissions professionals. Joanna has served on PACAC's Executive Board and is currently its Director of Professional Development. She served a three year stint on the Editorial Board of NACAC's Journal of College Admissions, and in the last few years, has been one of the founders of a consortium of counselors from girls schools, hosting the second annual GSCCC (Girls School College Counselor Conference) at Ellis in 2008. Joanna has a BA from Radcliffe College and an MEd in English Education from the University of Pittsburgh.

School Profile at https://www.theellisschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=124828&rc=1

Jake Talmage

Since 2000, Jake has served as the first full-time Director of College Counseling at St. Paul's School, just outside Baltimore, MD. Starting as a co-ed school in kindergarten, St. Paul's graduates approximately eighty boys per year and is an International Baccalaureate School. In addition to his work at St. Paul's, Jake is actively involved in PCACAC where he is a National Delegate, serves as Co-chair of Professional Development and regularly presents at conferences. For the past four years, Jake has also served as the chair of the Baltimore Area AIMS College Counselors, a group of counselors from over thirty independent schools. This group meets quarterly and sponsors joint efforts, such HBCU nights, financial aid nights and an annual college fair, between the schools. Prior to coming to St. Paul's, Jake was a college counselor at Pine Crest School for five years, and worked in college admission at Johns Hopkins and University of Vermont for eight years. He is a graduate of William and Mary (BBA) and University of Vermont (MPA).

School Profile at: Profile available upon request

 

Webb Trenchard
Webb Trenchard is the Director of College Guidance at The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, CT., where he has worked since 2000.  After beginning his professional career at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT., as both an admissions counselor and a varsity lacrosse coach, Webb moved to the secondary school side, first at his alma mater Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, OH.  For five years there, he taught English, coached lacrosse and soccer, ran a dormitory, and worked as a college counselor.  He held similar positions at The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, NY, where he worked for three years before moving on to Loomis.  At Loomis, he has focused most of his work in college counseling and has traveled extensively to visit colleges and participate in conferences.  A graduate of Amherst College who holds a masters degree from Dartmouth, he is a member of the Executive Committee of ACCIS, has presented at numerous colleges and conferences, and has been published in both the NACAC Journal of College Admissions and in The Boston Globe.  He benefitted greatly from a visiting committee assessment of the Loomis Chaffee College Office in 2008 (conducted by Marcia Hunt, Rod Skinner, Ted O'Neill and Jessica Marinacio) and recently spent three days at St. Paul's School (Concord, NH) as a member of a three-person college office review committee.

School profile available at http://www.loomischaffee.org/uploaded/College_Office_files/2010_college_...