Frequently Asked Questions
Q: If we are already members of NACAC, why do we need ACCIS?
Q: Going forward, how will ACCIS work with NACAC?
Q: How will ACCIS work with regional ACAC's and other associations?
Q: How does ACCIS see itself playing a role in national issues?
Q: What is ACCIS's relationship with NAIS?
Q: What is ACCIS's relationship with the College Board?
Q: Why are some ACCIS members Founders, and others General Members?
Q: How were the Founding Schools selected?
Q: What role will General Members have going forward?
Q: Do Members join as individuals or as schools?
Q: Don't ACCIS, and especially the ACCIS Founders, run the risk of being seen as elitist?
Q: If we are already members of NACAC, why do we need ACCIS?
A: NACAC is a great organization, and it has done an enormous amount to advance our profession. One indication of our respect for NACAC is that the ACCIS Bylaws require any school seeking to join ACCIS to hold NACAC membership first.
The purpose of ACCIS is not to question or break from NACAC; rather, it is to provide an affiliate organization that focuses all its efforts on supporting college counselors who work in independent schools. NACAC has many other
constituents to serve, and we don't feel that independent school counselors deserve NACAC's undivided attention.
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Q: Going forward, how will ACCIS work with NACAC?
A: As an affiliate, ACCIS will support NACAC through adherence to NACAC's Principles of Good Practice, emphasis on the importance of ACCIS member attendance at NACAC's annual conference, and annual creation of programming at NACAC meant specifically to serve the needs of independent school college counselors, as well as benefit the college counseling profession as a whole.
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Q: How will ACCIS work with regional ACAC's and other associations?
A: ACCIS hopes to work in partnership with all organizations seeking to support college counselors. It's hard work. Wherever we can join together, we will. ACCIS hopes to be a positive presence, offering support on issues of regional significance, and providing another source of programming.
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Q: How does ACCIS see itself playing a role in national issues?
A: ACCIS hopes to offer a national voice for independent school college counselors. There may be times when speaking with greater force of numbers from our particular perspective will be of value to the counselors we support and the students we serve.
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Q: What is ACCIS's relationship with NAIS?
A: As with NACAC membership, NAIS membership is also a prerequisite to ACCIS membership. Moreover, ACCIS would not exist without NAIS-though that statement cuts two ways. The origins of ACCIS can be found in the now-defunct NAIS College Connection Institute.
A few years ago, NAIS reached out to a core group of independent school counselors who took the lead on two very successful summer CCI's. Then NAIS refined its mission, chose to focus all but exclusively on heads of school and trustees, and left the CCI staff wondering what had just happened. ACCIS owes its founding to that core group of CCI staffers and participants who felt their experience had been too strong, too valuable to lose.
With the blessing and support of NAIS, those CCI veterans went to work. ACCIS has since experienced essential support from NAIS in a variety of ways, from things as basic as database contact information to things as profound as connection with NBOA, the National Business Officers' Association. NBOA's template of how to create a national organization has been fundamental to ACCIS's success to date.
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Q: What is ACCIS's relationship with the College Board?
A: The leadership of ACCIS is working on this relationship. At present, ACCIS leaders are involved with a regional College Board presentation. In the future, ACCIS intends to participate in the College Board, offer programming, and hopes to provide a voice for independent schools impacted by, and interested in helping to shape, College Board issues.
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Q: Why are some ACCIS members Founders, and others General Members?
A: Among the insights ACCIS gained from NAIS and NBOA is that we would need active engagement from committed volunteers, as well as substantial funding, to launch a national organization. NAIS and NBOA recommended that we seek a finite number of Founding Members who were willing not only to work very hard but also to make a substantial financial commitment over the first three years in order to launch the organization.
So far, 36 such Founders have stepped up, with a price tag of $3,000 per year for three years. That start-up money provides the necessary capital to fund our current work, and it enables us to keep the General Membership dues low, as we seek to reach out to more than 1,100 potential member schools. The Founding Schools' initial commitment thus makes the very existence of ACCIS possible, and the Founders will have a special role in guiding ACCIS through its early years.
After that, ACCIS will go only as far its total Membership wants to take it. Starting this organization is one thing; sustaining it will be another. There has been, and will continue to be, an organic quality to the evolution of ACCIS. As we grow, there will be plenty of meaningful opportunities for all independent school college counselors interested in ACCIS.
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Q: How were the Founding Schools selected?
A: Once the original CCI group started to work with NAIS and NBOA on how to create an organization, every effort was made to develop a list of potential Founders that would include a diverse cross-section of NAIS schools, focusing especially on school type and location. Phone calls and conversations started in 2005, with colleagues connecting with other colleagues at institutions across the country.
In addition to targeting a representative cohort of schools, we also looked for counselors who had demonstrated an interest and backing from their schools to take on such an endeavor. Starting a national organization is an "all hands on deck" enterprise, and we needed committed and energetic volunteers who were willing and able to support this start-up.
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Q: What role will General Members have going forward?
A: In the near term, General Members will be kept abreast of all ACCIS program opportunities, whether at NACAC, NAIS, College Board, various regional ACAC meetings, or stand-alone initiatives such as our own Summer Institute (June 22-25, 2008 at Kenyon College). Above all, ACCIS will seek to serve its members: What are the issues on the minds of college counselors in independent schools, and what can ACCIS do to provide support? As we receive questions, we'll try to provide answers.
ACCIS will also seek to provide supporting documents and research that members might find valuable in working with their constituents, whether students, parents, colleges, or-especially important in independent schools-heads of school and boards of trustees. Along the way, ACCIS will also seek to provide a strong, clear voice in the national conversation about the college admissions process.
In terms of the role General Members can play in these initiatives, there will be an enormous amount of work to do to deliver quality services in all these areas. Log on to www.ACCISnet.org, then contact ACCIS Executive Director Marty Elkins or another member of ACCIS who is leading an initiative you'd like to join.
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Q: Do Members join as individuals or as schools?
A: At this point, Members join as schools. The bigger your department, the more for your money! More important, a central premise of ACCIS is that college counselors are, or should be, leading voices in and for their schools. We hope to support college counselors in helping their schools be leaders on the national stage, for the good of schools, of college counselors, and especially of the young people in our care.
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Q: Don't ACCIS, and especially the ACCIS Founders, run the risk of being seen as elitist?
A: There is certainly that risk, and we understand the concern; however, the risk and concern are the same that NAIS schools run every day. The key letter in NAIS and ACCIS is the I for "independent."
Anytime any institution or organization declares itself "independent," reaction from those of egalitarian instincts may run along the lines of "Oh, so they think they're too good for us." Anyone familiar with the lengths to which independent schools go to be as inclusive and diverse as possible knows that exclusivity is the last thing we value.
The salient feature here is independence, and the assumption of the greatest risk of all-the risk of failing with no one to bail you out. Each NAIS school must operate on its own, often in a "no excuses" environment created by virtue of high expectations and even higher tuitions. ACCIS college counselors work within that context.
ACCIS exists to support the efforts of such college counselors, who often walk what can be a very high wire over not much resembling a safety net. That independent school college counselors, who often work alone, want to join together in mutual growth and development seems reasonable, and it should not be seen as a threat to anyone nor as a desire to be elitist.
Where the Founders are concerned, we had to start somewhere and mean only to help. We hope that observers of this initiative will come to see the merits of the effort. We also know that many of the pressures and issues we face are not exclusive to independent schools; if there are differences, they are often of degree, not kind. Therefore, we can envision a time when we might partner with other counselor organizations to create a more comprehensive national voice on issues that touch all students and all families in some way.
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