College and Career


At RCDS, the college process is a natural outgrowth of the RCDS experience with its emphasis on academic and personal growth and on the individual and the community. Just as students are encouraged to explore all the possibilities open to them in both the academic and co-curricular realm and to take on challenges of many different sorts, so they are expected to enter the college process with an open mind and, with the support of the school, to turn what can otherwise be an daunting, even overwhelming, ordeal into an exciting journey of self-discovery.

The College Process, which really begins early in a student’s academic career when students learn to become active and involved learners and active and involved community citizens, shifts into high gear in the junior year when students meet with the College Advisor and the Head of the Upper School in a weekly College Prep class. In that class, we introduce students to the many differing pieces of the process and help them understand the decisions they will be making and the steps they will need to take as they move through it.

Among the items we discuss are the range of colleges to which a student should apply (Reach or Dream; Safety; and Good Chance); the range of timing options for applications (early decision, early action, rolling admission and regular admission deadline); creating a college application as a portfolio that demonstrates each student’s specific strengths; standardized tests (schedule, strategies); the actual application process itself and what that entails.

In the senior year, seniors meet with the Head of the Upper School and with the college advisor in the weekly Senior Seminar, giving everyone a chance to catch up on their joint progress. Seniors meet individually with the college advisor throughout the year, both in regularly scheduled meetings and as needed; juniors begin doing so as well as the year progresses. We draft with each student a working plan not only for finding a good range of schools but for preparing the best applications possible for those schools. Included within that plan are the many different variables that go into the application process:

• current and future course and activity selection,
• summer programs and projects,
• senior project and internship planning,
• resumé preparation,
• college admissions testing schedule and preparation
• college essay writing,
• application types (rolling, early decision, early action, regular) and deadlines
• application preparation,
• portfolio and arts supplement preparation,
• financial planning, scholarship applications, FAFSA and College PROFILE preparation,
• teacher and other recommendations
• college visits and interviews

Students work with the college advisor on every aspect of the application process, from signing up for standardized testing and preparing individual applications to tracking those applications, and deciding upon responses as the decisions come through.

We meet not only with students but with parents, both individually and in group sessions. The college advisor meets annually with the Parents Association to acquaint the parents of students in all divisions of the school with the college process, then holds a joint meeting with the rising seniors and their parents, an occasion devoted to going over the nitty-gritty specifics of the program and distributing the infamous “Big Red Book”, a binder for each student containing all the college materials distributed over the year. Junior and senior parents are encouraged to make appointments with the college advisor throughout the year, and parents of younger students are also welcome to do so if they wish to discuss their child’s future educational plans.

There are many forms to fill out and many steps to take within the College Admissions Process. It is my hope that we can help all of you to understand how the process works and to introduce you, in a timely and thought-out way, to the differing pieces of that process. You will be able to access some of the necessary information directly from the links in the college process section of our website.

I look forward to working with you over the coming year.

Ellen Nodelman
Director of College Guidance