Oftentimes, students rising to their junior year of high school do so with the statement echoing in their heads, “Junior year is the most important year of your life; your future depends on it." The college application and admission process begins in earnest during the junior year, and is known for being intensely fraught, and objectively stressful.
For decades, Watkinson School has been working to make it less so. And succeeding in ways that are unique and striking. In fact, Watkinson’s approach to college counseling has received national accolades, as it centers on a potent and unique way of combining excellent professional guidance and clearly defined direction to parents, with the belief that students in the all important junior and senior years have developed the kind of self-knowledge and awareness that equips them with exactly the tools and skills they need to navigate this landscape.
A hallmark of the Watkinson School experience is the way in which student readiness manifests in the college application process. For years, both current and alumni parents report that their college process was remarkably free of the kind of parental anxiety they witnessed in friends and family. They consistently state that the school's intentional process fully equipped their children to take ownership of this significant life decision. Head of School Teri Schrader says, “It is deeply gratifying when our intentional goal as a school, of fostering readiness aligns so perfectly with the positive results and experiences shared by our parents.”
Watkinson’s highly personalized, student-led, and "fit forward" college counseling approach begins as early as 8th-grade, when we aim to help families better understand the college process, including the financial aid process. Since Watkinson is a small school with a total enrollment of 220 students, this means that by the time the students are in the thick of it in their junior year, the college counselors know the students well.
Simultaneously, Watkinson’s educational program puts students at the center of their own learning, regularly asking them to make choices and decisions that require interrogation of and reflection on what they think and know, and who they are as people. By the time the college counselors ask them, “What are you passionate about? What do you want to study more in college? Where do you want to see yourself?,” these students know a great deal about themselves and have the ability to clearly respond to those questions confidently.
And nothing speaks louder than results. Watkinson’s students receive an impressive array of college acceptances quite often with significant offers of merit money. The school reports that in the last four years, their graduating seniors have been offered more than $10 million in merit scholarships.
As is Watkinson’s tradition, each and every college acceptance is celebrated at the school's All-School Meeting and by the entire community. It is a public acknowledgement of schools across the country recognizing that Watkinson School's graduates are indeed ready to succeed in college.
Watkinson School
180 Bloomfield Ave., Hartford
Online: watkinson.org
Phone: 860-236-5618
Email: info@watkinson.org
Founded in 1881, Watkinson School is Hartford's oldest independent coeducational day school, serving students in grades 6–12 and a postgraduate program. Known for its progressive, student-centered approach, the school emphasizes small classes, creative thinking, global citizenship, and personalized learning that prepares students for college and lifelong success.