Preparing for college begins the moment a student begins her first year at Porter’s. College Counseling at Porter’s is focused not only on equipping each student with the tools she needs for the college admissions process but also, more importantly, with the knowledge, skills, and confidence essential to succeed in college, career, and life.
Each student is assigned to a faculty advisor, who becomes her guide and mentor as she engages with our community and begins to establish herself in her classes, sports, and extracurricular activities on campus.
Advisors encourage students to try new things, stretch themselves, and to find and pursue passions. In the spring term, advisors assist ninth graders with planning that includes self-assessment, course planning for the coming three years, and goal-setting for continued growth and exploration. Introductory workshops are held with the College Office to educate ninth graders about the broad landscape of colleges and universities in the US and abroad, and the key components that comprise a college application.
Sophomores have their first taste of college admission testing in October by taking the Pre-ACT or PSAT. Over the course of the year, workshops are offered to students and their families on college admission topics such as standardized testing, athletic recruiting, and financial aid.
Practice standardized testing experiences provide students with a low-stakes opportunity to become familiar with college admissions testing and individual feedback on their relative strengths and areas of focus. Workshops during Family Weekend in October expose students and their families to the college application and admission process. Sophomores are notified who their college counselor is in December. During January InterMission, a series of evening sessions engage sophomores in self-assessment, identifying potential areas of study and campus characteristics they seek in their college experience, as well as a “College 101” overview of the admissions process. In the spring, students work closely with advisors to evaluate their academic record, extracurricular engagement, and curricular planning to look ahead to junior and senior years.
Juniors take the PSAT in October of 11th grade and sit for their first baseline SAT and ACT test in December. All of these tools help them assess their testing strengths and formulate a personal test preparation strategy to maximize their college admission scores. During Fall Family Weekend in October, the College Office hosts Junior College Planning Programming for juniors and their families, with presentations and workshops led by visiting college admission representatives from a range of colleges and universities. The College Office presents at class meetings and hosts small group meetings in December to help orient students to the college process, answer general questions, and introduce them to Scoir and College Kickstart, the two online tools they will use to manage their college searches.. The students are asked to complete a suite of self-assessment tools by the end of the semester so they are prepared to begin their one-on-one meetings with their college counselors in January.
Students are encouraged to use March vacation to begin to visit campuses to get a “feel” for the types of schools that may be appealing to them. One-on-one meetings continue throughout the junior year, complemented by a trip to the Hartford Areas Independent Schools college fair, with over 150 colleges and universities in attendance. Counselors work closely with students to help them refine a standardized testing plan, identify recommendation writers, navigate the Common Application, and compile a workable list of colleges that includes schools at a broad range of selectivity levels. The year culminates in a College Essay Workshop designed to launch the students on their writing process before the start of the summer.
By senior year, the college counseling process becomes highly individualized, as each individual’s search becomes as unique as they are. College representatives from over 100 colleges and universities visit Porter’s throughout the fall, and students are strongly encouraged to meet with the visitors from any schools they are considering for small group and often one-on-one connections. Students and counselors meet regularly as we approach early deadlines and finalize a college applications list that represents the student’s interests and a range of schools to which she has an opportunity to be admitted.
Students who are applying for financial aid work closely with their families to ensure that all required financial aid forms are submitted by each school’s published deadlines. College admissions decisions come in throughout the winter months, with a final notification date of April 1. Students have until May 1, the national reply date, to select from among the schools to which they have been admitted and enroll.
Porter’s students take advantage of college as an opportunity to explore, learn, grow, and prepare for the rest of their lives. Students from the classes of 2015-2020 have matriculated:
Assumption College
Babson College
Bates College
Bennington College
Bentley University
Berklee College of Music
Boston College
Boston University
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Brown University
Bryant University
Champlain College
Clark University
Colby College
College of the Holy Cross
Dartmouth College
Emerson College
Endicott College
Fairfield University
Harvard College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
Mount Holyoke College
Northeastern University
Olin College of Engineering
Providence College
Quinnipiac University
Roger Williams University
Sacred Heart University
Smith College
Springfield College
Trinity College
Tufts University
University of Connecticut
University of Hartford
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
University of Massachusetts, Boston
University of Vermont
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Yale University
American Musical and Dramatic Academy
American University
Bard College
Barnard College
Bryn Mawr College
Bucknell University
Carnegie Mellon University
Colgate University
Columbia University
Columbia University International Dual BA Programs
Cornell University
Drexel University
Fordham University
Franklin and Marshall College
George Washington University
Georgetown University
Gettysburg College
Hamilton College
Haverford College
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Howard University
Johns Hopkins University
Lehigh University
Loyola University Maryland
Marist College
Muhlenberg College
New School
New York University
Pace University, New York City
Pennsylvania State University
Princeton University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rutgers University
Sarah Lawrence College
Skidmore College
St. John’s University, Queens
St. Lawrence University
Stevens Institute of Technology
Swarthmore University
Syracuse University
Union College
United States Military Academy
University of Maryland College Park
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
Vassar College
Baylor University
College of Charleston
College of William and Mary
Davidson College
Duke University
Elon University
Emory University
Furman University
High Point University
James Madison University
Rollins College
Savannah College of Art and Design
Sewanee: The University of the South
Southern Methodist University
Spelman College
Texas Christian University
Tulane University
University of Alabama
University of Florida
University of Mary Washington
University of Miami
University of Mississippi
University of North Carolina, Asheville
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Oklahoma
University of Richmond
University of South Carolina
University of Tampa
University of Tulsa
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University
Virginia Tech
Washington and Lee University
Carleton College
Case Western Reserve University
Denison University
DePaul University
Indiana University at Bloomington
Kenyon College
Loyola University Chicago
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Purdue University
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Washington University in St. Louis
Arizona State University
California State University, Northridge
Cal Tech
Chapman University
Colorado College
Loyola Marymount University
Minerva University
Pitzer College
Pomona College
Portland State University
Santa Clara University
San Diego State University
Scripps College
University of Arizona
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Merced
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Puget Sound
University of San Diego
University of Southern California
University of Utah
University of Washington
Washington State University
Duke Kunshan University
McGill University
New York University Shanghai
Sciences Po Paris, Reims
Skema Business School
Technologico de Monterrey
Universidad Anahuac
University College London
University of Edinburgh
University of Kent
University of Manchester
University of Otago
University of St. Andrews
University of Toronto
Waseda University School of International Liberal Studies
Yonsei University
