RE Log Spring 2023

34 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2023 REimagination in Action New Executive Director of College Counseling attracts top talent to kick off transformation By RE Log Staff When Jason Locke joined Ransom Everglades as Executive Director of College Counseling last summer, the school’s college counseling office occupied about half of the second floor of Cameron Hall. Not even a full year later, after a summer of planning, a fall of outreach and a winter of appointments, RE’s college counseling office has expanded to fill the entire floor. The space is brimming with college counselors – and optimism. RE attracted seven new college counselors and an essay writing specialist in a wave of hiring announced in mid-January. All began work this spring. Locke dubbed the transformation of the school’s college counseling office the REimagination. After 23 years working in admission and enrollment management at Cornell University, Locke understood the increasingly competitive national landscape. He had a front-row seat in Ithaca, N.Y., as applications soared, consideration of standardized test scores waned, and university priorities shifted. Locke believed he could best address the challenges by bringing to RE a team of counselors who shared his understanding of the college admission process. He would supplement with counselors possessing a deep knowledge of RE’s academic and co-curricular programs, and the finishing touch would be adding expertise in essay writing. That led him on a cross-country search that proved as successful as it was wide. RE’s January announcement made more than a few jaws drop. On Campus Ransom Everglades landed four new associate directors of college counseling: Francisco Herrera, came from the admission offices of Brown University and Dartmouth College; Kate Fetterman, Kenyon College; China Hutchins, Washington University, St. Louis; and Marty Elkins, the former Director of College Counseling at Ransom Everglades. The school also brought in Ann Parks, a former colleague of Locke at Cornell as the office’s director of communications; and Christina Iglesias, who taught writing at Columbia University as an essay-writing specialist. The icing on the cake: Brandon King, the Dean of the 11th Grade, and Marlen Nuñez de Varela, a STEM Department faculty member, joined the team as faculty college counselors. Fetterman, Parks and Elkins are working remotely with occasional visits to campus. The others joined Locke, Director of College Counseling Patrick Tassoni, Senior Associate Director Claudia Jolivert and Coordinator of Student-Athlete College Recruitment Roger Caron on the second floor of Cameron Hall. “With the new additions, our college counseling office will become an even more vibrant campus center for college counseling, application resources and individualized attention,” Interim Head of School Rachel Rodriguez said in her announcement to the RE community. “We will be dramatically reducing our student-to-counselor ratio and thereby providing more one-on-one college counseling and allowing us the time to develop each student’s unique story.”