Hello Ursuline Families!

The start of the fall semester is always an exciting time of year for the College Counseling office as we navigate the flurry of activity that stems from seniors delving into their college application process. As we move into the first few weeks of school, we have enjoyed having students from the Class of 2026 come by to visit with us and feel honored to support them on their college journey.

Our juniors have moved into upperclassmen status and are focusing more intently on their future goals. We look forward to meeting with each of them and their families and providing additional college prep activities throughout the year.

While our sophomores aren’t quite ready to dive fully into the college process, we know they are beginning to think about it and encourage them to use this year to explore their interests and begin to consider what they may want from their college experience. We have two sophomore college workshops planned during the year and will meet in small groups during the spring semester.

As our freshmen begin their time in high school, our hope is that they acclimate to high school and find their sense of community as they transition to a new school setting and seek new friendships and activities that are meaningful to them. We look forward to meeting them as we visit their freshman seminar classes in November, welcoming them to our office for our annual College Counseling Goes Green open house in January, and hosting an end-of-year panel in which several of our seniors will share some words of wisdom about their time at Ursuline with their younger sisters. 

As we look to the year ahead and think about our school theme for the year, Seek, we find it relates to so many of the interactions we have with our students and families. We see it as our families being able to seek us out as a resource and rely on us as a source of support, as well as our College Counseling Team finding ways to build relationships with our students, families, and colleagues on the college side. Each of us believes firmly in the idea of meeting our students where they are, and we work to add developmentally appropriate programming and events to the activities offered to each grade level. We also strive to stay current about the changing landscape of college admissions and seek opportunities to enhance our continued understanding of the college process.

We hope our students and parents look to our office as a source of information and as such, we strive to keep you updated and informed on college-related topics. We share various forms of information with parents through email, Remind text notifications, Quicklinks, and on our Parent Resource Page located on the Ursuline website: College Counseling Parent Resource Page.

A new year often brings new beginnings, which for our office includes two exciting updates to share. The first is the addition of Ms. Phoebe Butler to our College Counseling team. She joins our office with several years of college admissions and college counseling experience at both the college and high school level. The second is a new collaboration we have with College Money Method, a financial aid education resource that helps simplify the financial aid process for families. In the coming weeks, we will share information about educational programs they will offer and how to access resources specific to our Ursuline community.

We look forward to working with you and your daughters, invite you to reach out to our office, hope your college football team has much success, and wish you a wonderful start to the school year!

Warm Regards,

Alicia Estes

Director of College Counseling