College Counseling
Welcome
The attention that Taft gives students comes into special focus during the college selection process. We have four full-time college counselors on staff, dedicated to helping students and families successfully navigate the college search process. We help students develop the analytical skills they need to best assess their own strengths and interests, allowing them to discover those schools offering the best overall fit. We also work directly with colleges on behalf of our students, presenting their character and achievements in an accurate, nuanced, and compelling light.
Our approach is student-centered, and spans the upper mid and senior years. Parents are also involved, through meetings, personal conferences, e-mails, and a bimonthly newsletter from the college office.
We get to know our students in virtually every facet of their lives at school: We coach, attend sit-down dinners, and interact continually with students, their teachers, and their coaches. We advise students on course selection, standardized testing requirements, essay writing, and how to best present themselves on their college applications. In the fall of their senior year, we help students finalize their list of colleges, and consult closely with teachers, coaches, deans, dorm faculty and advisors prior to crafting a detailed letter of recommendation, which highlights every facet of a student’s moral, intellectual, and social development.
The college counseling team also attends conferences, visits college campuses, constantly reviews media reports, and cultivates relationships with our colleagues in admissions offices.
Meet Our Team

"Matching a student with the right college is both an art and a science. We use data to inform our conversations about the initial choices, but we also do a great deal of questioning, getting to know the student…We read every teacher comment, dean letter, and advisor letter…All of this comes together to tell the student’s story, to present the narrative of who they are in a compelling way."
—Alison Almasian ’87, Director of College Counseling
Fast Fact
More than 100 representatives of colleges visit Taft each year, giving students the opportunity to learn about them and enabling the counselors to maintain the rapport and professional understanding that marks Taft's relationship with these colleges. The excellence of our academic program leads to outstanding options for students' post secondary education.