5 Questions with SAAS’s Director of College Advising

By: Sarah-Mae McCullough, Editorial Content Manager

The fourth floor common area of our new Upper School building has already become known for its “college atmosphere,” as SAAS’s Director of College Advising Melanie Reed puts it. 

Every school day, students work on homework or college apps at the long, wooden tables. To one side of them are individual offices where each of our six, full-time college advisors coach Upper Schoolers through the college exploration process. On the other side, light pours in through wall-to-ceiling windows while student activity hums in the courtyard below. 

This college-focused hub, built into the Home of the Upper School, is a place where students of any grade level swing by after school to ask questions as they envision their futures. It’s a gathering space where they can chat with advisors and mingle with the 130+ college reps visiting SAAS this fall. 

Our College Advising department has always been a powerful force in supporting each student’s individual journey—and the new space reflects and elevates that mission. After the Home of the Upper School opened up this fall, we sat down with Melanie, who’s led the department since 2007, to talk college advising and the impact of the new building. 

What’s special about our College Advising department? 

We are the largest college counseling office at a private high school in Seattle, and that allows us to draw on a rich background of experiences. We all worked in college admission before coming to Seattle Academy, so everyone has that context of having read applications and made decisions on them for colleges. 

We are also nerds for college advising! We have chosen to make this our life’s work, and we obsessively track admission and scholarship outcomes as well as trends and topics that are part of the college counseling world. Then we use those data points to arm students with real information that helps them make good choices.

What feedback do you hear from college admissions officers about SAAS students? 

When college admission officers visit Seattle Academy, they're always really impressed. Our students are kind and smart and welcoming, and the Culture of Performance really manifests in the way that they treat college reps who visit. 

What we hear back about our students when they go to college is that they're often the leaders in their classrooms. They’re the person who presents the project, who presents the poster, who writes the report—the voice of those projects.

What are the top College Advising events students should make sure to take advantage of throughout their time at SAAS? 

We offer events every year on a really wide range of college topics, including standardized testing, college athletic recruitment, how to finance college, how to seek scholarship money. We invite admission deans to some of our webinars to be guest speakers. So we put together a really thoughtful, comprehensive set of information for families, and any student of any grade level, any parent, can participate in those events when they’re ready. 

Something that is a favorite every year is the Application Case Studies for juniors. This program is a mock admission committee exercise. Students or parents get into small groups, led by one or two deans of admission who guide them through an exercise where they read sample applications and make admission decisions. It allows 11th graders and their guardians to see what makes a high quality application. Every year, students tell us after the event that it was so worthwhile.

How is the new Upper School building impacting the student experience? 

Something that we are really excited about is offering drop-in office hours more frequently for all grade levels of Upper School students. If you're a nervous ninth grader, and you just want to ask a question of a kind college advisor, four days out of the week after school, one or more members of our team is stationed in the commons and happy to answer questions. 

This space is also where we welcome college representatives every year. The room was really thoughtfully built to accommodate this kind of interaction. The reps present well in the space, the students are enthusiastic and attentive. It’s also really high visibility, right in the heart of campus. 

Overall, the new building is this container for so much interaction and happiness. Our team is having more spontaneous, positive interactions with students and faculty—you can bump into people randomly and solve a problem or ask a question. 

What are you proud of in terms of college outcomes at SAAS? 

Our college list is very competitive. It has the country's and the world's most selective places on it. If you think about the variety of students who are here—it also includes some science- and math-focused schools, and it includes the most competitive art schools in the country. 

You can really tell what students are excited about by the variety of colleges in the college list. There are about 190 schools in our five year matriculation list, which is a huge variety of colleges. It feels as unique and as independent as our students are.