June 30th will mark the departure of two members of the College Counseling Office: Mr. Dean Jacoby and Mr. David Olins. Mr. Olins, currently the associate director, has been at Choate for seven years, and Mr. Jacoby has worked for two years as director. Along with these departures, Mr. Chuck Timlin, who has been a college counselor this year, will be returning to full-time teaching this coming fall. Tina Grant, the current associate director of college counseling who has worked in college admissions and college counseling for over 27 years, will become the new director this summer.
Eric Stahura, who has previously worked at The Doane-Stewart School in Albany, New York, will replace Mr. Timlin. The process of interviewing job applicants for Mr. Olins’s spot is still underway. All three of the counselors will finish their tenure working with fifth-formers and seniors until matriculation. Juniors will be assigned their new counselors as soon as new staff is hired. Mrs. Grant said, “There often is high turnover in the college admissions or secondary counseling professions as the field is often perceived as a career where people sometimes want to try something else, want to move to the other side of the desk, or just need a change of employment because of family circumstances. That being said, I’m not alarmed or concerned at the situation Choate faces as the remaining counseling staff are competent and superb counselors who will help our new hires become acclimated to Choate, and their new counselees, very quickly.”
The story of Mr. Timlin’s move from the English Department to the College Counseling Office goes back to last June when Mr. Matt Proto, another counselor in the office, was offered the director of Scholar selection position of the Moorehead-Cain Scholars Program, a prestigious scholarship program at University of North Carolina. Instead of hiring from outside, the school chose a new college counselor from within. Mr. Timlin, who had been a part time counselor the year before, was qualified for the job.
Mr. Timlin’s fans in the College Office will definitely be missing him next year. “He has done a really great job,” said Mr. Jacoby, director of the college office. Billy Rivellini ’09, Mr. Timlin’s counselee, said, “Mr.Timlin is the man, he’s really great with college advice.” Mr. Timlin’s position, however, was meant to be a temporary fix. Mr. Timlin’s successor, Mr. Stahura is, in Mr. Jacoby’s words “highly overqualified,” and has been in charge of admissions and college counseling at the nation’s only successfully merged Protestant/Catholic school—The Doane-Stuart School in Albany, New York. These two positions have given him a unique perspective and a great look at the different aspects of getting into a school and applying to a college. Mr. Jacoby says, “His sample college recommendation letters were exceptional and show that he is able to really connect with students.” Mr. Stahura, a former college athlete, loves golf, ice-hockey and soccer, and is very interested in coaching. “It is important,” adds Mr. Jacoby, “that we make sure the candidates we’re bringing in aren’t going to just be great college counselors but also great members of the community.” During the weekend of April 18th and 19th, Mr. Stahura will be on campus to meet Mr. Timlin’s counselees.
Mr. Olins’s decision to change jobs was fueled by the growing needs of his young family. Over spring break, Mr. Olins received a job offer from Green Farms Academy’s college office in Westport, CT, a K-12 day school much closer to home. Mr. Olins chose to accept the offer, although it was a tough decision to make. Mr. Olin said, “I’ve been at Choate for seven years and its been great, I’ve worked with wonderful students and amazing faculty, but I live about forty-five minutes from campus, and the reality is I have a young family, and the nights and the weekends can be tough with trying to balance work and family time so I’ve found a great job at a day school near home so that I can spend more time with my family.”
Filling the gap that Mr. Olins is leaving will be hard. According to Mr. Jacoby, his experience and dynamic approach to college counseling are not easy to find. “In some ways the hardest person to replace is Mr. Olins,” said Mr. Jacoby. “He’s spent seven years here and he knows the school from a long-time perspective—there’s an inherent value to that which you can’t replace overnight.”
Many candidates have presented themselves, but it takes a while to find someone that has the right attitude for the school, is able to build relationships with students, has the professional credentials to understand the current trends in admissions, and has the skills to write student recommendations and help students with college essays. Mr. Jacoby adds, “In terms of the talent, some of the people we’ve interviewed definitely have these skills. No matter who is chosen it will take time for that person to work up to where Mr. Olins is.”
“The hope is that in the next couple weeks we hire someone to replace me,” said Mr. Olins.
Mr. Jacoby’s ultimate choice to depart is multi-faceted. He explains, “The director’s position is very demanding and as a brand new father doing the absolute best at both is hard, and on top of that I have a long-standing interest of working with Native Americans.” He made the announcement in an e-mail to the fifth form on January 11th. Being here at Choate has reminded him of some of his core values and interests and as a director he didn’t get to work as much with students as he wanted—he did more paperwork, which he says is “very important—but not as important to me.”
Along with this busywork, trying to balance family and a directorship was hard. “There’s a moment that we all have in our life where we have to make a bold big adventurous decision and I feel like I’m at that time in my life,” said Mr. Jacoby. He explained that his move is certainly similar to the college process, in which students have to ask themselves what is the best fit for them in terms of a college. For Mr. Jacoby, Choate was not the right fit. “I wish I felt I could balance all aspects of my life so that this felt like the perfect place to be for longer. I love this school and will always be connected to this school, but there was a moment where I needed to make a strong personal decision.”
Mr. Jacoby’s decision to leave is disappointing to some in the community. “He really cares about each individual and it’s going to be tough to see him leave because we’ll have to get close to someone else and Mr. Jacoby has a way of really connecting with his counselees,” said Max Mastrella ’09. Mr. Jacoby will be moving to New Mexico to work at Albuquerque Academy, a private day school with an endowment per student of about $268,200, many of whom are Native Americans from all socio-economic backgrounds. “The students there [at Albuquerque Academy] are very bright and diverse, and I hope to retain some of things that made working with Choate students so great,” said Mr. Jacoby.
Mrs. Grant will become the Director of the College Counseling Office in July. She is the fourth person to hold the position in the past five years. Jin Ha ’08 said, “Having had her as my college counselor, I really think she is going do the best in regards to managing the whole program as well as taking on more responsibilities and working with her counselees. What Mrs. Grant brings to the table is her attitude of looking at the entire program, really working to make hard decisions, systematizing our growth and changes, and she is researching everything about the office and re-envisioning it with a fundamental, comprehensive plan—which I think is a big positive.”
The transition from this year’s counselors to next years should be seamless. “We’re going to have a staff retreat in June to discuss the changes and plans for next year, and how we will implement them—it will be a time of great reflection and transition,” said Mrs. Grant.
The College Counseling Office has had a few bumps in its quest to hire a replacement for Mrs. Grant. Even after signing a contract for the coming year and coming to meet parents and students during college information week, Michelle Mason did not withdraw her application from Harvard Graduate School. This decision was “a poor choice,” said Mr. Jacoby. After being accepted at Harvard, she severed her Choate contract and decided to attend Harvard instead. “The only word I can use to describe it is disappointing,” said Mr. Jacoby. “There will no doubt be a lot of misconceptions about why she chose Harvard over Choate. The fact is that when she came in February for college weekend, she said she thought very highly of Choate and was very excited to be here. As many of our students find out, it can be very hard to turn down an acceptance to Harvard even when it’s not always the right thing to accept it. There wasn’t something wrong with Choate, but rather that Harvard was too good to pass up.”
This turmoil was certainly dissatisfying for parents and students who felt things were going smoothly. “What has been most frustrating,” explains Mr. Jacoby, “is that we thought we had it all wrapped up.” Although there have been a few bumps in the process of finding someone to take Mrs. Grant’s place, Mr. Jacoby said, “I hope everything will work out. It is still possible and it’s all going to happen, but it’s just going to have to be on a shorter time frame.”
