All boys. All boarding. Grades 9-12.

College Admissions Weekend Welcomes Parents and Students

Deans and directors of admissions from seven colleges and universities visited Woodberry Forest School for its College Admissions Weekend on February 24-25, 2017.  The seminar was welcomed over 200 fourth and fifth formers and their parents.
 
 
At Friday night’s opening session, a panel of admissions experts took questions from parents and students in Bowman Gray Auditorium and from parents who were watching on WFSPN and submitted questions via text message. One parent asked how students could best show interest in a college. “We do track interest at W&L, but the best way you can demonstrate interest is not by driving across the state to a reception or event,” said Sally Stone Richmond, vice president for admissions and financial aid at Washington and Lee University. “Demonstrate interest to us by doing your homework about the school and letting that come through in your application and interview. Engagement with us is what matters, not just showing up.” 

On Saturday morning parents broke into groups for smaller sessions with the visiting college representatives. Fourth-form parents served as a mock admissions committee, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of three applicants before deciding who to admit to the college. 

Fifth-form parents selected workshop offerings including sessions like Building a Class: Selective Admission ProcessesAffording CollegePreparing a Distinctive Application; and Hooks: Athletics, Arts, Legacy, etc., in College Admissions.  
 
Parents then gathered for a closing panel with the admissions representatives to ask questions that had been been raised by their meetings earlier in the morning. “One of the great things about having gone to Woodberry Forest is that you send students all over the country,” said Rick Clark, director of undergraduate admissions at Georgia Tech. “It’s important to hear from tour guides and admissions directors, but it’s also important to hear from Woodberry people, too, because they have walked this campus and eaten in the dining hall and taken some of the same classes as you have, and that is an invaluable perspective.”  Clark, who has welcomed several Woodberry graduates to Georgia Tech, reminded parents that a college admissions decision — whether favorable or unfavorable — should not shape their views of a boy’s time in high school. 
 
“Nobody can get you into a certain school,” Mr. Clark said. “There’s uncertainty in this process, but that shouldn’t change the value of the Woodberry experience.”
 
Admissions Panel:

Lee Ann Backlund, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, Sewanee: The University of the South

Rick Clark, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, Georgia Institute of Technology

Bob McCullough, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, Case Western Reserve University 

Sally Stone Richmond, Vice President for Admissions & Financial Aid, Washington & Lee University

Michael Walsh, Dean of Admissions, James Madison University 

Leigh Weisenburger, Dean of Admissions & Financial Aid, Bates College

Jonathan Williams, Director of Admissions, New York University


Woodberry Forest admits students of any race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and national or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs. The school is authorized under federal law to enroll nonimmigrant students.