June 2023

ICC had a very busy spring!

• We attended a session from Wentworth Institute of Technology, a hidden gem in the heart of Boston!
• We also attended a counselor breakfast with many schools from the ARROW group.
• ICC went on a week long tour of colleges in the Boston area with proper visits and tours of Tufts, Northeastern, Brandeis, Boston U., Harvard, Babson, Suffolk, Boston College, MIT, Emerson, Bentley. We visited several other campuses including Emmanuel College, Mass College of Art & Design, Simmons, Wentworth Inst. of Tech., Wellesley, and Olin College of Engineering. While in Boston, we also attended the NACAC Fair and got even more great info! It was a very full and fruitful week!
• The 3 day Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) conference was also a great highlight and conveniently hosted here in Seattle! This was a great opportunity to meet other accomplished  professionals and esteemed colleagues from across the world. The IECA workshops, speaker series and hosted college presentations enhanced our professional learning and reinforced our ethical standards in guiding families and students. Notable were sessions (e.g how Generative AI may impact admissions) that help us stay current and motivate us to remain professionally active and mentally agile.
• The Seattle Area College Counselor (SACC) group continues to be a strong and beneficial resource for us. We did a presentation on working with immigrant families, visited Univ. of Puget Sound, Seattle Univ., and DigiPen as a Counselor group.

Our biggest takeaways are that we are again reminded how there are amazing colleges and universities for all students with plenty of opportunities, rich learning, and so much more, and how students narrowly focus on very few, highly-rejective schools.