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Poly Prep’s Upper School Deans strive to support and guide students in charting a path through high school, focusing on academic advising and post-graduation plans.
By working intimately with families from Grades 9-12—keeping in mind aspirational goals as well as personal identities and preferences—deans help students find their passions and prepare to pursue fulfilling lives at Poly and beyond.
Through one-on-one meetings and community programming, the deans seek to empower students and help them develop skills to succeed, always keeping Poly’s core tenets at the center: mind, body, and character.
Meet Poly Prep’s DeansThe Upper School deans provide clear and comprehensive college counseling for families, enabling them to make the most informed decisions for their child’s next educational destination. The dean team commits to being at the forefront of ever-evolving industry practices and to making the college application experience—from choosing to applying to matriculating—a welcoming, transparent, and successful one.
Poly Profile 2023-2024 College MatriculationOur Upper School student-dean relationship starts in Grade 9 and culminates with advising on colleges and next steps post-Poly.
‘College advising’ to describe their work is a bit of a misnomer, however. The deans consider a student’s life path more broadly than that, threading long-term planning—defining values, setting goals, and cultivating interests and talents—throughout a student’s four years in Upper School.
Reducing College Application Stress
Applying to colleges can be stressful. Poly’s Upper School deans ease students’ anxiety about the college process. Every day they seek to help students and families reduce stress by staying ahead of it. They start well before it is time to choose a next home after high school. During your child’s Upper School years, Poly’s deans think about:
This important time allows our deans to build an organic relationship, making the later, higher-stakes moments far more comfortable to navigate.
The Upper School deans collaborate, using their complementary skill sets to benefit every student. Deans are seasoned educators, experienced college counselors, and admissions professionals who have worked at selective colleges nationwide. Mainly, however, deans care deeply about each student’s individual experience at Poly. They care about your student’s future and how Poly can help shape it.
The dean’s job, first and foremost, is to believe in our students and help them believe in themselves.
From Grade 9 to graduation, see a year-by-year overview of the student-dean experience.
Cohort discussions in Grade 9 focus on the guiding theme of how to be a student.
Cohort discussions in Grade 10 focus on the guiding theme of how to be a community member.
Cohort discussions in Grade 11 focus on the guiding theme of building your narrative.
Cohort discussions in Grade 12 focus on the guiding theme of preparing for adulthood.