Greenhill College Counseling Department welcomed Jamie Garcia to join their team this year.
Garcia says her passion to help students navigate college admissions stemmed from working as a college tour guide as a student at Chapman University.
After meeting her admission counselor at Chapman, she realized that representing her school and supporting students was her passion.
“When I was a student going through the process, I thought it was a bunch of old white men reading applications in a scary room,” Garcia said, “And then through meeting my admission counter, I was like, ‘Oh she’s 23 and she really represents Chapman well.’ I wanted to do that for other students too.”
During her time as an admissions officer at Chapman, Garcia learned about the back end of college admissions such as financial aid processes and the upcoming demographic cliff. At the time, she was also the Assistant Director of Admissions and focused on recruiting students in Texas, leading her to discover Greenhill in the future.
Later on, Garcia became interested in exploring the field of college counseling and decided to receive a certificate from a program at University of California at Los Angeles.
“I realized my favorite part of my job was interacting with students, and because so much of my role was reading applications, I didn’t feel like I was getting enough student focus in my role, so that’s when I started kind of exploring what college counseling would look like,” Garcia said.
While searching for a new opening, Garcia found that Greenhill was offering a position to hire new college counselors. Garcia says she decided to interview with Greenhill because of her previous experience recruiting in Texas along with the program’s prestige.
For her interview process, Garcia went through three phrases: a phone interview; a Zoom interview with Trevor Worcester, Upper School Head of School, and Peter Olympia, Director of College Counseling; and an in-person interview to meet faculty members and students. Garcia says the in-person interview in particular further solidified her interest in Greenhill as she enjoyed the warmth in the community.
“When I told my past supervisor I had been offered this job, and I was deciding whether or not I was going to take it, he said, ‘If you want to be a college counselor, there is no better school to be at,’” Garcia said.
Currently, Garcia has been shadowing sessions with other college counselors and attending college visits. This November, Garcia will be working with the Juniors to assist them throughout their college admissions process.
“I know a lot of people that have made the switch to college counseling, and they’re writing letters of recommendations for students they’ve never met,” Garcia said. “I’m so thankful that hasn’t been my experience, and that is all thanks to this amazing team.”
