On Tuesday, September 15, 2020, at 7:30 pm, the Wheeler High School Academic Booster Club (ABC) will host an insightful, virtual discussion on the Truth About College Admission. Join the Wheeler HS ABC, along with Rick Clark, Director of Admission at Georgia Tech, and Brennan Barnard, Director of College Counseling and Outreach at the Derry School, as we learn about a pragmatic approach to the college application process. We will discuss what admission officers find compelling in an application, the status of standardized testing, what the impact of the pandemic is on the application process, and much more.
Sign up to join us! Zoom code will be emailed before the event.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508044aadac229-college
Bios
Rick Clark is the Director of Undergraduate Admission at Georgia Tech. In this role, he directs the Institute’s recruitment and enrollment efforts, manages the review and selection of all undergraduate applications, and leads the admission team. Under his leadership, the Institute has dramatically increased brand awareness, improved overall academic class profile, and exceeded goals for geographic, gender and ethnic diversity.
Rick has served on the SACAC Governing Board, the ACT Council, and the College Board Search Advisory Board. He is a current member of a NACAC’s Committee on Leadership in College Admission and immediate Past Chair of the national Government Relations Committee. He is the past-Chair of Georgia Tech’s Staff Council. Rick travels annually to U.S. embassies through the Department of State to discuss the admission process and landscape of higher education. He was part of the 2018 Georgia Leadership Class, which exists to cultivate leaders across the state.
Over the last four years he has written a regular blog on the college admission process and topics regarding affordability of college. Rick is frequently quoted and referenced in national and international publications. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book The Truth about College Admission: A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together.
A native of Atlanta, he earned a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.Ed. from Georgia State University. Prior to coming to Tech, Rick was on the admissions staff at Georgia State, The McCallie School and Wake Forest University. He and his family live in Avondale Estates, Ga.
Brennan Barnard, M.Ed is the Director of College Counseling and Outreach at The Derryfield School, an independent day school in Manchester, New Hampshire and at US Performance Academy, an on-line independent high school for elite athletes. He is also the College Admissions Program Advisor with the Making Caring Common project at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
During over two decades in education Brennan has worked as a teacher, coach, dorm parent, admission officer, counselor and administrator at a number of independent high schools and colleges. He has counseled Olympians, thespians, artists, cadets, social workers, engineers, philosophers, doctors, writers, lawyers and everything in between.
Brennan is a member of the Advisory Board for the New Hampshire College and University Council’s New Hampshire Scholars Program and on the Executive Committee for the Character Collaborative. He presents regularly on character, athletic recruiting, mindfulness, discipline and other topics in college admission. He has written about college admission for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes.com, Thrive Global, HuffPost, Concord Monitor, Journal of College Admission and other publications. He has also been featured in articles in the Boston Globe and Associated Press and an occasional featured guest on New Hampshire Public Radio. He has been interviewed about college admission by New England Cable News and ABC News. Brennan was a New England Association of College Admission Counselors Professional of the Year for 2017. He is co-author of the new book, "The Truth About College Admission: A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together".
A native of suburban Philadelphia and practicing Quaker, he is a graduate of Westtown Friends School. Brennan earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Spanish from Franklin & Marshall College and a master’s degree in Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration from The University of Vermont. This father of two lives in Hopkinton, New Hampshire where he is a volunteer firefighter.