Thinking back to when I began counseling college and graduate students

This past weekend, I consulted with a family that asked about my background and how I became a college and graduate school counselor. It had been many years, since I went back to thinking about working in Graduate Admissions at Columbia.I learned how students were selected, and that being rejected did not mean that they were unqualified-just not right for the program. A short time later, opening my learning center, I received a call from Stanley Bosworth, the founder and Head of St. Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights. He asked if I would be willing to hire one of his students as a tutor. Ian was brilliant and stayed on for years. I kept in touch with Stanley through Ian and other students he recommended and was able to observe and learn how special his college prep program was. Ian left us when he graduated from St. Ann's attended MIT and later received a doctorate from University of California at San Diego. Other peer tutors followed, many of whom are friends on Facebook. Other schools sent students in need of a job including Carmine Farina the current Chancellor of Education in New York City whose daughter Marisa worked in as a peer tutor for years.It felt so good to give teens meaningful work. In my own background, my jobs were mostly horrible and exploited my time and talents. Everyone of the peer tutors has become an amazing adult productive adult...and I do what I did way back then to the best of my ability.