Fordham Prep Kicks Off the College Admissions Season

September is a month of new beginnings.  Freshmen arrive on the Rose Hill campus eager to start their Fordham Prep careers.  New faculty and staff take their place in the hallways and classrooms.  Even our buildings themselves, Shea Hall and the Leonard Theatre, open with fresh coats of paint and other physical improvements.  But one of the most important beginnings that occurs in September is the start of the college process, in earnest, for our seniors.

Students officially transition to their college counselor at the mid-point in their junior year and spend the semester planning for this moment.  The fall season usually brings with it the start of on-campus visits, securing recommendations from faculty members, and early application deadlines.   This year the College Counseling department introduces a new director to shepherd our seniors through this process, Ms. Bernadette Condesso.  

Ms. Condesso arrives at the Prep with experience in college counseling at multiple independent schools both nationally and internationally.  We recently asked her to sit down as part of our Five Questions series during which she talked offered her advice to both students and their parents for navigating the college process, her opinion on the unique challenges during this year's admissions season, and her favorite place in the world.

As our students navigate the college process during the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional activities including on-campus tours and representative visits to the Fordham Prep campus will be rare, if not impossible.  Recently, our traditional slate of college rep visits commenced virtually.  Students gather together in the Leonard Theatre and interact with colleges via online platforms.  They can do so in large groups so as to interact with their peers and the rep at the same time.  They can also participate in presentations individually.

Finally, the fall always brings with it news from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.  We are happy to report that seven students from the Class of 2021 were named Commended Students in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program.   They are:

Robert Bishof
William Carroll
Michael D'Arcangelo IV
Alec Lofredo Gonzalo
Daniel Graham
Michael Mariani
Jake Pallogudis

These students placed among the top 50,000 scorers of more than 1.5 million students who took the 2019 PSAT.  Congratulations to these students for demonstrating their outstanding academic potential.