POSITION: Director of College Counseling                            

DEPARTMENT: Great Hearts Texas Lead Office - Academics                     

LOCATION: Great Hearts Texas Lead Office

REPORTS TO: Executive Director       

Full-time, exempt, benefits eligible position

Position Summary

Great Hearts Academies seeks an experienced educator to serve as the Director of College Counseling.

The Director serves as representative of the Great Hearts mission and vision to colleges and universities by communicating the distinctive features of a liberal arts education and the immense value of a rigorous college preparatory curriculum. Our network of K-12 classical charter schools serves more than 9500 students across the Phoenix metropolitan area.  Working with more than a dozen school-level counselors from across the network, the Director serves more than 11,000 students across the state of Texas. Working with a group of school-level counselors from across the network, in both North and South Texas, the Director serves and leads the school-level counselors from our preparatory academies (6-12).

The Director will work with the Executive Director to ensure that the college counseling process is integrated into the fabric of the academic experience of Great Hearts Academies.

Duties & Responsibilities

The Director of College Counseling role involves:

• Leading the efforts of our network of school-level college counselors, through a variety of network-wide events and projects.
• Assisting academy headmasters in hiring, training, and evaluating college counselors.
• Liaising with admissions departments of institutions of higher education to promote the achievements of our students and graduates.
• Coordinating with Great Hearts alumni to enhance the college selection and assimilation process for our students.
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Qualifications, Competencies & Strengths

The characteristics we seek for our next director include:

• Deep knowledge of the college admissions process
• Extensive network capacity among institutions of higher education
• Exceptional communication skills, both in speech and written expression
• Extraordinary care for students and the counselors who serve them
• Resilience and perseverance
• Profound appreciation for the liberal arts tradition of education

Qualified candidates will bring:

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in school college guidance or selective college admissions; BA required, MA preferred;
• A minimum of 2 years overseeing admissions personnel or providing departmental leadership;
• A deep knowledge of institutions of higher education, including signature and honors programs, financial aid, scholarship opportunities, and the various factors informing a student’s institutional fit;
• Leadership of a compelling program detailing the admissions process for students and families, with informative, transparent, supportive relationships with those families undertaking the daunting process and a momentous decision;
• Exceptional writing, organizational, leadership, and interpersonal skills, along with receptivity to accountability;
• Fresh ideas to promote the benefits of a liberal arts education, particularly among college admissions, and a detail-oriented approach to planning programs—from Financial Aid Night, College Nights and Fairs, Case Studies, and scholarship-search tutorials;
• Familiarity with the landscape of standardized testing, including but not limited to administration of PSAT, SAT, AP, CLEP testing;
• Facility with technology—Naviance, Google Docs, social media, and the basics of website updating;
• A strong work ethic, self-confidence, and the proven ability to design and execute projects;
• Responsiveness to all constituencies: students, parents, faculty, administration, the board, colleges;
• Eagerness to represent the school on campus visits, in membership to NACAC, and in community programming.

Personal Qualities and Values

We value each of our team members as individuals but believe that we achieve the greatest results by working together. We willingly sacrifice individual interests and recognition for greater collective impact.  The candidate should enjoy being a team player. A vibrant shared services center, and the competitive aspiration, well-being, and camaraderie of our employees, is an essential complement to our academic communities.

The nine core virtues that we seek to model and instill in our students are:

• Responsibility.   We accept obligations and we act on those obligations in a manner suitable to their timely and satisfactory fulfillment.  We are willingly accountable for what we do and say, and we seek to learn from our mistakes.
• Perseverance and Courage.   We spurn despair and strive to complete tasks to the best of our abilities, regardless of the difficulty.  We respond creatively to overcome obstacles and ask for help when necessary
• Integrity and Honesty.   We are individuals of strong ethical values, who make consistently good choices in keeping with our knowledge of right and wrong.  We are always truthful in what we say and do, regardless of the circumstances or consequences.
• Citizenship and Humility.   We give of our time and abilities to serve others.  We uphold liberty and social equality through respect for individual differences and always strive to do our best whether we are recognized or not.
• Friendship.   We regard others and ourselves as deserving of kind and just treatment.  Our conduct is considerate and polite.  We look for the good in others and demonstrate compassion.  Our attitudes toward others reflect the way we wish to be treated.
• Wisdom.   We learn from our mistakes and think before we act.  We look to each other and our past successes for guidance on making good choices.

  This description reflects management’s assignment of essential functions, it does not exclude or restrict the tasks that may be assigned.

  Great Hearts Academies is an Equal Opportunity Employer.