After spending five years coordinating programs to help low income and disadvantaged women get back into the workforce, Fay Taragan realized that often these single mothers also had kids applying to college, adding extra stress at an already stressful time in their lives. In addition, having watched her own high school student who was interested in performing arts programs as she navigated the college process, Fay sought training in how to help teenagers apply to college. She joined the Magellan College Counseling team about five years ago.
I asked Fay to share her journey into college counseling with me, to help you understand what drives her to help students and families on their path to college, and to get a better feel for what it would be like to work with her. In this interview, you can see how her deep knowledge and experience working with performing arts students helps keep them grounded through their arts-centered college admission process, which is often more complicated, with auditions and deadlines layered on top of traditional applications, essays and recommendations. Her calm demeanor has also earned her rave reviews from the students and families with whom she has worked!
Magellan’s process is a little bit different for our clients, because we take advantage of the structure of our team to help our students present the best version of themselves. Each of our students has a lead counselor, but in our biweekly team meetings, we share information and rely on each other’s experience as we help each student build a balanced college list. Additionally, we circulate our students’ essays within our team for feedback, emulating how admission offices, who don’t spend time with each applicant as we do, review students’ essays for the first time.
I hope you’ll find this interview with Fay helpful, as you prepare to help your own child through the college admission process. Thank you for relying on Magellan College Counseling for up-to-date information about how the world of college admissions is changing!