College Counseling

At Colorado Rocky Mountain School, we offer a comprehensive college counseling program to guide students and parents through the complex process of applying for college. The college counseling staff's primary goal is to help students identify colleges and universities that are the best match for their unique personalities, strengths, interests, and needs and to aid families with the application process. Through regular meetings with our college counseling staff, online resources, and our College Planning Handbook, CRMS prepares its students to identify, apply, and matriculate to selective colleges and universities across the country. Please review all of the following supporting information to better understand the process.

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 » Steps in the College Search
 » College Visits
 » Applications
 » Financial Aid
 » College Planning Calendar
 » College Resources
 » Scholarship Information


To summarize, the CRMS college counseling staff is here to help guide each student through the college admissions process. Informally, that process begins when a student enters CRMS. The college office works closely with faculty advisors and deans as they help students choose appropriately challenging classes. Students begin working formally with college advisors weekly during the second semester of their junior year. During these sessions, individualized counseling is a very important dimension of the college program. Counselors discuss an overview of the college admissions process, criteria for choosing compatible schools, available materials and resources, testing, college visits, interviews, essays, and the application. CRMS college advisors encourage students to reflect on their own interests, talents, and goals and then to research and explore the colleges that will foster those abilities and aspirations. Advice and guidance are provided through one-on-one meetings with students during this self-evaluation. Subsequently, students conduct research in order to identify appropriate college choices. The college office believes firmly that students must play the lead role throughout the college application process. It is, however, a collaborative effort among counselors, advisors, students, and their families, and we invite and welcome parents to play an active role as well. Conversations throughout the junior and senior years allow us to work together in the best interests of each student.

Counselors meet with parents in fall of senior year in group and individual informational sessions during Family Weekend and take part in scheduled conferences throughout the year. Parents are provided with a weekly email update of student activities and are encouraged to communicate often with the college counseling office at CRMS. Seniors are given a five-day period in October exclusively for college visitation. Parents and students also use our web-based college counseling program, Naviance, to keep abreast of the application process.

Additionally, college advisors serve as liaisons to college admission offices, promoting an understanding of CRMS and each of our students to the colleges, and sharing with the CRMS community important information about college admission trends and procedures.

In a progressively tighter college market, the college process is more complicated than ever. At CRMS, our experience, demonstrates clearly that there are indeed programs for everyone, and our goal each year is to find the best fit for each of our students, academically, socially, athletically, geographically, and financially. Finding this fit is not always an easy process, often entailing hard work and even some rejection. However, one hundred percent of our 2009 graduates were accepted to four-year colleges and universities which clearly validates our efforts and college placement philosophy. Our graduates matriculate both to traditional pillars of academic excellence such as Dartmouth, Wesleyan, and the University of Chicago, and to competitive schools whose innovative, progressive inclinations mirror our own, such as Bates, Bowdoin, Reed, Colorado College, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Click here for a list of selected college acceptance or to see our CRMS College Profile please click here.

To order CRMS Transcripts please contact svalin@crms.org