Marcy’s story

When I first applied to college, I had to order catalogs through the mail. I pored over books that ranked and described universities and hounded family members and friends for details about where they went to school, what their experiences were like. Then, of course, was the big decision about what I wanted to study.

At the time, swimming was the centre of my universe. I spent most of my time at practice - I was on my school varsity team and on a club team as well. On weekends I was a lifeguard for the city of Los Angeles and during the summer I taught children how to swim. It was natural, then, for me to think about finding a university that would allow me to join its swim team even though I wasn’t quite good enough for an athletic scholarship. Academically, I wanted to study something that would complement my athletic interests so I searched for a program in sports medicine. I also knew I wanted to go to a somewhat larger university (I was used to big - there were 700 students in my batch in high school!) in an urban centre, and I wanted to explore a new place. Having spent the bulk of my childhood in Los Angeles and Boston, I wanted to see what life was like in the middle of the United States. Ultimately, that process revealed that the University of Cincinnati would be the best school for me.

Like many people who study in the United States, I was exposed to a variety of courses that I hadn’t encountered in high school during my first two years of liberal arts courses. During that time there were other unexpected changes: I broke my leg and made a decision to leave the swim team. I also fell in love with my English courses and decided to study literature so I changed my major. In spite of these changes, the University of Cincinnati remained the right fit for me - and that’s what finding the right fit is all about. It should grow with you during your studies. I discovered that part of what I loved about literature was the process of putting it in print; I wanted to pursue a career in publishing. To my surprise, the University of Cincinnati had something called the co-op program. It enabled students to alternate their studies with professional, full-time work in the field. I participated in the program and by the time I graduated, I had experience working at three major companies: LensCrafters; Little, Brown & Company publishing; and Simon & Schuster publishing. It made it relatively easy for me to land a job at Oxford University Press immediately after I graduated, even though I may not have attended a name-brand school.

When you find the right university, when you fit into its communities - academic, athletic, social - you are able to grow and thrive in precisely the right ways for you.

My professional trajectory has taken me from publishing to academia to teaching. Oxford University Press introduced me to the world of academia and inspired me to pursue a PhD in literature. My ties to Ohio were still quite strong, so I enrolled in a program at Miami University. During my time there I had the opportunity to teach part-time at various Cincinnati-area universities, including the University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, and Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

I also spent a year as a Residence Director of Wilson House at Smith College. After receiving my PhD in 2001, I landed my first tenure-track position in Boise State University’s English department. While there I spent a summer term teaching at the University of Ghana, Legon and took a Fulbright sabbatical in Amman, Jordan. During my time in West Asia, I taught at Al Quds University in Jerusalem, Palestine and the American University of Beirut. I returned to Boise State and was awarded tenure before returning to West Asia where I taught at two more universities - An Najah University in Nablus, Palestine and Amman Ahliyya University in Jordan.

It was at this time that I decided I wanted to try teaching in a high school. I accepted a job heading the English department at the Quaker school, Brummana High School, in Lebanon. I spent two years teaching and began doing college admissions counseling for the seniors at the school. Previously, most of my admissions counseling had been directed at helping undergraduates apply to graduate school. Now my energy shifted to helping students in Lebanon find universities with a good fit in the United States, Canada, Australia, or England.

The previous year my son, Divyanshu, had applied to universities in the United States so I had been deeply immersed in that process - from selecting schools, to writing essays, to visiting campuses. For him, too, there were several factors at play - location (he wanted to be in California) and academic program (physics). But what really set the school apart, that eventually became his first choice, was the fact that when we visited the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), the professors there were deeply engaged with my son’s interests and took him seriously as someone who felt he was born to pursue physics. The icing on the cake was the school-within-a-school at UCSB - its College of Creative Studies. This was a place open to a few arts and science majors, including physics, that offered a number of exciting perks from being able to take the first two years of required classes pass/fail, to encouraging undergraduates to enroll in graduate courses, to having their own floors of the residence hall. It was a wonderful community, filled with real mentors, nestled inside a large research university. For Divy, he had found his fit!

I continued the work of helping students apply to college after I moved to India and joined Rishi Valley School. For three years I taught and worked as the college counselor and began to help students find academic homes in India and abroad. With an increasing number of Indian universities using a more holistic, American-style admissions process (Ashoka University, Azim Premji University, Shiv Nadar University), I have helped young Indians discover academic programs that suited their needs, whether in India or the abroad.

My husband, Murli, has joined this venture, adding to the knowledge base of different disciplinary, educational, and institutional experiences in India, Singapore, Malaysia, and the U.S.

This current college counseling practice comes out of these experiences: helping young people find the schools that best suit their needs and enabling them to pursue their dreams.