“I always have a good day when I can actually sit down and have a one-on-one with a student,” Director of College Counseling Ms. Wendy Chang said, reflecting on her favorite part of working at Bishop’s.
Any time a student steps foot into Ms. Chang’s office to meet — whether it’s for the first time as a sophomore or the last time as a graduating senior — this enthusiasm for her job is abundantly clear, from her thoughtful advice to her funny quips, and, of course, the stories upon stories that she’s collected over the years for just about any college situation one could possibly find themselves in.
After four successful and devoted years leading the college counseling department, Ms. Chang is leaving Bishop’s to live closer to her family in New York. Her tenure at Bishop’s has been characterized by her hard work and dedication to helping her students, her close and collaborative relationship with her college counseling team, and her constant fervor. Next year, she will work remotely as a United States college specialist for a school in Hong Kong.
One thing that students and colleagues alike will miss most about Ms. Chang is her high-energy personality. “She’s incredibly excited about the work that we do,” said Associate Director of College Counseling Ms. Marsha Setzer.
Associate Director of College Counseling Mr. AJ Jezierski elaborated, explaining that she is always the first to arrive at Bishop’s in the morning and last to leave in the afternoon. Laughing, Mr. Jezierski mentioned that Ms. Chang works so hard she can sometimes be found jogging to the cafeteria for lunch for “maximizing her time,” he said.
Associate Director of College Counseling Ms. Noor Haddad recalled Ms. Chang’s dynamic attitude at any meetings she runs for students and parents. “Whenever we do a presentation, she always makes it a point to walk around like she’s doing a talk show…to make it fun,” Ms. Haddad said. “She interacts with the people that are in the audience and she is definitely not afraid of answering tough questions.”
Her enthusiasm makes her an easy person to talk to for students. “She definitely did have a fun side to her,” said Gerard Blake (‘24), one of her former students. He remembered a Daily Urinal article of his that they chatted about. “I think I just wrote some dumb stuff about how Bishop’s was the successor to the Roman empire,” he said. “She was just joking about how that was really comical and me and her just talked about that for like 20 minutes.”
Sophie Arrowsmith (‘26) had similar experiences. She mentioned that their meetings always go over because they’re having a good time talking. “If I try to tell you what we were talking about for all that time, I don’t know that I could,” she said.
Often, Ms. Chang’s stories seamlessly intermix with thoughtful college advice. “She knows a lot of people, she has funny stories about almost every school, she has quips about almost every Dean of Admission,” said Sophie. “As silly as it may sound, it is very helpful when trying to understand how to apply.”
Ms. Chang shared one funny story she tells often, from when she was an admissions officer at Harvard. She interviewed a student who criticized their classmate in the context of a certain situation at school. Ms. Chang later found herself interviewing the very student her first interviewee had described. Ms. Chang always remembers this story because it’s humorous, but also because it has a lesson: “Be kind!” as she put it.
One of the most helpful aspects of Ms. Chang’s college counseling for many of her students is what Gerard characterized as “her tough, but fair approach,” in which she is honest to her students about their applications while also being kind. She ended up helping Gerard decide to apply to The University of Chicago, the school he currently attends.
“What I most appreciate about Ms. Chang is that she finds a perfect balance of supporting me while also being realistic,” Sophie added. “She is aware that I am someone who just likes to get the information with not a lot of sugar coating, and I would say that she’s given that to me perfectly. She’s honest and she’s very easy to talk to.”
These types of interactions with students are exactly what made Ms. Chang turn to college counseling in the first place after working as an admissions officer at Harvard University. For her, it was “very unfilling” as an admissions officer to spend so much time looking at students’ applications, and never getting to have “a more extended engagement” with them. As a college counselor, she is very appreciative of this human interaction aspect. “The beauty of this job is even when it’s very, very stressful…every day you get a chance to sit down and have a nice moment where you’re helping someone.” This aspect of the job is, to some degree, why Ms. Chang has worked as a college counselor at such a wide variety of different high schools — from New York, to South Africa, to right here at Bishop’s.
Ms. Chang also enjoys the connection she gets from working with her college counseling team. “This job is too hard and too emotional and too demanding for us not to be really, really aligned, not to have each other’s backs, not to be supportive of each other, not to be able to function like a team,” she explained.
Ms. Chang’s colleagues affirmed her sentiment, emphasizing how the team’s personalities “mesh together” well, as Ms. Haddad put it. Ms. Setzer gave a specific example, explaining that while she is “a big picture person,” Ms. Chang is amazing at the details. “I have become a more diligent counselor working with her and just seeing her systems and her way of keeping in such regular contact with students and that really helped me to improve my practice,” Ms. Setzer said.
Mr. Jezierski, who worked at Bishop’s for eight years before Ms. Chang’s arrival, said that he has felt a “strong sense of support” from Ms. Chang. “There are always frustrations and disappointments during the [college application] process, but Ms. Chang always has our backs and keeps us focused on the positive,” he said.
Her fellow college counselors also emphasized how hardworking and knowledgeable she is. “She’s constantly thinking three steps ahead,” Ms. Setzer also mentioned. “She’s so organized with keeping track of where different students are at because she just has so many thoughts in her head at a time.”
Mr. Jezierski also emphasized her curiosity for learning more about the college process and staying on top of the trends in the college counseling world in order to be best-equipped to help her students.
Ms. Setzer summarized her college counseling style aptly. “Ms. Chang works very hard and she’s very serious about her job,” without “taking it too seriously,” Ms. Setzer said. “She and I have connected on that because we both can usually find something to laugh about.” Ultimately, more than anything, her combination of a fun attitude and hard working mentality is the legacy Ms. Chang leaves behind.
As Ms. Chang prepares to say goodbye to her grateful colleagues and students, she shared a closing word of advice for students. “It’s totally okay to go off the beaten path,” she said. “It’s totally okay to be doing something that none of [your] other friends are doing, it’s totally okay not to want to do the hardest, most prestigious, most exclusive thing, because you know that that’s not right for [you].” If you find yourself struggling, “Pick yourself up and get back on the path, or find a new path.”
Now, as Ms. Chang follows her own advice by going on a new path herself, she reminds students that, above all else, “Life is messy, it’s not linear.” Finally, Ms. Chang hopes that as students make their way through high school, the college application process, and the world that follows, that they “embrace failure, embrace change, [and] embrace unpredictability.”
