Dear Holy Names Families,

This coming Tuesday, our seniors will be heading to a college fair held at Christian Brothers Academy. We take this opportunity to remind you of the remarkable college counseling program we offer your daughters. 

At Holy Names, we recognize the college admissions landscape has grown increasingly complex and high-pressure, requiring greater financial planning, strategic test preparation, extracurricular curation, and navigation of increasingly competitive, holistic admissions criteria. Our college counseling program helps students and families navigate this landscape and prepares each young woman to find the right college fit. 

Our long-standing and structured college counseling program, led by Annemarie McGarry, begins as early as ninth grade and continues with a sequence of dedicated courses and individualized guidance:

  • The college search process begins in freshman year with an annual Parent College Education Night to help families learn about the process. 
  • In the spring of sophomore year, students take a semester-long class that encourages girls to think about their future. Students take interest inventories, personality tests, and career tests, and relate the outcomes to potential careers. 
  • During junior year, the processes get more specific. Juniors take a semester-long class to determine what they want in a college, the size, feel, location, majors, etc. 
  • In their senior year, a first-semester guidance class helps students get college applications completed.

The results speak for themselves. For many years running, 100% of AHN graduates have been accepted to four-year colleges. The Class of 2024 received more than $16.5 million in scholarships, with every single student awarded aid — a tradition continued by the Class of 2025. According to Barron’s 2016 selectivity index (the last year Barron’s published the list), AHN graduates over the last five years have enrolled at colleges rated: 

Barron’s Rating % of AHN Graduates 2021-2025 Enrolled Examples of School Graduates Enrolled
Most Competitive 26.17% Boston College, Cornell, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, West Point
Highly Competitive 10.75% Fordham, Syracuse, WPI
Very Competitive 35.98% Fairfield, Siena, Vermont
Competitive 20.56% Howard, Marist, St. Bonaventure
Less Competitive 0.47% HVCC, Paul Smith’s College
Not Found 0.47% Pace University, Culinary Institute of America

 

But matriculation results alone do not tell the full story of the transformational experience our girls experience. Holy Names offers a holistic education rooted in a consistent worldview that respects the dignity of every individual. Our students are encouraged to explore their life’s purpose in the context of spirituality and faith, and to embody the aspirational virtues of faith, hope, and love that will carry them far beyond their first acceptance letter. This formation equips them not only to earn admission to excellent colleges, but also to live lives of purpose, authenticity, and leadership. 

For more than 140 years, Holy Names has been committed to the proven power of an all-girls education. Research as reported by the International Coalition of Girls Schools confirms what our alumnae already know: 

  • Graduates of girls’ schools are six times more likely to consider majoring in math, science, and technology. 
  • They are three times more likely to consider engineering. 
  • and more than twice as likely to earn doctoral degrees compared to their peers. 
  • They report stronger confidence in their academic abilities, greater leadership skills, and higher levels of political and civic engagement in college. 

In other words, girls’ schools don’t just prepare students for college — they prepare them for life.

While others have shifted models in search of identity, our mission has never wavered: to form strong, capable young women who are prepared to lead and to serve.

In a competitive college admissions climate, we are proud that Holy Names delivers both proven outcomes and an education that develops the whole person. That is what truly sets us apart.

-Dr. Martin Kilbridge