Quinten Bright ’19

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With the incoming freshman class also came one new college counselor, Ms. Jimenez, and our new Director of College Counseling, Mr. Fuller. These two new members of the Strake Jesuit community are filling the openings created by the retirement of Dr. Clifton and the departure of the former director Mr. Champenoy.

Ms. Jimenez came from Cambridge Christian School, a private school in Tampa, Florida, with many of the same religious values as Strake Jesuit, despite not being a Catholic school. Although she was also a college counselor at her previous school, she was the only college counselor.

She said, “Strake Jesuit is about five times the size of my old school, so being part of a team and having other counselors to talk to is something new that I enjoy.”

Curiously, both Ms. Jimenez and Mr. Fuller had hardly any relationship with their college counselors during high school, mainly because of the size of the public high schools that both of .them attended.

According to Mr. Fuller, “At my public high school the student to counselor ratio was closer to 500:1.” In other words, most of the counseling staff’s time was consumed by the top 10% students who needed guidance with the selective college admissions process and the bottom 10% who needed help with their challenges. The middle 80% were left without adequate guidance. Luckily, at Strake Jesuit, Mr. Fuller noted, “the ratio is about 50:1”.

Mr. Fuller has 24 years of experience in university admissions, coming to Strake from the University of Houston as the Director of Admissions.

He has gone from deciding which students come to the University Of Houston to now getting students into college by “shaping a competitive portfolio”, as he calls it. Since he now has a more direct relationship with the students, his favorite part of Strake has been the students he has interacted with.

His choice to come to Strake Jesuit was influenced primarily by his experience with a Catholic school in kindergarten through middle school. Not just the faith-based skills, but the basic learning skills he acquired in Catholic school have driven him throughout his career and his life.