• Who is your child as a learner?
• What are his/her/your goals?
• What are your family’s values?
• What are your expectations from this application process and your child’s overall high school experience?

These seemingly simple questions guide our framework for high school counseling at Turning Point, providing the starting point of a more extended conversation that guides our families to explore options, file applications, and make enrollment decisions.

As a Preschool-Grade 8 program, we believe in the power and potential of these formative years of education, when so much of who your child is as a learner and will become as a person powerfully emerges. Often misunderstood is the substantial degree to which the final year of this arc (Grade 8) undergirds and sustains productive growth and a positive flight path for your child.

Our middle school teachers, skillful experts in preadolescent learning, offer exceptional instruction for students and provide critical insights into their learning profiles, their motivation and drive, and their overall academic trajectory as they approach high school. What we know about your child, and perhaps more importantly what your child knows about her/himself in Grade 8, is far more refined and robust than what any of us knew even three years earlier.

The members of the High School Counseling Team recognize the enormous privilege and tremendous responsibility we have in partnering with our families as they matriculate from Turning Point. As a group, we naturally liaise with the Middle School Deans, Advisors, and faculty who work closely each day with your child. We feel privileged in this front row seat to witness the culmination of years of hard work, growth, and maturation, and we recognize the time, effort, and investment each family makes as they navigate this exciting and sometimes nerve-wracking process.

The journey to high school typically begins in the Spring of Grade 7, when we invite parents to attend our High School Counseling Workshop. Any parent at Turning Point is always welcome to attend this event (this year’s is on April 16, so mark your calendars), though the discussion is geared toward the rising Grade 8 families. In this workshop, we provide an overview of the counseling process, lay out the timeline of the process, and equip parents with tools and strategies to navigate their child’s high school search. We demystify this often opaque process and answer questions and concerns while setting the necessary tone for all families to approach their search from a position of confidence and love—for no grounded decisions were ever made out of fear and anxiety.

After the workshop, we schedule individual parent meetings to personally counsel each family throughout the spring and summer. In these early exchanges, we help families narrow their search parameters and provide the language for defining their “best fit” schools. We continue the discussions as families return in the fall of eighth grade, when they conduct school visits and ultimately select the schools they will pursue. Throughout these conversations and strategy sessions, we counsel families on differentiating rigorous curricula, admissibility, learning support services, understanding tuition assistance and affordability, geographical considerations, and any other questions and concerns that may arise.

It is important to note that every family’s journey is unique, and all options and opportunities can and should be explored. While most graduating families aspire to continue onto independent day schools, it is common and appropriate to consider public schools, charter and magnet schools, religiously-affiliated schools, boarding schools, performing arts schools, hybrid schools, and online high schools. Everything is on the table for discussion, and there is no singular definition of the “best school.”

While there are no promises for admission when exploring selective schools, we do guarantee that Turning Point will provide a world-class, well-rounded, well-resourced education that fully prepares each child for today’s demands of high school and life-long learning. We often hear that the fear of space availability and the pressure to apply to schools when entry is broadest takes over families’ decision-making process. Let us say unambiguously that it is true: many highly sought-after schools openly share their desire to see your child apply at their major entry grade levels.

However, it is also true that our secondary school partners most value in our candidates their authentic confidence, academic prowess, and practiced leadership—all of which, again, is not fully displayed until these culminating weeks and months of Grade 8. This is not merely lip service. The vast majority of Los Angeles’ admissions directors will confirm that Turning Point graduates bring a unique, highly desirable skill set and invaluable educational experience to their communities. They genuinely want our graduates. You need only look to our current graduating class for evidence.

It is our honor and privilege to share with our community this year’s high school acceptance list. Please join us in celebrating all our graduating students’ many accomplishments; not just their potential destination for next year. The truth is all of these schools are better when they include Turning Point graduates within their communities. As we like to say, “The schools our students attend are all great, but it is our graduates who bring the thunder.”  This year’s graduates are no exception.

Preliminary High School Acceptances*

Archer School for Girls
Brentwood School
Buckley School
Campbell Hall
Cate School
Crossroads School
Episcopal School of Los Angeles
Forman School
Geffen Academy
Loyola High School
Harvard Westlake School
Immaculate Heart High School
Marlborough School
Marymount High School
New Roads School
Oakwood School
Pacifica Christian High School
Phillips Andover Academy
Vistamar School
Wildwood School
Windward School

*A complete list of matriculation will be posted after Spring Break

We hope you will join us in congratulating all of our Grade 8 students on the incredible work, perseverance, authenticity, and maturity they have exercised in the months and years leading up to this moment. As a larger school community, they have not only made us proud; they have made us shine.

The Turning Point High School Counseling Team,

Christian Davis | Director of Admissions and Placement
Dr. Laura Konigsberg | Head of School
Gaby Akana | Assistant Head of School, Middle School Division Head