Be Remarkable: Meet Katie MacDonald
“While I help guide them, it’s them doing the work. These girls are remarkable.”
The most rewarding part of Salem Academy’s Director of College Counseling Katie MacDonald, PhD’s job is seeing the joy on students’ faces when they receive their first college acceptance letter. “When they run down Babcock Hall and come barreling into my office, excited, saying ‘Dr. Mac, I got into college!’ It doesn’t matter which school; they are thrilled,” she said. “The light in their eyes, the joy–that’s huge, seeing that spark in them.”
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in rhetoric from Bates College and a master’s in communication studies from Wake Forest University, Katie moved to Louisiana, where she taught–first as a teaching assistant and then as a professor–at Louisiana State University (LSU) while earning a doctorate in communication studies with a concentration in rhetoric and cultural studies. Her research focused on cultural communication and motherhood studies. “I’ve always been interested in women’s education and what girls and women go through,” she explained.
When her husband’s career brought their family back to Winston-Salem, Katie applied for her current position at Salem Academy. “I had experience at so many different types of institutions—both as a student and a teacher—and I have an independent school background, so the Academy really fit in those ways and also with what I’ve been passionate about researching in my doctoral work,” she said.
Today, Katie spends much of her time advising students through the college admissions process. She also coordinates college visits, helps connect students with internships, and serves as senior class sponsor, which she really enjoys. “As senior class sponsor, my counterpart and I get to do the most fun traditions like senior day, which is when each senior gets to design her own course, and all of the underclassmen take the senior-designed classes for a day.”
Katie is deeply passionate about helping each student choose the college that will be the best fit and will set them up for long-term success, as she explained: “Something I’ve introduced to Salem is the implementation of a four-year process in college counseling. I am very intentional about having touchpoints throughout freshman and sophomore years. Then junior and senior years, we have seminar meetings as a group every week, and I bring in college representatives from across the country to meet with our juniors. That’s the year we start to really deep-dive into a college list and ask what they want in a school, what they need to look at when researching colleges, and how financial aid works. Spring of junior year, I begin to have more one-on-one meetings with students, both individually and with their parents, and I have weekly meetings with each senior until they’ve submitted their first college application. My office is literally a revolving door of students, and I love it because I can really give them individualized attention and help them with whatever they need.”
One student’s experience, in particular, stands out to Katie. A boarding student from Dominica had been accepted to several colleges, but initially didn’t receive enough financial aid to make attending possible. “She applied and got into so many colleges. Financial aid letters started to go out, but she wasn’t seeing the funding that would allow her to attend college. On Founders Day, we were all on a bus at 7:00 in the morning, and she got an email from Rhodes College saying they were giving her a full-ride scholarship. The entire bus celebrated; it was a huge moment.”
This student’s happy outcome is a testament to the time and effort Katie puts into advocating for Salem Academy’s students. “I had called the Rhodes admissions officer a few times the week before to see if there was anything they could do for her. Having connections with admissions at different colleges has been really helpful for me when advocating for our students,” she said.
“I think it’s very important that the student’s voice is heard throughout the process. These are very well-rounded, incredibly smart, articulate, wonderful, and motivated young women, so we want to hear from them what their best fit will be. It’s a really individualized process; I’m meeting the students where they are.”
Katie said her favorite thing about working at Salem Academy is “the students, these girls. They are so special, these students who come to Salem. They make it so rewarding every single day. It’s not a place where a student is just a number, or a name on a sheet of paper. Every faculty and staff member knows many things about each student. They know if they are having a hard time or have a huge success; we are a very close-knit community. I think that’s a very special thing you don’t find in many high schools.”
The pride Katie has for each of the students she works with shines through everything she does at Salem Academy. She said, “As an all-girls institution, we are developing girls to have that confidence so when they get to college they aren’t intimidated. These girls are remarkable.”