Iain McClintonDear Parents,
What an honor it is to be provided the opportunity to engage with your children as they enter their final year at BIPH and contemplate life and studies beyond High School.
After 20 years of working as a college counselor and ESL teacher at an American international college in Bulgaria (ACS), where for six years I was Head of the College Counseling Department, I was most recently Head of Counseling at an international school in Myanmar (ISM). As Head of Counseling at these schools, I not only counseled and navigated high school students through curriculum planning, course selection, scheduling, and the entirety of the college counseling process from college selection and worldwide admission protocol, to applications and financial aid procedures, but I also advised and supported students in grades 7-12 through social-emotional counseling, crisis management, and student advocacy.
My experiences in education have involved working with large graduating classes of up to 180 students in international settings, and this has allowed me to become highly effective across multiple global application systems and electronic platforms; the most prominent of those systems being in the US, UK, Continental Europe, and, more recently, Asia and Australia.
However, I believe that it is a personal and highly individualized approach that focuses on a student’s positive growth and development while prioritizing their well-being that has allowed me most successfully to guide both students and their families through what is often, for them, a stressful and confusing process.
I seek, through daily group interactions with your sons and daughters, as well as one-on-one meetings with all the students I work with, to counsel on the value of informed decision-making rooted in self-reflection, an awareness of personal values, and an individual expression of those values. In promoting these values, I value a collective, yet highly personalized approach to college counseling.
I have come to understand that personal growth and character development are the paramount functions of the education system and are vital to a successful college application. As I learn about the students, their experiences at BIPH, and their values and ambitions, I also learn and grow myself. It is precisely this give-and-take and willingness to engage that nurtures a thoughtful, reflective, and ultimately successful college student and life-long learner.
Wishing you all a productive and fulfilling year with BIPH,
Iain McClinton