College Counseling

Our college counselors stay current on college options and admission trends by regularly visiting college campuses and through active engagement in professional associations including the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools and the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Each year SPA welcomes admission officers from more than 100 colleges to visit our school and meet with interested juniors and seniors, and we co-host the Twin Cities Partnership College Fair open to students from six independent schools. Admission officers get to know the strengths of an SPA education and look forward to seeing applications from our students.

Parents and guardians are essential partners in the college search. Through a series of evening programs and morning coffees, parents learn about trends in college admission as well as the details, timelines, and logistics of the college search and application process, and effective ways to support their student. Audio recordings of our programs linked on our comprehensive College Counseling website keep this information accessible to all. Counselors welcome parent and guardian questions at any time and meet with parents during teacher conferences and family meetings in the junior and senior years. By partnering with parents to help them understand the college process before their student is actively exploring college options, together we guide the student to gain independence and ownership of their college search.

Our goal in college counseling is to support the personal growth and exploration that ensures a rewarding path to higher education. Just as the SPA experience fosters skills and perspectives that benefit students in the college search, the college counseling process cultivates skills of self-reflection, critical thinking, communication, self-advocacy and decision-making that will be vital to students’ success in college and in life.

Welcome to St. Paul Academy and Summit School!

Visiting SPA in Fall 2023:  We offer both in-person and virtual rep visits and use SCOIR to schedule visits.  Please sign up to use SCOIR if you are not already familiar with it. Admission representatives may request either an in-person or virtual visit once we have our schedule set up in SCOIR, welcoming visits between September 11 and October 31. Visit slots will be 35 minutes long (half of a class period) between 8:00 am and 3:00 pm. Both seniors and juniors may attend. 

Note that visit requests are requests - to be confirmed by our College Counseling Assistant Mr. Carey Otto (cotto@spa.edu).  If you have questions about setting up a visit, please contact him by email or phone: 651-696-1417.  

Check your GPS!  We have two campuses:  Directions to the Randolph Avenue Campus:

College Counseling is located at 1712 Randolph Ave., Saint Paul, Minnesota, 55105 (not the Lower School or Goodrich Avenue Campus).  Enter from Davern St. (east side) or the Huss Performing Arts Center (west side). A Google map of the Randolph Campus is here. 

The SPA Experience:

Our School Profile describes the SPA experience and academic program. For detailed information about our curriculum, explore our Upper School Academic Departments.

Quick facts about the SPA experience: 

• 94 percent of recent SPA graduates reported feeling better prepared for college work than their college classmates. 
• SPA’s small class sizes and discussion-based courses are key components of the SPA academic community; students take charge of their own learning while also contributing generously to the collective learning experience. Students also learn and practice discipline-specific modes of thinking across the curriculum. Some examples include discussion-based English courses where students to engage meaningfully with sophisticated texts and articulate their ideas with depth and clarity; an integrated fine arts curriculum that encompasses music, studio art, and theater; laboratory-based science courses where students frame research questions and design experiments to find the answers; in-depth history courses that invite students to explore sophisticated primary and scholarly sources for formal research papers; four World Languages (Chinese, French, German, and Spanish) that foster cultural competence while moving students from proficiency toward fluency; and an innovative mathematics curriculum that focuses on logic, critical thinking, and quantitative communication. 
• While SPA does not teach the Advanced Placement curriculum, the depth and sophistication of our courses matches or exceeds AP standards. Many of our students choose to take AP exams, and they score very well, with 97 percent earning 3 or higher and 76 percent earning a 4 or 5.

SPA is a small school with a big program, thanks to students’ avid participation in a wide array of extracurricular activities in athletics, the arts, journalism, debate, and a wide array of student-led clubs and organizations. 

For College Transfer Admission

• Please make your request via Parchment.com  This service is free of charge and allows you to request a transcript for multiple colleges.
• You may request SPA recommendation letters by contacting SPA College Counseling.
• For advice on the transfer admission process, contact your college counselor or College Counseling Assistant Carey Otto by email or phone (651-696-1417).

For personal use by SPA graduates or parent/guardian of current students

• Submit this Form to request a Transcript or Report Card. 
• If you are unable to complete this form, contact Rose Congdon, K-12 Records Assistant by email or by (651-696-1315).

For Employment Verification

• Contact Rose Congdon, K-12 Records Assistant, by email or by  phone (651-696-1315).

What information is on the SPA Upper School transcript?

The transcript is the official document of a student’s academic performance in Grades 9-12. It includes semester and year-end grades. Grades from UMTYMP are included. Unlike report cards, the transcript does not include quarter grades, exam grades, or attendance information.

The SPA transcript reports only SPA courses and grades. If a student was previously enrolled at another high school or participated in a semester away program, this enrollment is noted on the SPA transcript. The transcript from the previous school or semester program will be part of the academic records sent to colleges or other academic programs.

College courses taken through the Post-Secondary Enrollment Option or other college programs are not listed on the transcript. If a transcript from these college programs is provided, we can attach this information to your SPA transcript when submitting to colleges or other academic programs.

The official transcript does NOT include results of college entrance exams such as SAT or ACT tests. Only AP exam results of 4 or 5 will be included on the transcript. When test scores are required to support applications for first-year or transfer admission, the student must order official online score reports to be sent directly to the college from www.collegeboard.org or www.act.org.