All boys. All boarding. Grades 9-12.
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Phil Hooper Appointed as Director of College Counseling
Woodberry Forest School has hired Phil Hooper as its new director of college counseling. Mr. Hooper is a distinguished college counselor, serving as the director of college counseling at Episcopal Collegiate School in Little Rock, Arkansas, since 2002. He was previously director of college counseling at Hutchison School in Memphis, Tennessee, and Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Mr. Hooper has been a leader in the Southern Association for College Admission Counseling for fifteen years, serving on the executive board and chairing the group's summer seminar for three years. Before joining the independent school community, he worked as director of admissions at Transylvania University and in the admissions offices of Rhodes College and Hendrix College. At Woodberry he will report to Assistant Headmaster for Admissions and College Counseling Scott Schamberger.
"I am thrilled that we were able to attract Phil Hooper to Woodberry Forest. Phil has dedicated his career to the world of college admissions,” Mr. Schamberger said. “He is well respected within his field and brings to Woodberry a proven and natural ability to develop and nurture relationships with students, parents, and colleagues in college and university admissions offices.”
Mr. Hooper and his wife, Dr. Suzanne Wilmoth, were instrumental in the success of Episcopal Collegiate School. Dr. Wilmoth is a science teacher who earned her doctorate in plant ecology from Vanderbilt University. At Episcopal Collegiate she specialized in sixth-grade life science but also taught a wide array of biology, anatomy, and environmental science classes. Mr. Hooper and Dr. Wilmoth are both very excited to join the Woodberry community and look forward to being a part of a residential school after many years at day schools. They have two adult daughters, Maddie and Hannah.
“I am very grateful to Scott Schamberger for leading the way with the search. We had a great pool of talented applicants,” Headmaster Byron Hulsey said.
The search committee included former Director of College Counseling and Tom Parker, former college counselor Ted Blain, Assistant Headmaster and Dean of Students Joe Coleman, and Dean of Faculty Matt Boesen. Each of the candidates who interviewed on campus also visited with a number of boys as part of the process.
Mr. Hooper and Dr. Wilmoth will move to Woodberry later this summer.
Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country.
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Woodberry Forest admits students of any race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and national or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs. The school is authorized under federal law to enroll nonimmigrant students.