Interview with an Expert: Lisa Busby

Lisa has counseled over 1000 Bay Area families in their application processes for 6th grade through college, with a focus on balancing their academic goals with social-emotional development.

Welcome to our first installment of an ongoing series on our blog featuring interviews with experts in the field of supporting K-12 students. Our first interview features Lisa Busby, who is both an independent school consultant and acts as the Strategy Advisor for Phillips Brooks School in Menlo Park, where she served as the Associate Head of School from 2014-17. This role followed sixteen years at San Francisco Day School, where she was the Director of High School Counseling and Strategic Planning Implementation Coordinator. Lisa also acts as the Board Chair of Challenge Success, a non-profit school reform organization affiliated with the Stanford University Graduate School of Education.

Lisa has counseled over 1000 Bay Area families in their application processes for 6th grade through college, with a focus on balancing their academic goals with social-emotional development. She has served on the boards of California Poets in the Schools and The Lobster Theater Project, the latter as Board President. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature.

We’re delighted and honored to have the opportunity to learn more about Lisa and how she came to become a school consultant. Please take a look at our interview below.

How did you get into the field of school consulting? What made you stay?

In 2005, I stepped out of the classroom and into the role of Director of High School Counseling at a K-8 independent school in San Francisco. I loved this work of helping families stay grounded, connected with each other, and organized as they investigated and applied to various high schools. 

Several of the families I worked with then returned to ask for help with college applications, and then word-of-mouth resulted in other families outside of the school seeking help for 6th grade, 9th grade, and college applications. Currently, I am a part-time Senior Strategy Advisor for a K-5 school, a role that includes working with all 5th grade families applying to 6th grade.

In 2005, Lisa stepped out of the classroom and into the role of Director of High School Counseling at a K-8 independent school in San Francisco.

The rest of my schedule is dedicated to private clients in San Francisco and Marin. I also consult with schools in parent education and strategic planning. 

How has school consulting changed since you started? How has Covid changed things in the school consulting world?

So much has changed! From my perspective, families used to seek out consultants for three reasons. 

1. Their child had a unique profile- such as professional skiing or a specific learning diagnosis- and they wanted help finding schools that could support this profile. 

2. They were seeking boarding school or relocating and needed help understanding schools beyond their local choices. 

3. Parents felt their child would respond better to a non-parent for ongoing application guidance. 

Now, in addition to these three reasons, parents recognize that good consultants can help students find confidence, help them tap into their stories and experiences for application essays, help with interview skills, help busy parents stay on track, and help families stay realistic and keep an open mind to a variety of schools. These are life skills that can be applied in future applications to higher ed and even the job market. These are all valid reasons to hire a consultant. 

Another change I have noticed is that some consultants out there are less focused on life skills and fit, and they might even promise certain results-- sometimes through unethical conduct. This is where consulting feeds off parent fears and goes off the rails. Unfortunately, I don't see this development going away.  

COVID has prompted families to apply to independent schools if their public schools did not meet their expectations, and many of these families sought out support from consultants due to other complications related to COVID, like the inability to step foot on campuses. COVID has also highlighted the need for increased mental health support for teenagers, and while consultants are by no means mental health professionals, they can help students stay grounded, confident, and connected through a complicated application process. 

Where do you see school consulting going in the next five years?

I envision more families relocating and needing help finding schools in an unfamiliar city or town. I hope more families pursue boarding school, which I believe can be a great option for kids. Consultants can help with this. 

I imagine more families and schools will want children to have support in the life skills angle of application consulting. These things are generally not taught in schools and yet they are so necessary. Writing and telling a compelling story, distilling information about a school or company to understand if it is the right place for you, keeping an open mind, seeking fit over status. I hope this type of consulting reaches more families in the next five years. 

Please share your top piece of advice from your many years of experience in the school applications world -- that advice you keep repeating again and again.

For students: Be yourself. You don't need to have a passion to be an amazing person.  

For parents: Keep an open mind. There is a right school for every child.  

Please share your most inspirational story from your years as a school consultant.

I once worked with an 8th grade student who was shy, not confident, earned average grades, and she thought her sincere interests in guitar and skateboarding were not interesting or enough. She honestly did not know what she wanted in a high school. I remember the student telling me the other students in her 8th grade class were "perfect" and "had perfect hair" and always shot their hands in the air to answer a question before she could internally process what was being asked. She was a sibling at a large, hard-charging, selective school that was expressing interest in her candidacy. 

I helped this student think about what she really wanted, which led her to explore other smaller schools. She wrote a beautiful, honest application essay about how she was imperfect and an introvert. She was admitted to her sibling school and instead chose one of the smaller, more nurturing schools, where she experienced her first wave of academic confidence. She was also encouraged by teachers to play guitar and write songs and poetry. She ended up being a prize-winning school poet. Now she is out of college and a professional writer. At the end of the day, she needed confidence more than anything else, and she found it in the right-fit high school. 

Thanks so much to Lisa for providing us with her insights into the world of school consulting. If you’re interested in working with Lisa, you can contact her at http://lisabusbyconsulting.com/.