Guidance, Academic & College Counseling

The four-year college counseling program provides students help in navigating through the college search process. The school aims to provide comprehensive and effective college counseling marked by individual attention.

The goals of the college counseling office are threefold:

To provide highly professional, proactive, hands-on counseling and guidance throughout the high school years, culminating in the college search;

To represent each student fairly and responsibly, identifying with her or his uniqueness and potential – "to meet each student where they are;"

To enable each student to find a match – fitting her or his ambitions with a college's programs, resources and style.

Bishop McNamara's mission includes readying students for success at the next level and beyond, building necessary life skills. As part of this effort, the school's unique college counseling program includes material designed to appropriately challenge students of each grade.

Innovative Naviance/Family Connection Program - click here

In the 2015-16 school year, each Bishop McNamara student was introduced to the new college counseling portal, Naviance. The program is a comprehensive college and career readiness platform that enables self-discovery, career exploration, academic planning, and college preparation for each Bishop McNamara student.

This online portal, commonly referred to as Family Connection, is used by the student, teachers, parents and guidance counseling staff as a team connecting each of these parties to help the individual student's academic achievement to post-secondary goals. Its comprehensive college and career planning solutions optimize student success, maximize counselor effectiveness, and track results for school administrators. The program interfaces with thousands of colleges and universities to help make the best possible fit for each college-bound student.

Whether it's matching colleges to a student's career interests, or comparing admissions rates at a student's top college choices, our college counseling staff works with students to learn Naviance's many features. Naviance's planning tools allow students and families to make informed decisions. Students can also compare colleges and universities, explore scholarship opportunities, and track the status of supporting application documents (transcripts and letters of recommendation). Plus, all of these tools are managed from one location, improving communications between students, Bishop McNamara, and parents and reducing paperwork.

The Naviance Family Connection program was made possible through a gift of the Bishop McNamara Class of 1990 in recognition of their 25th high school reunion.

Year after year, Bishop McNamara's college acceptance rate demonstrates the benefits of the school's academic rigor, personal preparation and overall readiness for challenges of college and life beyond.

The graduates from class of 2023 were offered places of admission to over 114 schools in over 30 states from the Ivy league to the small liberal arts colleges, and from large research-based state schools to the Nation's leading Catholic school. 46 students qualified for over $13.2 Million in scholarship and awards. 

Some of our recent college acceptances (2014-present):

• University of Alabama
• Arizona State University
• Augustana University
• Baylor University
• Belmont University
• Benedictine University
• Boston College
• Boston University
• Bradley University
• Butler University
• Carthage College
• Citadel Military College
• Clemson University
• Columbia College
• Columbia University
• Creighton University
• Culver Stockton University
• University of Dayton
• DePaul University
• Eastern Illinois University
• University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign
• University of Illinois – Chicago
• Illinois State University
• Illinois Wesleyan University
• Indiana University
• University of Iowa
• Johns Hopkins University
• Kankakee Community College
• University of Kentucky
• Knox College
• Lewis University
• Loyola Marymount University (CA)
• Loyola University – Chicago
• Marquette University
• Miami University (OH)
• Michigan State University
• University of Missouri
• North Central College
• Northern Illinois University
• Northwestern University
• University of Notre Dame
• Olivet Nazarene University
• Ohio State University
• Penn State University
• Purdue University
• Southern Illinois University
• Valparaiso University

*Italics denotes Catholic college/university