The Senior Summer IntensiveAugust 2–5, 2027
Four days to work, connect, find your rhythm, and begin senior year ready.
Four days, three nights · 20+ rising seniors · Five Chapman counselors · Warren Conference Center & Inn, Ashland, MA
Essays. Applications. College lists. Deadlines. Decisions. And underneath all of it, the pressure to somehow know exactly what you’re doing before you’ve even begun.
We think students need something different.
The Chapman Summer Retreat is a four-day residential experience that gives rising seniors the time, guidance, and community to make real progress on their college applications, without turning it into another race.
This isn’t about getting every student to the same place by Thursday. It’s about helping each student figure out where they are, what they need, and how they work best.
We provide the structure.
We provide the expertise.
We provide the support.
That belief sits at the heart of everything we do at Chapman Education. We want students to build compelling applications and find colleges where they’ll thrive, but we believe the process of getting there matters too.
The college application process asks students to reflect on who they are, what they value, and where they hope to go next. Done well, it’s an exercise in self-discovery. The Senior Summer Intensive gives students room to do that work without the constant pressure to perform.
And then we give students something they don’t always get enough of: the space to take ownership of the process themselves.
A quick look at what the Retreat is really like, straight from the people who run it.
Every student arrives in a different place. One may still be staring at a blank page. Another may be revising a third draft, or working through a college list, supplemental essays, or simply figuring out what comes next.
That’s why our Work Sessions don’t come with predetermined assignments — no one is told to brainstorm at 9:00, draft at 10:00, and revise at 11:00. Instead, students get long, protected blocks of time to set their own priorities, find their rhythm, and get things done.
Our counselors are there throughout, to read, to listen, to ask questions, to brainstorm, to give feedback, to help someone get unstuck, and sometimes, simply to give a student enough space to figure something out for themselves.
Because learning to own the process is part of the process.
There is a reason this happens at a retreat and not in a classroom. Deep thinking requires energy. Writing requires space. And sometimes the best thing a student can do for an essay is close the laptop and go outside.
There are substantial Work Sessions when students are fresh and ready to focus. But there is also time to move, laugh, eat together, get outside, and connect. Students will participate in facilitated team-building and trust activities, take on an outdoor challenge experience together, kayak, swim, hike, play games, and spend time simply enjoying the property and one another.
Then they come back to the work differently.
Refreshed. Connected. And often seeing something they couldn’t see before.
Something happens when students stop feeling like they’re doing this alone. Twenty rising seniors arrive carrying twenty different stories, twenty different sets of expectations, and twenty different versions of the same uncertainty:
Am I doing enough?
Very quickly, they discover that everyone else is figuring it out too. That’s why collaboration and connection aren’t extras at the Chapman Summer Retreat. They’re central to the experience.
Students work beside one another. They talk through ideas. They read. They listen. They encourage each other. They share meals and experiences. And when the laptops close, the community continues.
Our days are intentionally built around the natural rhythm of meaningful work.
Monday, August 2
Tuesday, August 3
Wednesday, August 4
Thursday, August 5
Students live together in shared cabins, creating smaller communities within the Retreat. Those cabins become places to decompress, talk, laugh, ask questions, and continue working informally when inspiration strikes. Our staff remains present and accessible, creating opportunities for the kinds of conversations that don’t necessarily happen during scheduled counseling appointments.
And then there are the campfires. On our first night, we’ll gather for s’mores around the fire after a full day of introductions, connection, work, and play.
No presentation. No assignment. Just time together.
Because some of the most important moments of the Retreat will have absolutely nothing to do with completing an application.
The Senior Summer Intensive is intentionally small. Our anticipated cohort of 20+ students will be supported by five experienced Chapman counselors, creating an environment where students have extraordinary access to guidance without feeling constantly managed. That’s an important distinction.
Our job isn’t to take over. It isn’t to tell students what their story should be or push them through a predetermined sequence of tasks. Our job is to move alongside them. We ask questions. We listen carefully. We offer perspective. We challenge when necessary. We celebrate progress. And we help students develop the confidence to make decisions about their own work.
Because ultimately, these applications belong to them.
Founder & Principal, Chapman Education LLC
For more than 35 years, Christine Chapman-Fierz has guided students and families through the college admissions process, working with everyone from high-profile families to students from underserved communities. She is the founder of Chapman Education LLC and the author of College Isn’t the Prize, Earned Confidence Is, a book that reframes the college journey as a chance for students to build real, lasting confidence, along with its companion workbook. Both are available on Amazon: the book and the companion workbook.
Christine also knows this process from the other side of the kitchen table. She has already walked one of her children through college admissions and is in it again right now with her son, a junior in high school. She knows what families are feeling because she is living it as a parent, in real time, and she brings that perspective to every student she works with.
Of all the work she does, this annual admissions retreat is her favorite. After nine retreats, Christine is especially excited to welcome families to the 10th, which marks a new chapter: a longer retreat to get more done, and a much more accessible location just outside of Boston.
College Counselor
Grace joined the Chapman Education counseling team after spending two years as an early childhood educator and working in a law office.
She’s thrilled to be supporting middle and high school students as they navigate the teenage years preparing for the college process. Grace received her bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College where she studied philosophy and played ultimate frisbee, which she states “is way cooler than it sounds!”
Grace has extensive experience as a writing tutor and especially enjoys helping young writers develop individuality and style in their writing. In her free time, Grace enjoys photography, reading science fiction, and clicker training her two cats, Rigby and Finch.
Cohort Manager
Celia Chapman is a student of Political Science and Economics at the University of Vermont (Honors College).
She is pursuing a pre-law track with plans to obtain a JD. At UVM, she serves as Finance Chair for the Student Government Association (SGA), is a member of the Sexual Violence Prevention Committee, has done extensive work for Dismas House in Burlington.
Celia grew up in the world of educational consulting and has been working at Chapman Education LLC with Christine since 2020 as a marketing lead, cohort manager and counseling associate.
In her free time, Celia enjoys going to the gym, spending time with friends, DJing and music production.
Instructor
Sadie Goldstein is a Chapman Education alum who graduated from Greenwich Country Day School in 2026 and is currently pursuing undergraduate studies at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy in secondary education with a focus in English.
Having recently gone through the college application process herself, Sadie brings the valuable perspective of being a current student who understands both the excitement and stress that often come with the college process. During the summer of 2026, the Chapman Education team was grateful to have Sadie working behind the scenes with Christine, gaining experience, doing research and creating resources both for students and parents.
As a future educator, Sadie is passionate about helping students develop their ideas, strengthen their writing, and feel more confident in their own voices.
Over 100 wooded acres and a lakefront, about 25 miles from downtown Boston.
We talk a lot at Chapman Education about earned confidence. Not fake it until you make it confidence. Not confidence that comes from someone telling you that you’re amazing. The kind that comes from doing something difficult and discovering:
I can do this.
Action creates evidence.
Evidence builds belief.
And belief becomes confidence.
Over four days, students accumulate that evidence.
Those moments matter.
By Wednesday evening, we want to celebrate.
Not GPAs. Not test scores. Not where anyone is applying. People.
We’ll gather for dinner and an evening of recognition, awards, music, karaoke, dancing, and celebration. It is intentionally joyful.
Because before everyone heads home to begin senior year, we want students to recognize how much can happen when they are given the time, support, community, and trust to do meaningful work.
We aren’t promising that every student will leave with a completed Common Application or a perfectly polished personal statement. That would contradict the very philosophy of the Retreat. We are promising something more individualized.
Students will have had approximately 16+ hours of dedicated Work Sessions, extensive access to experienced counselors, opportunities for collaboration and feedback, and uninterrupted time to focus on the areas of their applications that matter most to them. Some will accomplish an extraordinary amount. Others may finally figure out what they’ve been trying to say. Both matter.
What we want every student to leave with is momentum: a better understanding of where they are, a clearer sense of where they’re going, and greater ownership of what comes next.
And the earned confidence of knowing: I’ve started. I’m moving. I can do this.
August 2–5, 2027 at Warren Conference Center & Inn in Ashland, Massachusetts. Residential, three nights, limited to 20+ rising seniors.
Tuition benefits and discounts may not be combined.
The answer is: it depends on the student, and students can accomplish an extraordinary amount.
We have had students arrive at our summer retreats having barely begun the application process and leave with virtually all of their applications completed. Others arrive with significant work already underway and use the Retreat to revise, refine, and finish what they’ve started.
How much a student accomplishes depends on how they work, how meticulous they are, how many colleges they’re applying to, the complexity of their college list, and how many supplemental essays their schools require.
That’s exactly why we don’t impose the same agenda on every student.
With more than 16 hours of dedicated Work Sessions, students have substantial uninterrupted time to focus on their individual priorities, with experienced counselors available to brainstorm, read, edit, answer questions, and help them keep moving.
Some students may leave with virtually their entire application process behind them. Others will leave having made significant progress with a clear understanding of what remains.
Our goal is for every student to leave further along, more organized, more confident, and with real momentum heading into senior year.
That’s okay. Really.
Students arrive at very different stages, and we’ve worked with plenty of students who begin the Retreat with little more than a college list and a Common App login.
Our first morning is intentionally designed to help everyone get oriented. Counselors sit with students, figure out where they are, help them identify priorities, and begin thinking about how they want to use their time.
Then we let them begin.
There is no expectation that students arrive with a certain amount completed. They simply need to arrive ready to engage in the process.
No, and that’s an important distinction.
Students may spend a significant amount of their time writing, but the college application process is much bigger than the personal statement.
Depending on what they need, students might be working on their Common Application, personal statement, supplemental essays, Activities List, college list, application strategy, or simply figuring out what needs to happen next.
The Retreat is designed around the whole student and the whole process, not a predetermined writing curriculum.
Our Work Sessions are deliberately open.
We don’t begin each session by telling every student what they should accomplish over the next three hours. Students are at different stages, have different priorities, and work in different ways.
Instead, students have long, protected periods to sit with their work and find their own rhythm.
Counselors are present throughout, moving among students, reading drafts, answering questions, brainstorming, offering feedback, facilitating collaboration, and helping students get unstuck.
There is structure. There is accountability. And there is also autonomy.
We want students to experience what happens when they’re given the time, space, support, and trust to take ownership of their own process.
A lot.
The Chapman Summer Retreat is intentionally limited to 20+ rising seniors supported by five experienced Chapman counselors.
That means that even at our maximum enrollment, we’re maintaining approximately a 5:1 student-to-counselor ratio.
That size allows us to create something particularly special: students have tremendous access to adults who know the college process while still having the independence to do their own work.
Counselors aren’t hovering over students or managing every minute. They’re available when students need feedback, a second set of eyes, a conversation, a push, help working through an idea, or sometimes simply reassurance that they’re heading in the right direction.
Students are known here. That’s important to us.
Because energy matters.
Writing and reflection are demanding. Students can’t sit in front of a laptop for eight or ten hours a day and consistently produce thoughtful work.
So we’ve designed the Retreat around a rhythm.
Students work hard. Then they step away.
They’ll participate in facilitated team-building and trust activities, take on an outdoor challenge experience together, kayak, swim, hike, play games, share meals, gather around a campfire, and spend time simply getting to know one another.
Then they come back to the work.
We don’t see those experiences as time taken away from the application process.
They’re part of what makes the work possible.
Because the college application process can become surprisingly isolating.
Students spend so much time hearing about everyone else’s scores, grades, activities, college lists, and accomplishments that it can begin to feel as though they’re competing with everyone around them.
We want to create something very different.
At the Retreat, students work alongside one another. They talk through ideas. They ask questions. They read. They listen. They encourage one another. And sometimes another student asks exactly the question that helps someone see their own story differently.
We want students to discover that they can take their own work seriously without treating everyone around them as competition.
They certainly won’t be the only one.
That’s one of the reasons we’ve made connection such an intentional part of the experience.
Students begin getting to know one another almost immediately. On our first afternoon, we’ll move away from the laptops altogether for facilitated icebreakers, trust-building, and connection activities.
Students will also live together in shared cabins, eat meals together, work alongside one another, participate in outdoor experiences, gather around the fire, and spend evenings together.
We’re not trying to manufacture instant friendships.
We’re creating enough opportunities for connection to happen naturally.
Students will stay together in shared cabins at the Warren Conference Center & Inn in Ashland, Massachusetts.
Cabin life is an intentional part of the Retreat experience.
It’s where students can decompress, talk, laugh, continue working informally when they want to, and build relationships outside of the formal Work Sessions.
Our staff will also stay on property and will be present throughout the Retreat. Evenings are intentionally designed around shared dinners, recreation, informal cabin time, campfires, conversation, and community rather than simply adding more formal instruction.
Not formally.
After a full day of Work Sessions and activities, we want evenings to feel different.
There will be opportunities for informal work, and counselors will be available during designated cabin time for students who want to keep going, ask a question, get feedback, or sit down with someone to work through an idea.
But we also want students to talk, laugh, rest, and enjoy being together.
Sometimes a student is on a roll and doesn’t want to stop.
Sometimes the smartest thing they can do is close the laptop.
We’re comfortable with both.
We celebrate.
After three days of working, thinking, collaborating, challenging themselves, and getting to know one another, students will come together for a final evening of recognition and fun.
We’ll have dinner, awards and recognition, music, karaoke, dancing, and plenty of laughter.
We’re not celebrating who finished the most essays.
We’re not celebrating who has the highest GPA or the most impressive college list.
We’re celebrating the people who showed up, did the work, supported one another, took some risks, found their rhythm, and became a little more confident in the process.
Tuition is designed to cover the complete residential Retreat experience.
That includes three nights of accommodations, scheduled meals and refreshments, more than 16 hours of dedicated Work Sessions, access to our Chapman counseling team throughout the experience, facilitated team-building and outdoor programming, recreational activities, Retreat materials and swag, cabin and evening programming, and our final-night celebration.
Our goal is for families to know what they’re investing in from the beginning, rather than continually adding charges for the core experiences once their student arrives.
Early Enrollment tuition of $3,950 runs through October 15, 2026. After that date, tuition is $4,250.
The Senior Summer Intensive is intentionally limited to 20+ rising seniors.
We want the Retreat to be large enough to create a vibrant community where students can meet and collaborate with peers, but small enough that every student is known.
With five Chapman counselors supporting the cohort, even at our maximum enrollment of 24 students, we maintain approximately a 5:1 student-to-counselor ratio.
For us, that’s the sweet spot: enough people to create energy, friendship, collaboration, and community without losing the intimacy that makes the experience work.
We don’t believe students need another adult standing in front of a room telling them exactly what to do.
They need expertise.
They need feedback.
They need accountability.
But they also need time, trust, community, collaboration, and room to figure things out.
The Chapman Summer Retreat is built around the same philosophy that guides our work at Chapman Education: College isn’t the prize.
We absolutely want students to accomplish a tremendous amount during these four days. And we’ve seen what can happen when students finally have uninterrupted time, experienced guidance, and a community of peers working alongside them.
But there’s a bigger goal, too.
We want students to leave able to say: I figured out what I needed to do. I found my rhythm. I got things done. I helped other people along the way. And I know I can keep going.
That’s what we want them to carry into senior year.
