Tasha Richards

I've been working in schools for about 7 years now, though my journey to this role was quite unique. I started my career on Wall Street in finance, where I worked for a little over a decade after graduating from the University of Virginia with a degree in finance and international business. Then I became a stay-at-home mom for about 10 years, during which I volunteered extensively in my children's independent schools - whether it was in fundraising, parent associations, or admissions departments. That volunteer experience really shaped my path forward. About 7 years ago, I came into this work through that volunteer parent experience, starting as a tour guide for families. I then moved into working with our lower school, particularly with kindergarten parent interviews, before joining the full-time admissions team and ultimately settling into my current role as Director of Admissions and Financial Aid. Today, I focus on our enrollment and financial aid practices - everything from marketing the school and hosting events for families to get to know us, to taking them through the full admissions process, yielding them at the end, creating recruitment events, and ultimately enrolling them in our school. When we're in season, I manage the entire process from interviews to collecting application materials, running the admissions committee to make decisions, reading applications, and rendering decisions for families. This happens from October to February, then we move into the decision-making and recruitment yielding part of our business through mid-March. What I'm most proud of is the impact I've made on the financial aid side - really growing that pool of money to serve more families than we've had before, and growing the idea of non-tuition support, which was newer to the market and something I developed here at our school. This allows families to have support beyond just tuition for all the incidentals and extras that come with going to a private school, so they can have that full experience.