The Shipley Magazine

College Counselor Janet Kobosky: The Grand Arc of Giving Back

Trina Vaux '63
“My father started as a high school teacher, and I started as a high school teacher,” says Janet Kobosky. “My father became a director of admissions, and I spent many years working in college and university admissions offices. Yes, there is an influence and one I’m really proud of.” Her father’s greatest pleasure, she says, was in helping young people. It is hers as well.
 
Working in college admissions for the first part of her career, Janet found herself increasingly involved more in administration and less with students. In 1999, to redress that balance she came to Shipley as a college counselor.
 
On mentors, including her predecessor Judith Williams, Janet says, “Cultivate them and hold fast to them.… I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t picked up on that advice and followed it.” She works to pass on the wisdom herself. “It’s the grand arc of giving back. If there’s a story there, that’s what it is. People gave to me and I know how important it is to give in return.”
 
Willa Cather said that you can’t paint sunlight, you can only paint what it does with shadow. So it is with those who make a career of helping others. In Janet is a portrait of her father. Janet’s portrait is in the many Shipley students she has helped to go off to college and into the larger world.
 
—by Trina Vaux ‘63
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The Shipley School is a private, coeducational day school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students, located in Bryn Mawr, PA. Through our commitment to educational excellence, we develop within each student a love of learning and a desire for compassionate participation in the world.