Meet Brewster’s New College Counseling Team
A new team has settled into Brewster’s College Office, and with students back on campus, they are ready to get started.
Director of College Counseling Dee-Dee Sanders and College Counselors Luke Rosinski and Zoe Oswald spent the weeks leading up to the school year getting to know Brewster, preparing for the year ahead, and beginning to reach out to students and families.
Together, they bring a range of experiences and perspectives to the College Office, along with a shared belief that the college process should begin with getting to know each student: who they are, how they learn, what they value, and what they hope life after Brewster might look like.
It is an approach that connects naturally to Brewster’s mission to prepare diverse thinkers for lives of purpose. Rather than allowing rankings, testing, acceptance rates, and other pressures surrounding college admission to drive the process, the new team wants to help students focus on finding opportunities and communities where they can continue to grow and thrive.
Before the year gets too far underway, meet the three newest members of the Brewster community who will be leading that work.
Meet Dee-Dee Sanders
Director of College Counseling
Dee-Dee Sanders came to college counseling through the classroom. As an English teacher, she was often asked to help students with their college essays, initially focusing on the familiar territory of structure, clarity, and mechanics. But before long, she found herself increasingly interested in the bigger questions behind those 650 words.
“What makes a story resonate with an admission reader? How can a student create a narrative that feels authentic, memorable, and meaningful?” Sanders recalls asking. “How can they use 650 words to reveal something important about who they are and how they think, how they learn, how they build community?”
“I loved the process,” she says, “and a college counselor was born.”
Sanders comes to Brewster from Brentwood School in Los Angeles, where she loved her experience but found herself drawn to Brewster’s emphasis on purpose and how naturally it connects to college counseling.
“I was drawn to the idea of ‘purpose’ as it relates to college planning, the college search and selection process, and how students think about life after high school,” she says. “I knew that preparing diverse thinkers for lives of purpose connected so closely to the work we do in college counseling.”
She was also inspired by the students themselves: how they “live, and think, and create, and solve problems, and engage, and ultimately thrive.”
“I knew that I wanted to be a part of this team and work closely with students who were thinking about what comes next,” Sanders says, “and I wanted to be a part of helping them shape that.”
Now that students are back on campus, Sanders says she already feels the energy of the Brewster community, “in the hallways, on the fields, in the laboratories, in the dorms, and classrooms.” As she looks to the year ahead, she wants to help students and families approach college planning in a way that feels “purposeful, manageable, and even joyful.”
That means helping them cut through what Sanders describes as the considerable “noise” surrounding college admission and bringing the focus back to the individual student.
“My role is to help students and families distill the essence of the process: who the student is, how they learn, what they value, what kind of community will help them thrive, and what a meaningful next step might look like,” she says.
For Sanders, that approach is closely connected to Brewster’s emphasis on individuality, growth, meaningful relationships, and intentional learning—and to a college counseling process centered not simply on where a student gets in, but on fit, self-awareness, and long-term possibilities.
“I am excited to support families as they make thoughtful decisions about life after Brewster.”
Meet Luke Rosinski
College Counselor and Director of Basketball Programs
For Luke Rosinski, college counseling and coaching may be two different roles at Brewster, but they have something important in common: both begin with relationships.
A New Hampshire native, Rosinski played Division I basketball at the University of New Hampshire from 2016 to 2020. After college, he headed to UNC Greensboro, where he earned his master’s degree while spending two years as a graduate assistant with the men’s basketball program. He then spent three years at Hargrave Military Academy.
Along the way, Rosinski also gained experience beyond the basketball court, including a year in college counseling and two years working in admissions. Combined with his experience in coaching and recruiting—and his own time as a college student-athlete—those roles have allowed him to see the college process from several different perspectives.
“A huge part of coaching, especially at the prep school level, is also helping kids and families figure out what comes next,” Rosinski says. “I’ve spent a lot of time helping players through the recruiting process, talking with college coaches, helping families understand their options, and trying to find the right fit for each kid.”
It was a part of coaching he particularly enjoyed, making college counseling a natural extension of his work with students.
“I really enjoy helping kids figure out what they want to do next and giving them someone they know they can come to throughout the process,” he says.
Growing up in New Hampshire, Rosinski was already familiar with Brewster and its successful basketball program. But as he learned more about the school and the people behind it, he was drawn to the opportunity to contribute to the community in ways that extended beyond basketball.
“I really liked that Brewster gave me the opportunity to do more than just coach basketball,” he says. “I get to be involved in different areas of the school, build relationships with a lot of different students, and be part of the community.”
That dual role feels natural to Rosinski because he sees significant overlap between the work of a coach and that of a college counselor.
“A lot of coaching is getting to know your players, figuring out what they want, holding them accountable, and helping them get where they want to go,” he says. “College counseling is very similar.”
His varied background also gives him insight into what students and families experience as they navigate the college process. He has worked in admissions, counseling, recruiting, and coaching, and has been through the process himself as a college student-athlete. But regardless of which role he is in, Rosinski says the foundation is the same.
“The biggest thing for me in both roles is relationships,” he says. “Whether that’s a basketball player trying to figure out recruiting or a student trying to figure out what colleges make sense for them, I want to be someone they can trust and someone who is going to work for them.”
That approach is rooted in another principle that is important to Rosinski: servant leadership.
“I’ve always felt like if you’re going to be in a position where you’re leading young people, it has to be about them and not about you,” he says. “Whether I’m coaching someone in the gym or working with a student in the College Office, I want them to know that I care about them, I’m going to be there for them, and I’m going to do everything I can to help them be successful.”
As he begins his first year at Brewster, Rosinski is looking forward to getting to know students and families and learning what each student wants from their college experience.
“The college process can be stressful, and every kid’s situation is different,” he says. “I’m looking forward to being there for them throughout it and hopefully making the process a little easier. At the end of the day, I want our students to end up somewhere they’re excited about and somewhere that is the right fit for them.”
Meet Zoe Oswald
College Counselor
Zoe Oswald brings an international perspective to Brewster’s College Office. With a background in German language education, she has spent much of her career abroad, first teaching English through the USTA Fulbright Austria program and later teaching German at an international school in Latvia.
Her interest in education, and particularly its potential to create opportunities across borders, eventually led her to college admissions. “I have always loved the field of education, and I'm a major proponent of utilizing it as a tool for global mobility,” she says. When an opportunity arose to work in college admissions, she returned to the United States to serve as an admission officer at a liberal arts university in Maine.
That combination of international education and college admissions experience made college counseling at Brewster an especially appealing next step. Having worked on the admissions side of the process, Oswald brings firsthand knowledge of how colleges evaluate applications and what they look for as they build an incoming class. Now, she has the opportunity to bring that perspective to the other side of the process, helping students identify schools that fit their goals, understand how to tell their stories, and navigate their college search with confidence.
“I was drawn to Brewster's student-first approach and our commitment to being a good neighbor to the Wolfeboro community,” Oswald says. “Since I really value multicultural exchange, I deeply appreciate Brewster's significant international student population in addition to what we have spearheaded in Spain.”
Oswald has already begun building connections with colleges and universities, scheduling visits to Brewster from representatives who have not been to campus in the past few years. She is excited to introduce those representatives to students and, more broadly, to help students explore the many possibilities ahead.
“I look forward to navigating this exciting time with students and helping them realize their dreams,” she says, “whether they're headed somewhere in the U.S. or abroad.”
Ready for the Year Ahead
With students back on campus, the preparation of the past several weeks is quickly turning into conversations. The College Office will be a busy place this fall as students meet with counselors, college representatives visit Brewster, and seniors begin moving more deeply into applications and decisions.
The three counselors bring different experiences to that work. Sanders approaches the process through the lens of purpose, self-awareness, and fit. Rosinski brings a perspective shaped by coaching, recruiting, admissions, and a belief in relationships and servant leadership. Oswald draws on her international education and admissions experience to help students understand their options and imagine possibilities both in the U.S. and abroad.
What connects them is a desire to know students well and help each one find a path forward that feels right for them.
“I am especially excited to help students and families approach college planning in a way that feels purposeful, manageable, and even joyful,” Sanders says.
With a new team in place, the College Office is ready to help students and families navigate what comes next—one conversation, one decision, and one student at a time.
