The doran+scalora model is a four-year approach that is designed around the student and his or her individual needs. We provide our students and their families with patient, professional counsel during this exciting journey.
Trish Housergraphy
Trish Houser is excited to join the doran+scalora team at the culmination of over a decade-long career as Associate Director of College Counseling at Episcopal High School.
As the fourth and final child in her family, Trish wanted a college experience that was entirely different from her older siblings who all attended the same large state university. Knowing herself, her strengths, preferences, and desires for her college experience, she turned her focus to small and midsize schools in Texas. She decided on a college in November of her senior year (with little to no guidance), but intuition told her she’d made the wrong choice a few months later when deadlines had mostly passed. A serendipitous letter arrived in the mail from Texas Lutheran University—a school she had never even heard of—inviting her to an on-campus scholarship day… and the rest is history! Trish fell in love with the campus culture, professors, student body, and community during her visit, walked away with a generous scholarship to offset her parents' heavily-hit college fund, and began the trend of charting her own course. As a student at Texas Lutheran, Trish served as an Ambassador for the Office of Admission, an Orientation Leader, and a three-year Resident Assistant, while developing lifelong relationships with peers and professors alike. Trish has some particularly extraordinary college memories that perfectly illustrate the intimate aspects of a liberal arts education—for example, taking custom-made essay tests in a professor’s office while the rest of the class bubbled in scantrons, and joining a trusted professor on a day-long drive through the Texas Hill Country when the stress of collegiate over-commitment and academic perfectionism felt insurmountable. She truly came to appreciate the transformative nature of higher ed, but wouldn’t realize the profound impact it would have on her career path for several more years.
In 2006, Trish’s fiancé, Rich, began seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where Trish also acquired a job in the Office of Admission with recruiting territories in Alabama, Florida and Texas; little did she know, her work at Sewanee would forever change her career trajectory. Rich and Trish married just days after Trish’s first-ever admission travel season and they went on to spend three wonderful years on “The Mountain,” (Sewanee’s vast campus Domain). It was here that Trish established her fondness for the field of education, growing both personally and professionally with each new challenge that presented itself in her work, and it’s also where Trish realized she had found her calling. As Assistant Director of Admission, Trish executed and oversaw Sewanee’s Merit Scholarship program, the Counselor Fly-In program, the Arcadian program (Sewanee’s student tour guides) and the Senior Interviewer program—the breadth and depth of her work added invaluable tools to her professional arsenal. Upon Rich’s graduation in 2009, the two returned to Houston, Texas where Trish secured a new role in the College Counseling Department at Episcopal High School (EHS), which allowed her to utilize so many of her work experiences from Sewanee. Eleven years and two children later, Trish is excited to begin this new chapter and tackle all of the fresh challenges that this new opportunity will provide!
Trish is passionate about the introspective nature of the college search and application process. As students discern college fit and brainstorm potential essay and supplement topics, they learn a great deal about themselves. Trish whole-heartedly believes that every student has a story to tell—inspiring students to cultivate those pertinent and interesting details of their lives and weave them into thoughtful and cohesive college applications brings her great joy. Trish loves offering students the guidance she never had in her large public high school! At EHS, she is the office wordsmith and masterful barber of wordy essays.
Trish’s husband, Rich, serves as Rector of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Spring Branch and they live in the Heights with daughters Ella Rae, a kindergartener at Sinclair Elementary, and Emmaline, who is almost one! As a family, they love the urban lifestyle of living in the Heights. On weekends, you’ll find them walking to check out restaurants, farmer’s markets, and parks. Admittedly, both daughters have already become “foodies” and they wouldn’t have it any other way! Trish is an avid writer and loves to take memoir-writing classes at the Jung Center when her schedule allows it. She further satisfies her creative spirit by cooking, baking, repurposing vintage finds, and crafting with Ella Rae. She is also a big college football fan and a longtime, all-weather Houston Astros enthusiast.