Headmaster Henry P. A. Smyth announced a $3 million investment from the W. P. Carey Foundation to endow the Gilman School college counseling program. This leadership gift to the School’s First Things First campaign is the largest donation to support college counseling received by the School.
“The Gilman college counselors view their most important job as that of helping boys and their parents through the process of choosing and applying to a suitable group of colleges,” says Headmaster Smyth. “They can offer guidance on a vast number of colleges and universities, each with its own strengths and assets. They know as much as they can about each boy and his college choices, and they provide the kind of guidance that enables the student and his parents to make thoughtful decisions. This gift will enable our counselors to be of even greater assistance to our boys and their families.”
In recognition of the Foundation’s support, the college counseling center will be named The W. P. Carey College Counseling Center. Along with the endowed fund to support the School’s college counseling program, the Foundation’s gift also will establish an endowed lecture series. The Francis J. Carey Jr. Lectures will invite deans of admissions from top-tier colleges and universities to speak to Gilman students and parents about admissions, leadership, and inspiring accomplishment. The series is projected to begin during the 2019-2020 academic year.
“The W. P. Carey Foundation is proud to continue its historic partnership with Gilman School by establishing The W. P. Carey College Counseling Center and the Francis J. Carey, Jr. Visiting Speaker Series. It was Bill and Frank Carey’s vision to enhance the School’s capacity to provide the highest quality guidance and ultimately ensure future college success for its boys,” said William P. Carey II, Chairman and CEO of the W. P. Carey Foundation.
The Foundation’s gift is a tribute to Wm. Polk Carey ’48, founder of W. P. Carey Inc. and the W. P. Carey Foundation, and his brother Francis J. Carey Jr. ’43, who served as longtime president of the W. P. Carey Foundation. The two are grandsons of the School’s founder, Anne Galbraith Carey. Both Mr. Careys were ardent Gilman alumni, trustees, and supporters.
Bill Carey, a lifetime trustee and one of Gilman’s most esteemed benefactors, was passionate about college counseling as the most important job in the school, the point where Gilman delivers on its promise to help graduates attain the futures they envision.“Gilman prepares you for college and prepares you for anything you do,” he once said in an interview.
The W. P. Carey College Counseling Fund will help the School create an unparalleled college counseling program. Growth goals include an earlier start to college guidance for students through continued outreach efforts during their time at the School, expanding school resources for college essay writing, SAT preparation, and college tours, raising the School’s profile at highly selective colleges and universities, and forging new relationships between the School and college and university personnel.
“We are extremely grateful to the Carey Foundation for this generous gift, one which will enable us to expand our counseling program and resources, as well as further our commitment to excellent college counseling,” says Sarah Ross, Gilman director of college counseling.
Currently, 84% of the senior class is admitted to those colleges and universities ranked as Barron’s Most Competitive or Highly Competitive. With the support of the W. P. Carey Foundation, Gilman strives to increase matriculation to Most Competitive and Highly Competitive schools to as close to 100% as possible in an increasingly complex college placement landscape.
The heart of college counseling, however, is ensuring that each student makes an appropriate choice from the more than 4,600 institutions of higher learning in the United States, which vary in character, atmosphere, and selectivity, that meets his own unique set of needs, talents, and ambitions.
First Things First: Endowing Gilman’s Promise and People
The W. P. Carey Foundation’s gift is part of First Things First: Endowing Gilman’s Promise and People, a campaign to raise $60 million in philanthropic support over a six-year period (fiscal years 2014-2019). First Things First invites supporters to invest directly in Gilman boys and the futures that stretch out ahead of them.
This endowment-focused campaign is purposefully structured to ensure Gilman continues to thrive and lead without resorting to unsustainably high tuition increases.
To date, the Foundation’s gift is among the largest leadership contributions to the First Things First campaign.
The Carey Family Legacy at Gilman
In 1896, 32-year-old Anne Galbraith Carey faced a dilemma: where to send her eight-year-old son Frank to school. Baltimore schools were overcrowded, without healthy places for play. She decided that Baltimore needed a school where the “whole boy” would be educated in mind, body and spirit, preparing a young man for college as well as a life of honor and service. Her plan was for a place where boys would live at home and learn in a country setting with vigorous morning studies, a hot meal for lunch, study hall, and afternoon sports. The 1897 opening of the Country School for Boys of Baltimore City at Homewood, which Anne Carey single-handedly redecorated and prepared, began the country day school movement, a formula imitated by countless schools across America.
“We had no idea of being original. Our difficulties were so great, and the solution seemed so obvious, that we thought many people in many places must already have what we wanted—a school in the country near town, with a planned day of work and play, and a well-ordered house which was being lived in by kind and sensible people,” wrote Mrs. Carey in 1926.
Today her idea, Gilman School, is one of the nation’s leading independent schools for boys, a diverse community of more than 1,000 boys in grades kindergarten through 12 who come from all backgrounds and segments of the Greater Baltimore area. Gilman remains committed to the ideals Mrs. Carey instilled more than a century ago, and continues to help boys develop in mind, body, and spirit while preparing them for college and a life of honor, leadership, character, and service.
The Carey family has remained connected and close to Baltimore and to Gilman since our school founding. Wm. Polk Carey was a member of the Gilman Board of Trustees from 1981 until his death; Francis J. Carey, Jr. ’43 served as a trustee from 2012 until 2014.
Wm. Polk Carey ’48
Wm. Polk Carey ‘48 will long be regarded at Gilman School as a remarkable man who never forgot what was important to him, a man who built one of the nation’s leading companies without ever abandoning a core set of personal values. With his transformational $10 million gift through the W. P. Carey Foundation toward the $35 million, 17-month renovation of campus centerpiece Carey Hall, Mr. Carey, a longtime Gilman trustee and the grandson of School founder Anne Galbraith Carey, earned the distinction of having made the largest single private gift in Gilman’s history, which still stands today. In total, during their lifetimes,Mr. Carey and his brother gifted more than $15 million to Gilman.
“I have so much confidence in the faculty and staff at Gilman to do the best they can with the resources I have provided,” said Mr. Carey at the time of his gift. “Gilman is the best school of its kind.”
Mr. Carey was born in Baltimore in 1930, the son of Francis J. Carey, a graduate of the Class of 1906, and Mrs. Augustus Orbach. Mr. Carey attended Gilman School for four years, but left at the end of his fourth form year to attend Pomfret School, a boarding school in Connecticut. He continued his education at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
After Princeton and Wharton, he settled in New York, where he would ultimately establish W. P. Carey Inc. (formerly W. P. Carey & Co., Inc.) in 1973. Although Carey’s path led him physically away from his native Baltimore, he always remained deeply connected to Gilman.
Over the years, Mr. Carey, a member of the Gilman Board of Trustees from 1981 until his death, was extremely generous to Gilman.
“Bill Carey was always sensitive to the present and future needs of Gilman,” says Charles C. Fenwick, Jr. ’66, past Board of Trustees president and chairman of the First Things First campaign. “While generous, he always knew what he wanted and made sure that others knew what he wanted and how he felt. Baltimore, and Gilman in particular, are vastly better places because of Bill Carey’s thoughts and efforts.”
His affection for and support of Gilman grew in part from the imprint of his grandmother, Anne Galbraith Carey. Especially close to his grandparents, Mr. Carey recalled in a 2003 interview that his grandmother maintained a very strong interest in Gilman during the days when it wasn’t customary for women to serve on boards of trustees. Mrs. Carey often corresponded with and received visits from E. Boyd Morrow, headmaster from 1926-1943, who would come to ask her advice on various matters. Mr. Carey’s grandfather, Francis K. Carey, served on the Board of Trustees, and Carey remembered that he presented diplomas during graduation exercises.
“My grandmother really was a strong-willed personality,” Mr. Carey said, “but in a nice, gentle way. It’s nice that the School still recognizes her role in its founding.”
“While it is a fact that Gilman would not exist without Bill’s grandmother’s vision, I would argue that Gilman would not be on its continued path of excellence without the exceptional support of Bill Carey,” says Mark Fetting ’72, president-elect of the Board of Trustees.
Mr. Carey, who considered his Gilman classmates some of the best men he knew, credited his own Gilman preparation for providing him a foundation that served him well.
Francis J. Carey, Jr. ’43
Throughout his life, Francis J. Carey, Jr. ’43, a Gilman School Trustee from 2012 until 2014, remained a loyal member of the Class of 1943 and a stalwart supporter of our School.
As President of the W. P. Carey Foundation, Mr. Carey had a direct hand in the transformational gifts he and his brother Wm. Polk Carey ’48 contributed to Gilman. These gifts honor his family’s singular Gilman legacy.
Mr. Carey was a frequent attendee at Class of 1943 events, and he returned to Baltimore to celebrate with Gilman and its boys. On December 10, 2007, he and his brother cut the ribbon when the boys returned to the renovated Carey Hall. The Carey brothers then shook hands with each Upper School student as he first entered the building. Three years later, when Gilman celebrated Carey Hall’s “100th Birthday,” on October 4, 2010, with an enthusiastic convocation, the two were present for a ceremonial cake cutting.
About Gilman School
Founded in 1897 as the nation’s first country day school, Gilman School is a K-12 private independent day school for boys, located in Baltimore, Maryland. The school’s mission is to unlock the greatness within each boy by educating the entire boy—mind, body, and spirit.
The pursuit of excellence in all areas, a rich and comprehensive program, and belief in the character traits embodied by the Gilman Five—Honor, Integrity, Respect, Humility, and Excellence—form the foundation of a school dedicated to helping boys of promise grow into men of character.
About the W. P. Carey Foundation
The W. P. Carey Foundation is a private U.S. foundation, incorporated in 1990 by William Polk Carey. Inspired by the Carey family’s legacy of educational leadership and philanthropy, the W. P. Carey Foundation’s primary mission is to support educational institutions with the larger goal of improving America’s competitiveness in the world. The main focus of the Foundation is education programs furthering the study of business, economics, and law, as well as to departments of admissions and college and career guidance.
