Davin Sweeney
Director of College Counseling
Avenues New York
What drew you to the world of college admission counseling?
I met then-USC admissions counselor Jonathan Burdick in suburban Portland, Oregon, as a 17-year-old during my admissions interview for USC. It (and he) changed my life. After a gap year, I worked for him in the admissions office, and then after I graduated, he was hired as dean of admissions at the University of Rochester (NY) and offered me a job. Then, as untold millions had done before me, I migrated from Los Angeles to Rochester, New York.
I boomeranged back to Rochester after a hiatus in grad school and work in the government/nonprofit sector because I realized how special the profession was, to say nothing of the value of a mentor in the field. I missed the connection with young people and the invaluable educational/anthropological opportunity to learn about them in their local context as a traveling admissions counselor. Creating opportunities to access the most powerful engine of social mobility and self-discovery — and for students to do good work when they get to college and once they leave — keeps me excited. As I’m now on the high school side of the equation, I’m loving the chance to get to know my students and the state of young people today during a historically complicated time to be one.
What is your favorite part of the job?
When it clicks. When the list clicks and the advice clicks and the application clicks and the connection with the student and their family clicks and when the student clicks on their offer of admission and financial aid and the good news clicks with them and their parents and when the point of all of our collective work finally just…clicks.
How has NACAC played a role in your career?
Nothing has helped me understand our country and what it means to be a human trying to make the world a better place like learning from my fellow NACAC members. From Simi Valley to Saratoga, they continue to remind me that we’re all in this together. Diasporic as our profession can be, it’s such a critical space to be able to continue to connect with friends from past lives/jobs and to understand the depth and breadth of our work. The conference, in particular, has been crucial in making connections that have fundamentally impacted my career, my understanding of how the admissions world works, and my sense of fulfillment.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing our profession today?
That for the first time in my career, I’m actually worried about publishing my honest thoughts on this question in a public forum. That said, the challenges to intellectual freedom, student safety, and campus diversity are painfully evident, growing each day, and are as big as they’ve ever been in any of our working lives. We’ve all got our work cut out for us, and it will take courage, stamina, and tenacity to continue to do the good work that brought us into and kept us in this profession.
When you aren’t working, what do you like to do?
I spend a good amount of time ferrying my 12-year-old daughter Viviana back and forth from her various obligations; soaking up the charms of NYC’s best borough (the Bronx, of course); and making sure the squirrels haven’t destroyed my hard work in the garden.
If you could be any fictional character, who would it be and why?
I would be 1992 NBA Finals champion and MVP Clyde Drexler, reveling in my four-game sweep of the Chicago Bulls — after which Michael Jordan was irreparably cowed into a decades-long social withdrawal — and in single-handedly turning Avia into the global sportswear superpower we know and love today.
Published Aug. 4, 2025