“I love everything about college. I love the sense of community. I love the opportunities that college provides students,” Sarah Casarez said. 

Casarez is the new Associate Director of College Counseling. For her, being a college counselor is the perfect job as she enjoys working with young adults and loves the opportunities college offers. Her favorite aspect of her job is learning about each of her students. 

Casarez still stays in contact with some of her previous students. Taylor, one of her first students, and Casarez still keep in touch. 

“Seeing how she is thriving in college and seeing how she has taken advantage of every opportunity at Carolina has been really rewarding,” Casarez said. 

One of her favorite aspects from college was being a part of the Kappa Delta sorority at the University of North Texas. She loved the sisterhood feeling and that, with the help of her sisters, she was able to refine some of her professional skills such as communication. Although Casarez has many favorite memories with Kappa Delta, there is one in particular that stands out: moving into the sorority house. The university was building the sorority house when Casarez was a student and she was one of the first students to move into the house. 

At the University of North Texas, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and later earned her Master of Arts in Higher Education Administration at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville. Right after graduating from the University of North Texas, she worked as a collegiate tour guide. She worked as the Assistant Director of National Recruitment and Regional Admissions Recruiter at the University of Arizona and as the Coordinator for Out-of State Recruitment and Senior Regional Admissions Representative at the University of South Carolina.

While working for the University of South Carolina, she enjoyed the friendship and camaraderie of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Casarez was able to depend on the other Texas-based SEC recruiters and created a sense of fellowship with them. 

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Sarah Casarez enjoys her first few weeks at FWCD. Photo courtesy of Sarah Casarez

As an admissions representative, Casarez liked traveling to different high schools. Although some of her days were long and full of driving from one high school to another, she would be able to relax in her car because that was when she would listen to podcasts. Her favorites are “Crime Junkie” and “Lore.”

“Having that independence of being a regional, remotely based representative, and kind of doing your own thing day to day was really nice,” Casarez said.

Since Casarez grew up in Fort Worth, she had heard about FWCD before she became an admissions officer. However, the first time Casarez stepped foot on the FWCD campus was when she was visiting as the University of South Carolina admissions representative. It was her very first college visit as an admissions representative, and FWCD set the expectations for other high schools at a high level. She remembers leaving that visit and thinking that if she ever decided to become a college counselor, this is where she wanted to work. 

Upon watching Casarez interact with FWCD students when working as a college admissions counselor for the University of South Carolina, Kristen Larsen, Director of College Counseling, believed that Casarez would be a good match for the college counseling office. 

“Mrs. Casarez has been really helpful with my college applications,” Olivia Hilliard ’22 said.