Michael Spence

Founding partner Michael Spence works with students and families from all over the world for college and secondary school planning. Helping students understand their unique strengths and passions, and helping to find the appropriate school and college match is what Michael finds truly rewarding personally and professionally.

He is a Certified Educational Planner (CEP) which is the gold standard distinction for educational consultants. He is also a member and past-president of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA). He holds memberships in the National Association of College Admission Counselors (NACAC), and the New England Association of College Admission Counselors (NEACAC).

His career in independent education started with a teaching position at Northfield Mount Hermon School where he taught Anthropology and worked as an admission associate. After a three-year stint as Director of Admission at the Gunnery School in Connecticut, he moved back to the Midwest with his family to become Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at the Cranbrook Schools in Michigan.

In 1983, Michael joined Faith Howland and Robert Parsons to form an educational consultancy which, after Mr. Parsons retired, became Howland & Spence Inc. While initially focusing on traditional independent school consulting, Michael soon developed the rapidly growing college consulting practice of Howland and Spence, now called Howland, Spence and McMillan.

When not meeting students in Boston, Concord or Vermont, Michael is involved with choral music, a family farm educational foundation, a start-up school in Saudi Arabia, banking, traveling and golf.

His wife, Diane is a fund raising consultant and his daughter Elizabeth - an environmental scientist – works for The Nature Conservancy in San Francisco.