Written by Doug Goodnough
Kate Bock, ’15, found her right fit at Hillsdale College. Now, she is helping international students discover their best higher education paths.
As founder of Archer Franklin and managing partner of The Child’s Office in London, England, Bock advises clients on higher education strategy and guides them through the college and university admissions process. She calls it a “fit-first approach.”
“I founded Archer Franklin out of this desire to serve families in a really different way,” said Bock, who named her company after two British expatriates, Isabella Archer, the main character in the Henry James novel The Portrait of a Lady, and Benjamin Franklin. “I was really lucky I got to start a company with a few clients already, which was a huge gift. I wanted to work in something that could grow beyond myself and grow in what it could provide.”
She credits much of her admissions experience to Hillsdale College. As a student, she worked in the Admissions Office for three years. During her time in the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program in Washington, D.C., she met Vice President of Washington Operations and Dean of the Van Andel School of Government Matthew Spalding. He eventually hired her to help recruit for the Hillsdale in D.C. campus.
“He is the greatest first boss anyone could have asked for,” Bock said. “It was really interesting to work at the Kirby Center and see how we were trying to communicate about Hillsdale.”
After a year, she accepted a job with Hillsdale’s Admissions Office recruiting on the East Coast.
“I got to see a lot of the U.S. I had never seen before,” said Bock, a Colorado native. “We were starting to work with the Frederick Douglass Scholarship, which became a passion project of mine.”
During her time working for Hillsdale, she also had the opportunity to travel to China, where she and a group of American college and university admissions officers had a unique cultural experience learning about how China viewed the liberal arts.
“It was an amazing tour,” said Bock, who now speaks Mandarin. “I think there were 15 universities there that were all small liberal arts colleges, and it was a great challenge to try and explain what the liberal arts meant. Then on top of that, what it means to Hillsdale specifically.”
That international experience sparked her longtime dream: moving to London. A history major at Hillsdale, Bock took a special interest in art history and decided to pursue a master’s degree. The University of Manchester had a unique art and business program MBA through the Sotheby’s Institute, and she decided to enroll.
“I could go for a year on a student visa and get my master’s degree,” Bock said of her plan. “But in the back of my head, I knew I wasn’t returning home.”
After completing her MBA in February of 2020, Bock was offered a position with a gallery in the London area. However, the COVID-19 pandemic happened, and the position was no longer there. She was stuck in London unable to go home and without a job.
In June, she received a call from the World University Rankings (WUR) looking for someone to work with United Kingdom universities in student recruitment.
“They were interested in how international student recruitment worked,” Bock said. “I got to look under the hood of a completely different university system.”
Working on institutional strategy rankings and student recruitment for approximately three years with WUR gave her the idea of starting her own business. Now, she is helping guide students through the crucial age range of 15-25.
“I got advice when I started that said, ‘You’ll know you’re doing the right thing because the right people are going to find you.’ And I’ve found that to be entirely true,” Bock said. “I’ve had such amazing luck with the clients that I’ve worked with, the people that they’ve brought into my life, and the connections I’ve made doing work for them.”
She said The Child’s Office model “embeds” her and her staff as the “chief of staff” of their clients.
“We really get to know the families we work with,” said Bock, who has a couple of part-time employees and also works with freelancers. “We work with a limited number of families every year, but we know them. That means I’m checking in with the students in person or on Zoom during term a couple times a week. I know Mom and Dad. I know tutors. I know their schools. Essentially, we act as kind of a central nervous system and a support. A lot of our families have lives that exist in multiple time zones, or both parents are executives, and/or the child is boarding. So that’s also part of the support. We’re there to help foster that transition period with those families.”
Bock also tries to give back to her community, working with many local students and schools in London.
“In the past year, two of our students from Wandsworth, which is the borough of London that I live in, have gone to Cambridge, which is really exciting,” she said.
Bock, who is trying to get her first student to attend Hillsdale, said she cherishes her Hillsdale experience, especially her exposure to the classical liberal arts.
“I wanted liberal arts and I loved the rigor of Hillsdale’s core,” she said. “I was going to have to take classes that I maybe wasn’t keen to take but knew it would be good for me. Those always end up being your favorite classes. I remember visiting campus when I was in high school, and my dad walking around and going, ‘Oh, this is just like West Point.’ And I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t go anywhere else.”
The chair of the Friends of Battersea Park board, a local green space nonprofit, Bock said she has enjoyed her time in London getting to know her community.
“I know my neighbors, and it’s made London, which is really big, feel quite small and neighborly,” Bock said. “You’re in a rush, and all of a sudden, you get a great view of Big Ben, and it just really hits you. You’re like, ‘I’m here.’ There’s an eight-year-old inside of you who is really excited and really proud. I think it has been far better than I could have ever hoped. I think it’s been far harder than I ever imagined.”
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.
Published in August 2026
