In this episode you will hear:   o        Mark shares one missed opportunity when it comes to the college admission journey o        Lisa and Mark discuss an answer to a question from Kerry from suburban Chicago, she wants to know, in this age of students applying to 20 or so schools, is it okay if my student applies to only five or six schools if the college list is balanced. o        After 5 years, Colonel Robert Kirkland is back, Lynda interviews Rob on the Service Academies of West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force-Part 2 of 4 o            Preview Part 2-Preview §  Rob explains the two different ways that congressman tip the scales for who they nominate. Rob calls these the Competitive Process and Principled Process and he explains how each process works §  Rob explains what a Freedom of Information request is §  Rob explains what the acronym SAL is and how it helps with Service Academy Admissions §  Rob answers the question, “Are the Service Academies test optional”? §  Rob explains how the SAT/ACT scores the Academies are looking for are very different from what scores the average admit has §  Rob explains the Candidate Score that each applicant gets and he breaks down each factor and how much weight is put on each factor; this detailed breakdown of how applicants is evaluated is amazing and something that you don’t see from competitive schools that do holistic admissions §  Rob talks about whether the high school you are coming from is factored into admissions §  Rob talks about the Candidate Fitness Assessment §  Rob answers the question, “Is Calculus required” for the Service Academies §  Rob talks about the 10-12 criteria that teachers are asked to use when evaluating a candidate §  Rob explains the three teacher recs the Service Academies want to receive     Sign up for our Q & A webinar with Holly Ramsey, Dr. Michele Evard and Liam Dailey, three homeschooling experts. They will discuss how colleges admissions experts evaluate homeschooled students   Sign up for our Q & A webinar with Matt Carpenter, he will discuss “Paying for College” and he will answer your questions about paying for college, as well as how using College Aid Pro can help you with the cost of college   You can also send in questions for our interviews by using speakpipe.com/YCBK. Our interviews are confirmed for 2024 with the following leaders at the following schools:     To sign up to receive Your College-Bound Kid PLUS, our free quarterly admissions deep-dive, delivered directly to your email four times a year, just go to yourcollegeboundkid.com, and you will see the sign up on the right side of the page under “the Listen to our podcast icons”   Follow Mark Stucker on Twitter to get breaking college admission news, and updates about the podcast before they go live. You can ask questions on Twitter that he will answer on the podcast. Mark will also share additional hot topics in the news and breaking news on this Twitter feed. Twitter message is also the preferred way to ask questions for our podcast:   https://twitter.com/YCBKpodcast   1. To access our transcripts, click: https://yourcollegeboundkid.com/category/transcripts/ 2. Find the specific episode transcripts for the one you want to search and click the link 3. Find the magnifying glass icon in blue (search feature) and click it 4. Enter whatever word you want to search. I.e. Loans 5. Every word in that episode when the words loans are used, will be highlighted in yellow with a timestamps 6. Click the word highlighted in yellow and the player will play the episode from that starting point 7. You can also download the entire podcast as a transcript   We would be honored if you will pass this podcast episode on to others who you feel will benefit from the content in YCBK.   Please subscribe to our podcast. 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All they ask is that you review their services and pricing on their website before the complimentary session. Their counseling website is:   Note, the purpose of the free session to review their services and not to pick their brains and get free information. You can schedule a paid session if you want answers to some questions you have. The free session to only for the purpose of discussing the one-on-one services they offer.