Your College Bound Kid | Admission Tips, Admission Trends & Admission Interviews - Podcast Rankings and reviews

Before you do ANYTHING - hire a college counselor, start looking at schools, certainly start applying do yourself a favor and start tuning in to this podcast. We go to a very well resourced private school and even at those schools the college counselors do very little to help kids and parents through the process. Why? Because it’s BRUTAL and there are no easy answers. This team’s honest dialogue (be prepared for some scary truths) and helpful guests provide the insights you need to navigate this process with a sense of realistic expectations. Thanks to them we learned about ‘spikes’ and how college look at students as part of an overall class, the value (and non value) of extracurricular activities and in particular for us, how to think about skills like music. Our kid was fortunate enough to get into the ‘impossible to get into RD schools’ (begins with a ‘W’) and also into a highly selective Ivy but we went in with open eyes and were not surprised along the way. We saved a ton of money (we did not use a college counselor but we did help our kid stay on track), confusion and angst. I’m listening to the 2024 recap and their assessment and all I do is nod my head because of the insights I had along the way through this podcast. Thank you, Mark, Linda and the entire team!

The YCBK team tells the hard truth about college admissions and offers great insights into every stage of the process. DO NOT apply to college without this gem of insider tips and interviews. I discovered YCBK too late in the process to avoid rookie mistakes that could have saved our family thousands in application fees and college visit costs. Our child ultimately received a number of great offers from best fit schools but YCBK could have saved us so much time, money, stress, and tears. Throw away the rankings and listen to the YCBK team. Your child’s future and your family’s finance will benefit from the wisdom here. Mark and Vince and Julia will boost your spirits during a tough process. Good luck to all the newbie parents and college applicants. It really will all work out in the end.

I’ve been doing a lot of research, have read a bunch of books, and this podcast is the most helpful resource I’ve found for understanding and navigating the process. It’s NOT like when we applied to college. At all. (Btw ignore the titles and just listen to episodes from new to old, skipping sections that don’t apply to your family.) Thank you Mark and team!!

I’ve listened to this podcast for the past year and plan to continue to listen for the next few years while my kids are in high school. Each episode has been tremendously helpful in understanding the college admissions landscape and more. It covers current topics with a lot of depth.