In this week’s episode…

In the News (3:20): In this week’s news we talk about the confusing information that colleges provide in their financial aid award letters.

This article titled “The Confusing Information Colleges Provide About Financial Aid”, was written on June 6th, 2018 by Adam Harris and published in The Atlantic. (Length 14:48)

In this week’s book discussion of Chapter 28 of 171 Answers (18:08): We discuss the various college rankings and how to know when you can trust them.

We talk about how there are at least 13 prominent college rankings services out there and they each have their own formula. We describe how you should study the formulas and if you like the formulas, you can accept the rankings, but the formulas vary substantially from one ranking service to another. Mark encourages listeners to come up your own personal criteria that will never fully be in alignment with the rankings. We discuss how the rankings are big business and the public can’t get enough of it so the publications keep cranking out the rankings. Rankings give a false sense of precision that is not defensible. (Length 8:42)

This week’s question (26:50) continues as Part II of Mark’s answer to a mom who wants to know how her child can get more scholarships.

Mark lets the listeners know how they can get more scholarships but he also shows the listener where they can go to find more scholarships in this episode. Mark says that we will have to discuss outside scholarships, Department scholarships and money for current students in another episode as this episode is focused on scholarships from the colleges themselves. (Length 12:50)

In the first part of Mark’s interview with test score expert, Dr. Jed Applerouth (39:40), the founder of Applerouth Tutoring and Test prep Jed talks about how the ACT is different than the SAT.

Jed shares how you should determine whether you take the SAT or the ACT? He talks about the test prep materials that Applerouth has developed. Jed talks about how the reading section on the SAT differs significantly from the reading portion on the ACT. Jed talks about how the Science section differs between the ACT vs the SAT. Jed talks about specific differences between the math portions of the ACT and the SAT. Jed talks about the radical redesign of the SAT in 2016 and the drastic changes the SAT made. Jed talks about both the ACT and the SAT are appealing to the state sponsored testing. Jed also talks about when to start your test prep. (Length 24:03 minutes)

Don’t forget to send your questions related to any and every facet of the college process to: questions@yourcollegeboundkid.com

Every episode of Your College-Bound Kid will align with a chapter from the book 171 Answers to the Most-Asked College Admission Questions. To get a copy visit 171answers.com and if you want to see what future episodes will cover just click the red button “See exactly what 171 Answers covers”.