Our Team

Co-host and Producer

Mark Stucker (mark@schoolmatch4u.com) has 23 years of full-time experience in college and boarding school admissions, and in college counseling. He’s worked with private day, boarding, charter, and public-school students, as well as private clients. He is extremely passionate about finding the right college for every student and ensuring that the college selected is affordable for the family.

Career Highlights

• Worked at the Phillips School doing college admission, 1991
• Adjunct College counselor for students at the Westtown School, 2001 – 2009
• Associate Director of Admissions at Westtown School, 2002 – 2009
• Chair of the admissions committee at Westtown School for five years, 2004 – 2009
• KIPP Metro Atlanta high school and college placement counselor, 2009 – present
• Oversees the college counseling program for four schools by serving as the Director of College
  Counseling for Alumni at KIPP Metro Atlanta. Will place about 70 kids in college in this role 2019
• Founded college placement educational consulting company, School Match 4U, 2010
• Currently serves as a Go To College NYC board member
• Traveled nationally/ internationally to recruit students at fairs, through school visits, and receptions.
• Worked with well over 1500 students through either college and boarding school admissions, high school placement, college admissions, or college placement
• Currently assisting students and parents with the college placement process from 22 different states through video conferencing
• Member of Higher Education Consultants Association (HECA) also SACAC and NACAC member
• Graduate of the Harvard Summer Institute for College Admissions and the Stanford Counselor outreach certificate program
• Married for 31 years, we are parents of two, our oldest is a Davidson College grad and our youngest daughter is a graduate of the University of Georgia and is currently a graduate student at NC State University in North Carolina

Co-host

A native New Yorker, Susan Tree moved to New England following her graduation from St. Lawrence University; she spent 12 years at Bates College as Associate Dean of Admissions and earned her MS.Ed in School Counseling at the University of Southern Maine. For more than twenty years, Susan served as the Director of College Counseling at a college prep day and boarding school near Philadelphia where she worked with students from around the world and with Mark Stucker, founded the Independent School Multicultural Conference and College Fair. Susan coaches families through their college search and has evaluated applications for a number of selective universities.

Active in the national college admissions profession, Susan served as a founding board member of the Character Collaborative, the Independent Curriculum Group, and the college access organization GoToCollege NYC. She has served on the counselor advisory committees of the College Board, the Educational Testing Service (ETS), and the Common Application, and has volunteered with the National Association for College Admission Counseling on committees related to admission practices and standardized testing.

A counselor at heart who loves being in the mix with families, Susan’s favorite job is as a mom of twins who are recent college graduates.

Co-host

Vince Garcia has 20+ years of experience in college admissions and has evaluated applications for Occidental College, Pomona College, Cal Lutheran, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. Additionally, Vince worked with Belmont High School and Campbell Hall and provided college counseling for College Summit, Gates Millennium Scholarship, Matchlighters, National Hispanic Institute, Posse Foundation, and Questbridge. Vince has expertise in admissions in STEM admissions, athletics, learning differences, and the visual and performing arts. Vince has worked with Campus Pride, Dalai Lama Fellows, National H.I.V. Scholarship, Reaching Out MBA, The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, The Point Foundation, and The Schwarzman Scholars. Vince is co-founder and CEO of Q&A College Admissions.

Co-host

Julia Esquivel began her admission work during her undergraduate years at Vassar College, working as a student of color intern in the office of admissions. After graduating from Vassar, Julia worked for four years in the admission office of Haverford College, directing the college’s multicultural recruitment efforts and leading transition programming for first-generation students from under-represented backgrounds. Interested in access and justice, Julia enrolled in the Masters in Public Health program at Emory University where she was also an outside reader for the office of undergraduate admissions. Julia continued her work as an outside reader for Haverford College and returned to the world of admissions in 2016 as Associate Director of College Counseling for Milton Academy, a half-day, half-boarding independent school outside Boston, Massachusetts. Since 2009, Julia has volunteered with College Horizons, the largest college access organization for Native American and Indigenous students. Julia currently lives with her partner of seven years and his ten-year-old daughter. She is a foodie, a beach lover, and loves gabbing about college admissions.

Substitute co-host

Sylvia Borgo is a California-based independent educational consultant with over 24 years of educational experience. She received her BA from UCLA and her certificate in Independent Educational Counseling from the University of California, Irvine.

Sylvia helps students and families navigate the college search and application process and helps them find colleges that are good academic, social, and financial fits. In addition to her private practice, she volunteers with first-gen, underserved students to help them access their higher education goals. Having visited six continents and 48 countries, she is passionate about instilling a sense of discovery and a curiosity for exploring the world.

She loves spending time with her family, walking the dog, hitting the gym, going to music concerts, and reading.

Substitute co-host

Anika Madden is a donor relations professional, writer/blogger, and mom of 3 kids age 25, 20, and 13. Having gone through the college process with her oldest (and still going) she is well aware of the frustrations, workload and importance in getting our kids to and through college. Her passion behind the podcast lies in seeing too many kids that are not able to finish college or having to take unwanted breaks simply because of their family’s wide-ranging gaps of knowledge in the process. After serving as the co-founder and primary co-host through the first 171 episodes, Anika will occasionally substitute for Dave or Lisa.

Expert in International Admissions

Kevin Newton is the founder of An Education Abroad, an Independent Educational Consultancy which focuses on helping American students find degree options around the world. Since quite literally the week he returned from his own degree abroad, Kevin has helped students save time and money by getting a degree abroad, all while opening unbelievable professional and personal opportunities.

Kevin studied History and Middle Eastern Studies at the College of William & Mary, and has a Masters degree in Islamic and Chinese law from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He has been widely published on both the geopolitics of the Eastern Hemisphere as well as Islamic finance.

His love of global education, as well as a working knowledge of a half dozen languages, have helped him place students in both undergraduate and graduate programs as varied as the University of Edinburgh, Oxford, HEC Paris, Tsinghua University (in Beijing) and more. Additionally, Kevin has spent time as a classroom teacher, where he taught Roman and medieval history to middle school students.

When he’s not helping his students negotiate international admissions, Kevin enjoys waking up at 4 am to smoke the perfect pulled pork and visiting art museums with his wife/business partner.

Mark and Lisa focus on colleges that are located in the US and Canada, but Mark was looking to partner with a firm that specializes in International admissions. We are elated to partner with Kevin. After talking with Kevin at length over multiple meetings over multiple months, and after talking with those who have worked with Kevin, we could not be happier to recommend Kevin to any of our clients who want to attend a college outside of the United States or Canada.

Kevin possesses the highest level of integrity; he cares about the students he works with and he is an outstanding communicator. He is also a student of colleges. He is always studying and learning so he can serve his families with maximal effectiveness.

There are some students who want to look at schools in the US and Canada and abroad, and Mark and Kevin will co-counsel in these instances. Kevin is also a member of the Southern Association for College Admissions Counseling.

Director of Instagram Marketing

Lily Parikh is a student at Elon University, where as a Communication Fellow, she studies Communication Design and Strategic Communications. In addition to her work at Your College Bound Kid, she was also selected to be an account executive for Elon’s strategic communications firm, Live Oak Communications. Lily will also work this summer as a social media intern in the hotel industry in Sorrento, Italy.