In this episode you will hear:   Mark explains how Canadian universities are different from American universities Rank these from 1 to 30 according to what is most important to you in a college   1.       Area Surrounding the College 2.       Campus Beauty and Feel 3.       Career Outcomes 4.       Class Size 5.       Clubs, Sports and Extracurricular 6.       College Rankings 7.       College Setting (large city, small city, suburban, college town, remote) 8.       Cost/Affordability 9.       Distance from home 10.    Diversity 11.    Experiential learning (Co-ops/Internships, Study-Abroad, Research 12.    Facilities 13.    Financial Resources and Financial Wealth 14.    Food Quality 15.    Fraternities and Sororities 16.    Friendliness 17.    Graduation and Retention Rates 18.    Housing Options 19.    Name Recognition/Prestige 20.    Nature/Green Spaces 21.    Overall Academic Excellence 22.    Political Climate 23.    Religious Affiliation and/or Religious Culture 24.    Residential vs Commuter Students 25.    Safety 26.    School Size- 27.    Sports/ School Spirit 28.    Strength in my major 29.    Student Support 30.    Weather   Mark interviews David Hawkins Part 1-Preview ·         David gives his bio and he shares his current role ·         Mark introduces our topic: What does the research show about how colleges make decisions, we look at Factors in College Admissions ·         David explains the history of the development of the NACAC, State of College Admissions Report ·         David talks about how they gather the admissions data for the report ·         David talks about what the number one factor is in how colleges make decisions, and he breaks the number one category into three categories ·         David explains how the top three categories overwhelmingly test as the things that matter the most to colleges, and David shares the numbers to back this up ·         David shares the factor that comes in at number 4 of factors colleges rate as considerably important and moderately important, and David points out that they just recently started adding this factor in their survey and it has already shot up to number 4       Speakpipe.com/YCBK is our method if you want to ask a question and we will be prioritizing all questions sent in via Speakpipe. Unfortunately, we will NOT answer questions on the podcast anymore that are emailed in. If you want us to answer a question on the podcast, please use speakpipe.com/YCBK. We feel hearing from our listeners in their own voices adds to the community feel of our podcast.   You can also use this for many other purposes: 1) Send us constructive criticism about how we can improve our podcast 2) Share an encouraging word about something you like about an episode or the podcast in general 3) Share a topic or an article you would like us to address 4) Share a speaker you want us to interview 5) Leave positive feedback for one of our interviewees. We will send your verbal feedback directly to them and I can almost assure you, your positive feedback will make their day.   To sign up to receive Your College-Bound Kid PLUS, our new monthly admissions newsletter, delivered directly to your email once a month, just go to yourcollegeboundkid.com, and you will see the sign-up popup. We will include many of the hot topics being discussed on college campuses.   Check out our new blog. We write timely and insightful articles on college admissions:   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 messa