SupportED Learning Podcast

Dr. Joe
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Education

On a mission to speak with global education experts on how we can revolutionize the education system, especially in the dawn of AI.

  1. 13h ago

    Episode 74 - ex-UPenn Admissions Officer: Why Your Kid's Perfect Application Gets Rejected - Jayson Weingarten

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with Jayson Weingarten, senior consultant at Ivy Coach and a former assistant director of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, where he evaluated thousands of applications and took part in the confidential committee deliberations behind Ivy League decisions. Dr. Joe and Jayson discuss how applications actually move through reading and selection and why most receive only single-digit minutes of attention, why one individual reader often becomes a student's sole advocate in committee, why Ivy Coach argues for a well-lopsided applicant rather than a well-rounded one and what a genuine singular hook looks like in practice, how early decision helps strategic applicants and does nothing for unqualified ones, why being described as hard working in a recommendation letter can work against a student, and why the phrase passion project is among the clearest signals of an over-engineered application. This episode is especially useful for families targeting highly selective schools, parents of students building activity profiles, and anyone trying to understand what actually happens after the application is submitted. 📲 Connect with them: https://www.ivycoach.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Ivycoach 📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/ Facebook: Dr. Joe Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!

  2. 4d ago

    Episode 73 - Founder Of HECA, 30 Years Advising: Student-First Match Beats Prestige - Cyndy McDonald

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with Cyndy McDonald, certified educational planner, founder of the Higher Education Consultants Association, instructor in UCLA Extension's College Counseling Cehttps://www.instagram.com/dr_joe_ap_exams/?hl=enrtificate program, and creator of the first college planning software. Dr. Joe and Cyndy discuss why she describes families and colleges as speaking two different languages and what it takes to translate between them, how she developed her student-first match approach using surveys and self-reflection rather than rankings, why families should begin the conversation as early as sixth grade rather than junior year, what distinguishes a genuinely good educational consultant from a mediocre one and the single question families should use to tell the difference, how overburdened school counselors leave families uninformed and misinformed, and why she considers course rigor the most important thing a ninth or tenth grader can focus on. This episode is especially useful for first-generation families, parents of younger high schoolers planning ahead, anyone considering hiring a college consultant, and school counselors and independent consultants in the field. 📲 Connect with them: https://www.cyndymcdonald.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CyndyMcDonaldsChannel Email: Cyndy@cyndymcdonald.com 📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/ Facebook: Dr. Joe Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams  Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!

  3. Sep 26

    Episode 72 - Certified Financial Planner: Your Family Actually Qualifies for Aid - Ann Garcia

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with Ann Garcia, certified financial planner, wealth advisor at the Mather Group, and author of How to Pay for College, known to many families as The College Financial Lady. Dr. Joe and Ann discuss why nearly every family qualifies for some form of aid and how to identify which scholarships a student is actually eligible for, how to read a financial aid award letter and separate genuine grant money from loans and work study repackaged as aid, why families miss Parent PLUS loans buried in their package, how to use the 75th percentile data on collegedata.com to find schools likely to offer merit money, practical ways to start and grow a 529 even on a tight budget, and why she considers chasing prestige at any price one of the most damaging financial decisions American families make. This episode is especially useful for families earning too much for traditional need-based aid but facing an eighty thousand dollar sticker price, parents of younger children starting to save, and anyone about to compare award letters. 📲 Connect with them: https://howtopayforcollege.com/about Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@howtopayforcollege 📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/ Facebook: Dr. Joe Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams  Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!

  4. Sep 23

    Episode 71 - SAT Tutor With 275K Followers: Stop Sending Your Kid My Videos - Daniel Ryave

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with Daniel Ryave, founder of SAT Prep Tutor Daniel, who taught high school sophomores in Togo as a Peace Corps volunteer and earned a master's in public policy at Carnegie Mellon before building a following of more than 275,000 students across social platforms. Dr. Joe and Daniel discuss how the digital SAT's adaptivity works at the module level rather than question by question and why landing in the easier second module limits a student's possible score, how to build an effective study plan using only free resources like Khan Academy and the College Board question bank, why doing 20 to 30 questions a day with careful review beats doing a hundred, how test anxiety tends to affect both the least and most prepared students, why he is strongly opposed to AI-generated practice questions, and what he wishes parents would stop doing. This episode is especially useful for students starting prep from scratch, families who can't afford expensive programs, and parents who suspect they may be adding to their child's stress. 📲 Connect with them: https://satpreptutordaniel.wordpress.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SATpreptutor Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@satpreptutor 📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/ Facebook: Dr. Joe Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams  Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!

  5. Sep 21

    Episode 70 - UWorld College Readiness Director: Practice Tests Teach You Nothing - Philip Bates

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with Philip Bates, director of college readiness at UWorld and a former teacher and principal who led elementary, junior high, and high school campuses before moving into educational technology. Dr. Joe and Philip discuss why taking practice test after practice test is an inefficient way to prepare and what immediate feedback does instead, why roughly half of an AP exam is essay-based and why students consistently overrate their own writing, what genuine classroom rigor looks like compared to simply assigning more content, why executive function skills have to be explicitly taught rather than assumed, how families should evaluate the crowded market of free resources and paid tutoring, and how he coached his own high school senior to a significant SAT improvement using short daily sessions and an error log. 📲 Connect with them: https://www.uworld.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UWorldofficial 📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/ Facebook: Dr. Joe Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams  Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!

  6. Sep 16

    Episode 69 - Test Prep Owner, 400 Students, UChicago Grad: Test Optional Is Already Over - David Blobaum

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with David Blobaum, co-founder of Summit Prep, board member and director of outreach for the National Test Prep Association, and a University of Chicago honors graduate who turned down a conditional CIA offer to build a test prep company instead. Dr. Joe and David discuss where test optional admissions actually stands now and why selective schools were never truly optional, how a strong score functions as a merit aid lever at schools further down the rankings, what a University of California report revealed about students with perfect math GPAs placing into remedial math, why grade inflation has left parents without accurate information about their own children's preparation, why the tips-and-tricks promise from large prep companies cannot produce real score gains, and why he argues the goalpost families should care about is success after college rather than admission to it. This episode is especially useful for parents trying to read past an inflated transcript, families weighing whether to submit scores, and students targeting merit aid rather than just admission. 📲 Connect with them: https://summitprep.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@summitprep6663 📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/ Facebook: Dr. Joe Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams  Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!

  7. Sep 12

    Episode 68 - SAT/ACT Veteran: Junior Spring Is The Worst Time To Test - Mike Bergin

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with Mike Bergin, president of Chariot Learning, co-founder of the National Test Prep Association, and co-host of the Tests and the Rest podcast, who has spent three decades in test prep including leadership roles at Kaplan and Huntington Learning Center. Dr. Joe and Mike discuss why the test prep industry had no one speaking for it when test optional admissions took hold and what prompted him to help build a trade association, what the SAT and ACT measure about college readiness that high school grades structurally cannot, why students with excellent math grades are often blindsided by test math, how to choose between the SAT and ACT based on where a student's strengths lie, why a short boot camp is a beginning rather than a plan, and the fifteen minutes of unassigned daily reading he prescribes to every family of a younger teen. This episode is especially useful for parents of freshmen and sophomores planning ahead, families deciding between the SAT and ACT, and anyone who has been told their child is simply a bad test taker. 📲 Connect with them: https://www.chariotlearning.com/ Free Word of the Day: https://roots2words.com/ Podcast: https://gettestbright.com/tests-and-the-rest/ 📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/ Facebook: Dr. Joe Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams  Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!

  8. Sep 9

    Episode 67 - SAT Coach Who Tracks Every Student: Why Summer Prep Beats School-Year Prep - Steve Kirshenbaum

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with Steve Kirshenbaum, CEO of SAT Preparation Group, a one-on-one test prep practice in Miami that he has run for 25 years after coming to education from a corporate engineering career. Dr. Joe and Steve discuss why he believes group prep produces poor results and what he saw working inside those programs before starting his own, the single question he tells parents to ask any tutor or company before hiring them, how he reduced the tested grammar rules to a short list, what a real diagnostic reveals about how a student reads and works through math, why superscoring means planning for several test dates rather than one, and why he treats test anxiety as a gap in training rather than a fixed trait. This episode is especially useful for parents comparing tutors and prep companies, students who freeze on test day despite knowing the material, and families deciding when in the year to prepare. 📲 Connect with them: info@satprepgroup.com Website: https://satprepgroup.com Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SATPrepGroup 📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/ Facebook: Dr. Joe Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams  Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!

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Ratings & Reviews

5
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About

On a mission to speak with global education experts on how we can revolutionize the education system, especially in the dawn of AI.

Information

  • Creator
    Dr. Joe
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    73
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 SupportED Learning Podcast
  • Show Website
    SupportED Learning Podcast

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