For overwhelmed and stressed out parents of 9th, 10th, 11th graders and younger, tossing and turning at night, desperately wondering how they will afford their kids' college tuition or if they will get in anywhere decent…
Discover how to give your child an (almost) unfair EDGE over 50,000 or more identical competitor-applicants…
…and SLASH college costs by 57.1% or more, even if you think you can't possibly qualify for anything…
…and how to bargain ruthlessly with overpriced, rip-off colleges after they've "lowballed" you.
This message is especially for parents who aren't privy to the ACTUAL College Admissions and Scholarships Rules of the Game… but suspect that others are.
Yes! Start My $1 Trial Membership30 days inside for a dollar, then $97 per month. Cancel anytime. Keep the bonuses as a gift for giving us a try.
Dear Fellow Parent,
If you have a hard working child or multiple children headed to college in the next 1-3 years…
…but you have NO EARTHLY IDEA whether they're doing everything they need to do in order to get accepted into a decent college and win scholarships, then you're exactly who I had in mind when I wrote this note.
I know that's an aggressive opener, but I'll back it up, because you are about to discover how to LEAPFROG over the part of this college application process that ambushes hapless families throughout 9th, 10th and 11th grades.
And skip the confusion, the guessing and the wishful thinking-as-a-strategy.
Not to mention the late nights, sitting in your kitchen after everyone else has gone to bed, ruminating over whether and how things will possibly work out for your kid.
First, let's get something out of the way…
This Is A Letter About Your CHILD
Not you and your stress, although that's important too.
More specifically, it is about the ONE decision that follows your kiddo for the rest of his life.
Not the minor stuff. Not decisions about summer camp, where to go on vacation or what to DoorDash tonight.
THIS one.
Where your child goes to college sets the arc for years. Decades.
It directly influences who he meets, what doors open for him, where his first internship and job is, and affects his income and quality of life for forty-plus years.
Here's the part nobody says out loud…
You Have Less Control Over It Than Anyone Ever Told You
Especially if you and your kid keep doing everything the same way as everyone else.
You know, get As. Study for the SAT or ACT.
Join a bunch of clubs. Play a couple of sports. Do a play. Play an instrument in the orchestra. Throw in some volunteer hours. Get into National Honor Society.
Nothing wrong with any of these things, but we need to talk about the giant elephant in the room…
It's The Same Stuff That EVERY Kid Does
What's the big whoop?
Getting into college today is NOT a function of meritocracy. It's about MARKETING yourself.
It's about answering an unwritten, "invisible question" on the Common App:
WHY SHOULD WE ADMIT YOU INSTEAD OF THE OTHER 50,000 KIDS WITH THE SAME GRADES AND TEST SCORES?
If you're nodding, you will also agree that if your child does the same thing everyone else is doing, she can't possibly stand out.
In other words, if you follow all the *typical* ways of building your high school record, when you apply to college you'll suffer from a horrible problem. I call it…
"Application Incest"
That means your kids' essays, supplemental essays, activities and all other parts of his Common App will be indistinguishable from tens of thousands of her competitor-applicants.
You need to do something DIFFERENT than everyone else.
Check that. You don't NEED to be different.
You can choose to keep doing things the way you have been told to do it by everyone else. Trust the rankings. Trust the free online calculator with the cheerful green bar or the school software that displays a clump of dots.
And you can rely on a guidance counselor who may not know your kid's name, who has his own agenda, and is splitting himself across 50-400 other kids.
Do all of that, but don't expect your results to be different.
Instead, if you follow the same old, well-trodden path as most families, you are going to be…
A SLAVE To Hope
Your plan, your peace of mind, your child's entire future, all of it riding on the wish that it somehow works out.
Hoping that the bar graph or "scattergram" on the free website was right.
Hoping that the "safety" is ACTUALLY a safety. That the admissions committee behind closed doors sees in your child what you see.
In the next few minutes you will discover how to become the MASTER of this process instead of being victimized by it.
With the exact instrument I built to put your child's real odds in front of you, in plain numbers, while there is still time to change them.
First, let me ask you something.
You drove her all over town to practices, meets, rehearsals. You shelled out thousands for the tutors and lessons.
Maybe you've embarked on that rite of passage, The College Visit. You sat through endless identical info sessions in auditoriums and countless tours that blurred together.
You did everything a "good mom" or "good dad" is supposed to do.
After all this activity, do you now feel more confident about how your kid stacks up at these colleges?
Or do you suspect that the older kids who got into great colleges with big scholarships somehow got a memo you never saw.
Or you feel like there is a hidden playbook or manual somewhere, but you haven't seen it.
If you feel this way, come a little closer so I can tell you the stone cold truth…
It's Not Your Fault
If you feel behind, it is not because you failed somehow. It is because NOBODY handed you the playbook.
They assign you a counselor with 400 other students on his roster. The counselor hands you a "scattergram" from a website that shows you what you want to see.
Then she gives you a college list that looks the same as ones for the kids at the previous three counselor appointments.
And then they act surprised when you confess that most late nights, you're sitting at your kitchen table, quietly obsessing.
You are not confused because you are careless. You are confused because the entire system is BUILT to keep you guessing.
Here is the fear you do not say out loud on the lacrosse field.
You assume the other families have an angle. A guy. An inside track.
You feel like you are the only one flying blind.
You could be right.
But these "in the know" families are not smarter than you. And they don't love their child more than you love yours.
The difference is that they started earlier. They sought out and got hold of the playbook before you. That is the ENTIRE difference.
That difference, the one between the families who are in the know and the families on the outside, is exactly the gap that the Lockwood Inner Circle closes.
Think about it. You outsource everything else that matters. You have a CPA. You have a financial advisor. Maybe a personal trainer.
Hopefully you'd see a professional instead of attempting your own root canal.
So why would you WING the one decision that follows your child for the rest of his life?
If you enroll by the deadline, you're automatically approved for a generous "Early Action Scholarship."
Our best clients are the ones who take prompt, decisive action. That's why we're making it worth your while to sign up now, before the enrollment deadline passes. (You can cancel any time, there are no termination or other weird fees.)
Yes! Start My $1 Trial MembershipGet started for just $1 · keep the bonuses even if you cancel.
…except the admissions committee
Great statistics aren't enough. Let's talk about Eric.
That's not his actual name, but he's real. He's a "de-identified" case out of a private, professional admissions database I get to see.
A 1560 SAT. A 4.11 GPA. But not just stats.
Eric co-designed a patented robotic surgical assistant, CAD models and all. He published an original machine-learning model that reads brain scans. He built and shipped his own video game.
Every adult and peer in his life told him the same thing. You would too.
That kid is a LOCK at Cornell
But Cornell rejected him.
Eric is a terrific young man and he landed fine. Good schools, all of them, not one of them an Ivy.
But the dream was Cornell. So why did they ding him? Here is the part that should stop you cold.
His numbers were never the problem
He got fed into a system that is more crowded, more competitive and more RANDOM than it has ever been.
A system where a school like Cornell turns away thousands of kids with perfect numbers every single year. Where the gap between the fat envelope and the thin one comes down to positioning, story and fit.
Where the committee behind the closed door is a black box that even the people who do this for a living cannot fully predict.
Who was in Eric's corner steering him through all of that? A counselor with 400 other kids and a hallway full of transcripts, who could not, by policy or by time, tell him where he was overreaching.
But guidance counselors are not the villains of this story.
It's the SYSTEM. The insane competition, the under-trained and overloaded counselor (public or private high school), the discussions and debate by a committee you never see.
It ambushes outstanding students every spring. And it does not care how hard your kid worked.
You do not beat the system by "winging it." You beat it with better information, starting earlier, and with someone in your corner who can help your child form an actual STRATEGY to optimize his odds of acceptance.
And IMPLEMENT that strategy.
We are in perhaps the most turbulent times for higher education, ever.
But beyond all the protests, anti-Semitism, politics, DEI and affirmative action controversies, things are upside down even more than they've ever been.
Yesterday's "safeties" are today's impossible dreams.
Take Northeastern University, for example. When I graduated high school in suburban Boston in the 80's, Northeastern admitted 90%.
Yes, you read that right. Kids who couldn't get into college ended up at Northeastern.
Today the acceptance rate is 6%. +/-
Same thing for Miami, Tulane and many, many others.
There's a reason for this but this isn't the place to discuss it. Maybe we can chat about it if we ever meet.
The onslaught of available free information hasn't made things more clear. It's done the opposite.
Rankings change every year. Free calculators hand you a happy, wishful thinking number. Forums full of anonymous strangers swearing they know how it works. (And bragging about their own kids.)
Well-meaning relatives with a story about how their nephew got into Penn six years ago, which makes them an expert on the whole admissions process.
It's all one big rabbit hole that leads to more rabbit holes the more time you spend.
Who wouldn't be confused?
Be VERY Careful Whose Advice You Build Your Child's Future On
Beware the slick app that launched last spring with venture money and a dashboard full of green bars, promising to predict your child's future off nothing but a GPA and an SAT score.
And beware the opposite. The advice frozen in time. The way it "used to work" back when your older nephew applied, in an admissions world that no longer exists.
Both approaches will steer you wrong. One is guessing with a nicer interface. The other is remembering ancient times that have gone the way of the fax machine.
Let me tell you who is actually talking to you, biggest and realest numbers first.
But here's a different edge, that could matter most for your child. As one of only 1,000-odd approved, select college advisors in the world, I have access to the National Education Research Database. A shared, de-identified record of more than 321,000 real applications across 2,100 colleges.
What does that mean? It's a fancy way of saying that I can see the actual outcomes of actual kids, essays and all. Pulled right from Common App data.
Here's a recent query I ran: What's the most popular topic that kids write essays about? (Take a guess, I'll give the answer below.)
Parents cannot access it. Free websites do not have it. And your guidance counselor has never heard of it.
So when I tell you where your child really stands, I am not taking a wild guess. I am reading the playbook the admissions world keeps and does not hand out.
Eric, the Cornell kid, came straight out of it.
I have spent 24 years living inside this matrix. I built the Lockwood Inner Circle so you do not have to face it alone.
If you enroll by the deadline, you're automatically approved for a generous "Early Action Scholarship."
Our best clients are the ones who take prompt, decisive action. That's why we're making it worth your while to sign up now, before the enrollment deadline passes. (You can cancel any time, there are no termination or other weird fees.)
Yes! Start My $1 Trial MembershipGet started for just $1 · keep the bonuses even if you cancel.
Your child starts writing his Common Application wayyyyyy before senior year.
When does she start "filling out" the Common App?
The First Time Her Feet Touch The Hallway Of High School
Yep. Ninth grade. Maybe earlier if she took advanced classes in middle school.
But most private and public school counselors don't meet their students until 11th grade!
Here's the problem.
The transcript is being written RIGHT NOW. Every quarter that passes gets locked in and cannot be re-graded.
Same with the window for course selection. And the testing window.
Sadly, you can't rely on your guidance counselor to tell you when all of this needs to happen. They're too busy with other kids, other stuff (truancies, drug use, bullying, etc.) You have to take charge yourself.
Then there's all the other, non-academic factors, which account for approximately 40% of the ultimate college application.
I'm talking about extracurriculars in school, clubs, leadership. Outside of school activities, "passion project" (I DETEST that term, but it's accurate… sigh…), jobs, internship, shadowing. Summers.
This process rolls on like a train. The train doesn't care if you're ready or not before it leaves the station. Either you're on board or not.
How much of your child's remaining time in high school do you want to spend guessing?
How many more report cards do you want to watch post without knowing whether they moved the needle or not?
And the most important question.
How much longer are you willing to leave the single most important decision of your child's life to chance?
Between December and April of senior year, the movie is over. You're watching the ending.
The families who win are not the ones who cared the most at the end. They are the ones who saw the scoreboard early enough to change the score.
Imagine you can see your child's real odds at every school on his list. Not a feel-good guess. The real odds.
Imagine that every time something changes, a report card, an updated SAT score, a new activity, a school added or dropped, you can watch those odds move, and you know exactly what to do next to move the needle and advance toward your goal.
Imagine having a real strategy instead of a wish. Having clarity instead of confusion.
Picture the Early Decision "fat envelope" arriving in December. From the school plastered on that hoodie your kid bought in 10th grade. For the college you'll be proud to advertise on the back of your car.
See yourself standing at that graduation party and answering the where-is-he-going question fast, loud, and proud, and meaning it.
Imagine looking at your child and knowing, all the way down to your toes, that you did not leave his future to chance.
That when it mattered, you stepped up.
That is what I want for your family. Here's how you get it.
If you enroll by the deadline, you're automatically approved for a generous "Early Action Scholarship."
Our best clients are the ones who take prompt, decisive action. That's why we're making it worth your while to sign up now, before the enrollment deadline passes. (You can cancel any time, there are no termination or other weird fees.)
Yes! Start My $1 Trial MembershipGet started for just $1 · keep the bonuses even if you cancel.
The Inner Circle is a movement of take-charge, proactive parents who refuse to wing the one decision that shapes their child's entire life.
Parents who decided they would rather KNOW than hope. Who wanted the insider's map instead of the tourist's guesswork.
Parents who do everything they can to give their kid the best they could manage, starting from the time they were in diapers to now, when they're about to transition to adulthood and need you the most.
The Inner Circle is more than a membership. You are joining families who know the Rules of The Game, the scoreboard, and are doing something about it to help their children position themselves for success, in life.
Let me be candid about who does not belong here.
I cannot control your child's efforts or motivation. I cannot control your compliance with the advice in this program. I can't control your child's grades or his standardized test scores. I have no control over any college's budget, and I have no idea who ELSE is applying to your child's colleges this year.
That's why every reputable trade group of college advisors and colleges considers guarantees to be completely UNETHICAL. Your and your child's success or failure is almost exclusively based on your efforts and willingness to take responsibility for your results.
I have watched too many good families get sucker punched in senior year because they thought their school counselors and teachers had everything under control. I will not do that to you.
But if you refuse to leave your child's future to a black box and a prayer… then you are exactly who I built this for.
If you enroll by the deadline, you're automatically approved for a generous "Early Action Scholarship."
Our best clients are the ones who take prompt, decisive action. That's why we're making it worth your while to sign up now, before the enrollment deadline passes. (You can cancel any time, there are no termination or other weird fees.)
Yes! Start My $1 Trial MembershipGet started for just $1 · keep the bonuses even if you cancel.
You put in your child's real stats. Grades, scores, his list. Plus the "other" stuff that admissions officers consider, but people don't talk about in polite company. Like, are you high income? And race, ethnicity. How your kid compares on awards. Talent. Character. And extracurriculars, specifically, how much impact or leadership she's demonstrated.
And this is important: how your kiddo "stacks up" against EVERYONE each college admitted from ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. Not just from your high school, because that's not your true competition. School counselors don't know this.
Once everything is loaded (it takes about 15 minutes), we compare this data to two college databases, the Common Data Set and IPEDS. What's important is that the Evaluator shows you the REAL odds at every single school on your list. Not the number that brushes you off and keeps you temporarily calm with false hopes. And then it shows you the part that actually matters: how to IMPROVE those odds. What moves the needle at each school and what is a waste of his time.
Then you re-run it. Every time something changes. New report card, run it again, watch the odds shift. New SAT or ACT score, run it again. Thinking about swapping a reach for a match, run it both ways and SEE the field move before you commit. This is not a tool you use once and forget. This is the instrument you run your child's entire strategy on, for as long as the stakes are live.
Things in the world of college admissions and financial aid have never been more chaotic. And it seems like families are busier than ever. But as an Inner Circle member, you will never blow a deadline or miss out on a key opportunity. Or wonder, "What should my kid or I be doing now?"
Once a month, on the first Monday at 6pm EST, I get on Zoom, live, and walk members through exactly what they should be doing. I cover key deadlines, opportunities most families overlook until it is too late, changes in admissions policy and trends, changes in financial aid rules, new developments with student loans. And we set time aside for live Q&A.
Members never have to worry about getting blindsided by a rule change nobody told them about. Because you hear it directly from me and Pearl, our resident financial aid maven, proactively. Every single month, before the window closes on it. (Recorded if you miss the live session.)
Not an email that dies in your promotions folder. A printed briefing that lands in your mailbox every month and sits on your counter where you cannot ignore it. One job: to tell you what to do NOW, this month, before the moment passes.
On our Financial Aid Prep, the Admissions Edge Elite program, SAT and ACT Crusher classes and the Bootcamp. Inner Circle members are friends and family. You get our best deals. This scholarship alone is worth more than $3,500.
But there's more to sweeten the pot, because I want to make this offer too incredibly good to refuse. The moment you join, you'll be issued these two bonuses.
This on-demand training is no longer available, but we used to offer it for $297. I took it out of the vault and dusted it off for you, as a special incentive to jump into the Lockwood Inner Circle. It's absolutely free but extremely valuable and unique, containing bona fide "insider" information:
If you enroll by the deadline, you're automatically approved for a generous "Early Action Scholarship."
Our best clients are the ones who take prompt, decisive action. That's why we're making it worth your while to sign up now, before the enrollment deadline passes. (You can cancel any time, there are no termination or other weird fees.)
Yes! Start My $1 Trial MembershipGet started for just $1 · keep the bonuses even if you cancel.
Our playbook for legally positioning your family to capture more aid and pay less, even at full-freight sticker schools. Instant College Funding was the first product I ever created back in 2014. It's been updated many times since and will be again, to reflect the latest rules and regulations.
People have paid as much as $997 for this because ICF is a money-MAKER, not an expense. ICF walks you through the EXACT loopholes and landmines lurking on the FAFSA and CSS Profile, including a deep dive into the *New FAFSA*. Inside you will discover:
One tip or strategy from this course could, quite literally, save you thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. This bonus alone could pay for your membership many times over.
One dollar gets you 30 days inside at LockwoodInnerCircle.com. Cancel in one email. Keep the bonuses.
| The Lockwood Letter, mailed monthly | $249 / year |
| Incomparable Applicant Master Class (included) | $297 |
| Instant College Funding System (included) | $997 |
| The monthly "Here's What You Should Be Doing Now" workshop | priceless the first time it saves a deadline |
| The Admissions Evaluator, all year | $197 / year |
| In your hands, day one | $1,740+ |
| Plus 25% member privileges if you add Fin Aid, Edge Elite or the Bootcamp | $3,500+ in savings |
| Total value of everything | $5,240 |
Look at the hard number first. Over $1,700 of value lands in your hands the day you join. The Evaluator sits on top of that, running all year.
Let me put it in context before I say the number.
I run my practice like a law firm (I'm a recovering attorney, I can't help myself).
I make no apology for those fees. That work is worth every dollar. Select families who have the means pay it gladly, because they recognize that this is the most important time of their child's life.
But of course the Inner Circle is not $35,000. It is not $13,995. It is not even $1,500.
The full membership, everything above, is $97 a month. And you can get started for a dollar. And cancel anytime without penalty or weird termination charges like a gym membership or phone contract.
Wondering why I'm charging you a ridiculous dollar? It's not the best answer. I have to charge you SOMETHING, so I came up with the lowest amount my shopping cart would allow. But I'm so confident that you'll be blown away with how valuable the Inner Circle is, I fully expect that you'll stay with us for many months, maybe even years.
So I don't really mind letting you "steal" the first month, and bonuses, from me, because my belief is that, if you're the right kind of parent, you'll stick around for a long time.
That's it. Ninety-seven dollars, and as a charter member I lock that rate for you for life, for as long as you stay. Future members will pay $297 per month for the same thing.
If you enroll by the deadline, you're automatically approved for a generous "Early Action Scholarship."
Our best clients are the ones who take prompt, decisive action. That's why we're making it worth your while to sign up now, before the enrollment deadline passes. (You can cancel any time, there are no termination or other weird fees.)
Yes! Start My $1 Trial MembershipGet started for just $1 · keep the bonuses even if you cancel.
If you are doing the math on $97, I am going to say something you need to hear.
The money is not the decision.
For a family serious enough to have read this far, $97 a month is a rounding error. You spend more than that on Starbucks each month. And don't get me started on all those streaming services.
Here is the real math.
A wrong college decision costs SIX FIGURES. The wrong school, wrong fit, the transfer, the fifth year, the aid you left on the table because nobody told you how to position for it. That is real money, dwarfing everything on this page.
The Inner Circle is a cheap insurance policy.
I am not asking you to decide whether $97 is worth it. I am asking you to decide whether your child will walk into senior fall with an actual strategy and the "secret" playbook…
…or whether she will walk in on ill-founded hopes and dreams.
Then you can either ride along with me and the other Lockwood clients, or cancel on all of the features: The Admissions Evaluator. The live monthly workshop. The Lockwood Letter in your actual mailbox. The bonuses.
Sign up. Enter your child's real numbers into the Evaluator tonight. See his REAL odds at every school on his list. See exactly what would move them. Sit in on the client workshop. Watch the Instant College Funding training. Go through the bonuses. Read the Lockwood Letter.
Thirty days in, one of two things is true. Either you see how our information will impact your family's and your child's future, in which case you do nothing and your membership simply continues at your charter rate of $97 a month. Or it has not, in which case you cancel in one email and keep all bonuses as my way of saying "Thanks for giving us a try."
We'll part with no hassles, no hard feelings. No phone call. No begging you to come back. One email and you are done, and the Master Class and the Instant Funding System are yours to keep either way.
Did I mention that all you risk is a single dollar?
Yes! Start My $1 Trial MembershipThe Common App is being written right now, even if your child is in 9th grade. Whether you are "supervising" or not.
Every month you wait is 30 days of your child's file that gets written without anyone guiding it. The college process does not care that you "meant to get to it." It closes on a calendar you did not set.
Watched the odds move. Made the calls with real information. Answered "where's he going?" with a straight back and a steady voice.
Believed everyone who said he was a lock, and found out in April that the system does not grade on effort.
Same block. Same kid. Same stats. One difference.
One family watched the scoreboard. The other watched a photograph and called it a plan.
If you enroll by the deadline, you're automatically approved for a generous "Early Action Scholarship."
Our best clients are the ones who take prompt, decisive action. That's why we're making it worth your while to sign up now, before the enrollment deadline passes. (You can cancel any time, there are no termination or other weird fees.)
Yes! Start My $1 Trial MembershipGet started for just $1 · keep the bonuses even if you cancel.
Start your 30-day Inner Circle trial for one dollar now. Then, $97 per month. Cancel anytime. See your child's real odds of acceptance, and what you need to do to increase them, in a matter of minutes.
Onward,