Have you and your child begun any serious discussion about college plans? My experience has shown time and again that sooner is better than later and right now is the best time. Wait until junior year and your child could miss the boat completely. You see, a spot on a placement list is as valuable to your child as a takeover candidate to a hard-core CEO or a strategic island to a cunning military strategist. Yet neither the CEO nor the military man would dare risk his assets in the College Placement Battle Zone. It could mean all the difference between my kid goes to Yale or Princeton or Stanford and my kid? What about my kid?