College Planning Webinar Session

My name is Shellee Howard. I'm the founder and owner of CollegeReady, and I have the honor of sharing what colleges are looking for, how to get in, how to get the big scholarships, and not lose your mind or your money through the process. Just briefly, background about myself. I have been doing this for 17 years. We're on our 18th application season, and I am looking forward to helping you. You're in the right room if you know a middle school or high school student. That means it could be a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle. It could be somebody, um, who's in foster care. All of this information I'm going to share with you today can help any of them. I help students with a 3.0 all the way to a 5.0. I help students who are need-based, who are middle class, and who are multimillionaires. This process works for every student who has the desire to be successful in their future. Let's face it, college has changed since I was a student. I was the firstborn to go to college, and I honestly didn't do it the best way possible. I did get in, and I did get out, and I did get my degree, but I knew I wanted a better solution for children. So when my son was in 8th grade, he said, Mom, I know exactly what I want to do and where I want to go. And I was like, great, tell me a little bit about that. And he said, yeah, I want to go to one of those top-tier Ivy things and I want to be a brain surgeon. And then he kind of walked away and he turned around, he says, can you help me with that? And I'm like, of course I can, because that's what we do as parents. So that is my story. That is how this journey started 18 years ago. I won't bore you with the details, but that young man ended up getting into 7 top-tier colleges completely debt-free, ended up going to Harvard 4 years pre-med with a biology major, regenerative biology. And had an amazing experience at Harvard, uh, graduated 4 years, walked across the stage, gave me his diploma, and he goes, it was definitely worth it. Now can you help me get into medical school? Of course I can. So we went on that, um, journey together. He got 1B at Harvard. He then took the MCAT, got a 98%, Applied to 33 medical schools and got accepted to 3. Very humbling experience for our family. He got 3 wonderful opportunities and chose to come back to California, where we're from, and attended UC San Diego, was able to surf in between classes, and really enjoyed medical school. From there, he decided he was going to pivot and go on to, uh, become an orthopedic surgeon. He's now finishing his 4th year as a resident at UCLA and is applying for fellowship as an orthopedic surgeon. He will graduate a total undergrad, medical school, and residency $30,000 in debt, which, as you can imagine, he will be able to pay off his first year. That is why College Ready was started. It was all about the return on investment. I was a middle-class mom living in Southern Orange County and owned a home, and I had no idea how this all was gonna come together. But what I can tell you is I ran it just like I ran a business, and he came up, uh, with my support of a standout strategy. He didn't have the perfect GPA, he didn't have the perfect test score, but he had an incredible story to tell. That's what I'm going to help you understand today. If you don't have a student with a 5.0 GPA or a perfect SAT or ACT, or maybe you do, they still need more. Back in the day, we applied to maybe 1, 2, 3, or 4 schools and we put a stamp on and we mailed it in. I know that dates me a little bit, but I will tell you, when my son did it, it was at the beginning of the whole virtual turn-in-your-application process, and now it is a completely different process. The important thing to remember is there is so many colleges who accept so many students and have an opportunity to do it Very well. So what we do is we really focus on the student and the family first. We believe that helping the student create their own standout strategy, helping the parent get their financial house in order, and helping them understand what is a good major, what is a good career, how much money they'll make, and what is the return on investment. We're not just planning on students who are good at math going to MIT and calling it a day. We're helping them have strategic strategies. I'm gonna show you how we do that. I just thought it was important because social media or the media is telling you nobody is getting into the UCs or the Ivies, and I'm here to tell you not only did our students get into all the Ivies and all the UCs, I had a student that this year who did not tell me applied to every single UC school. She wanted to surprise me, and she got into every UC school. Now, her consultant had a great strategy, and I had a plan to get her into her dream school, which was UCLA. The nice part is she turned them all down to go to a top-tier Ivy. Stanford was able to beat that on her list. So it's not just the Ivies. My second child, 4 years later, she said, I don't want to go to one of those schools. I want to have a whole college experience. Not that my son didn't, but she wanted a big D1 football school. So her dream was University of Alabama. I said, what is wrong with California? And she says, Mom, I want the whole experience. I said, well, I'm not paying for you to go to Alabama when you could come here. And she said, if I can go for free, will you let me go? And I said, 110%. She said, will you help me? That is what we did. She ended up going to University of Alabama. She was pre-nursing, then nursing, got in and out of Alabama without any debt. And she's now a pediatric emergency room, nurse, RN. And that is another example of 2 children who are totally different, who leaned into their standout strategy and was able to get into their dream school without landing themself in debt. So I told those stories to inspire because I didn't do the work. They did the work. That young man who's now 30 without debt. Is going to have a whole life ahead of him versus being strapped or marrying debt or be double-debted. So it is possible. This year we had 49 seniors in— the FAFSA hasn't even been released yet, and that group of students has earned well over $8 million in scholarships. That is the kind of situation that I want every family to be in, from multimillionaire to need-based, because it allows the student to feel really good about their accomplishments. Now I'm gonna get into the how, because now I'm hoping you're feeling like, wow, if she could do it, I'm sure our kids can do it because they're even Smarter. So let's talk a little bit about some of the concerns first, so I can help you get some clarity about, you know, will this, this help, or will this strategy work for my student? So the number one thing we're hearing right now is, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. Can you help my child figure out the first step in the process? And so the first thing I will share with you is that yes, this is how we start the process. If you go to seerfuturenow.com, that is our sister company, and this is our starting point. This is how we help people become successful adults without being overwhelmed. You know, my son, We had a bet. If he could graduate from Harvard debt-free and cross the stage and share his success, I would write a book. Well, he reminded me of that, and when he handed me his diploma, he said, Mom, where's the book? So I spent the next 3 months pouring into this book, and it was a bestseller in 24 hours. I'm happy to gift it to you if you want to reach out to me. The title is How to Send Your Student to College Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money. You can find it on Amazon, and it is the foundation of how— what is the minimum preparation your child should be doing. The next thing is, when do we start? College Ready starts students as young as 7th grade if they are mature and ready to start to think about their core values, their gifts, their talents, their advocacy. Typically, it's an 8th grade student, and for sure, 8th grade promotion is brilliancy because that summer going into high school is the most underutilized summer. They get a jump start on the whole process. College does not let you look back prior to promoting from 8th grade, so that summer's their first glimpse at This is what I can do. This is building my foundation. Most people don't find us until well into their freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, or senior year. Now, we can still help all of those students. That's not a problem. It's just a lot of that is helping them understand how to fix mistakes. When we get students young, we're able to alleviate mistakes and just be very productive moving forward. So it's, it's important to realize it's never too late. And I've even talked to people while they've been pregnant, elementary school, picking high schools. I've been part of all of that process because there is a strategy. They don't need to go to a, a, a top-tier private school. My son who got into all of those colleges was the first to go Ivy in his public school of his graduating class of over 3,000 students. It's about the student. It's about who they are and what matters. So what we do, our approach is both helping the student plan their standout strategy and helping the parents prepare for what that looks like academically, financially, and socially. We have services that are completely free resources, and we have packages that start at $495 and go up. Depending on what your family needs. As the founder of College Ready, we are on a mission to help a million families get into college and graduate without debt or a strong return on investment. We also have a mission. Our students have come together and we have now raised money to build 3 schools in Uganda. We have helped educate hundreds of children that were learning under a, a tree in Africa with one teacher's very old book. They now have a curriculum that our students have created. I can talk all day long on this. If you have a desire to become involved or you would like your student to do this, you do not have to go to Africa or Oaxaca. That's our other group. We do this completely online. With a team on the ground in that vicinity. So just know you don't have to go to feel our presence. So the problem a lot of people say is my teen has no idea what they want to do for their future. And that's a struggle because colleges now want students to know before they apply, and they're 16, 17, and 18. And yes, that's a lot, especially if they're spending a ton of time on their phone. So what we do is we help students think about their future now. We help them to get clarity on their gifts, their talents, their core values, their strengths, their opportunities. What kind of career fits that? And what majors fit that career? Then we take it a step further. We help them to understand Here's all the different careers, and here's how much money they'll make right out of college, 5 years later, and will a robot be doing it after they graduate? That is so important. And how we do it is we help them get clarity about who they are, what matters to them, how others see them, how they see themself. We map out a career. We talk about return on investment and what it will cost to live on their own. We put it all together and then we help them understand. Are you thinking college? Great. 2-year, 4-year, 6-year, 8-year. What does that look like? Because if they want to go on to law school, medical school, uh, MBA, they need to then graduate at the top of their college class. It's not just getting them into an undergrad program. Is thinking the whole strategy through. So once we do that, we solve problem number 1. The students that we work with narrow it down to their top 3 career paths. Every one of our students get there. It is brilliant to watch. Students get very downhearted when people say, what do you want to do? And they're like, I don't know. And now they can say, I wanna do this, this, or that. Then they can do internships and research projects and really do some community service to see, is this my genius? Is this truly what I wanna do? The next problem is, I don't know where to start. So what we do is we help provide knowledge because we know knowledge equals scholarships. We help families understand What is their academic strategy? How many AP? How many IB? How many dual enrollment? How many, um, honors? How many college prep? Yes, it's like a whole nother language. We help them map all of that out with a strategic plan. We then help them with their career assessments. We help them with a test strategy. Not sure how many of you are following, but daily now Colleges who said they were test optional or test blind are no longer, and they can change their mind in one day. So for all the students who were counting on test optional and I told them it was not, they're now saying, "I really wish I would've listened." So having a strategic partner, CollegeReady, on your side to help you understand what you're not understanding has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. Did you know you can get a free education by how well you test the junior year of your high school career? That PSAT is worth a ton of money, so making sure your student stands out on that test is so worth every dime. But don't spend time with test prep. They need strategy. They need a test strategists. They no longer have to take the SAT and the ACT. They're the same thing as far as colleges want. So we help them put together a strategy— when to take it, where to take it, how to take it. You don't have time to figure all this out, and the research is very mixed. But we have tried and true— who got in last year? Well, I will tell you, the kids who took the tests absolutely had a way more benefit— beneficial strategy and got accepted to the colleges of their dream. So again, be careful who you listen to. The next one is leadership strategy. Colleges are looking for leaders. They're not looking for students to come, sit, take an education, and leave. You know, you were in college, or maybe you won't— you weren't. But I'm telling you, it's the kids who are changing the world that colleges want to bring on, and they're happy to pay for them. Extracurricular, uh, strategy. This is where most families make the biggest mistake. They run their child ragged taking them here and there and here and there and doing this and that. Most of it colleges don't care about. They have a ranking scale of good, better, best. Don't waste your time. So if you're spending, or the child spending all their time on this low-level extracurricular and not doing really what needs to be done, it's going to hurt them and they're going to be exhausted and you're going to be exhausted. We have strategy where in 1 hour They can earn 8 national awards, 4 leadership certifications. They can get over 200 service hours, 1 hour a week. That's all it takes. It's not craziness. Did you know that on the Common App they're going to have to list 10 activities, honors, and awards? On the UC app, it's 20 activities, honors, and awards. That is challenging if you are starting your senior year. If you're starting when you promote from 8th grade, it's not a problem at all. There is a strategy for picking recommendations. There's a strategy for asking them. There's a strategy for getting them, and there's a strategy for getting really good ones. So we want students to know how. The essay has become the third most important factor in college planning admission. Colleges know that somebody will have a better GPA than you and a worse, a better test score or a worse, but nobody will have your same essay. We have essay, um, strategy, uh, workshops. We have brainstorming sessions. We show students the exact essays they're going to be writing their senior year whenever they start our program. So all of this gives them the competitive advantage to go and build the story. So when they go to write the essay, it's actually enjoyable. I truly believe that my son got into 7 top-tier schools because his essay was that good. How do I know this? It was published in a book. He became Student of the Week, Student of the Month, and Student of the Year based on that essay. That is what I'm talking about. We also have essay editors. They do not write essays. Colleges know if the voice is not in the student's voice. I'll give you an example because most parents have a hard time and they want to help, but back in the day, different generation, when you were writing a sentence, it would be period, space, space. Now it's period, single space. That could have been the simplest way to get your child disqualified from college. Those little things are so critical. We want you to have the knowledge not to make the mistakes. We also help students find their passion with purpose. They're not born with it, and some students, especially my logical left-brained students, really struggle with thinking outside the box. I meet with them weekly to help them understand who they are, what's important to them, and how are they going to prove it. Then we help them to build their one-to-one strategy. We also have live group sessions so they can hear the older kids asking questions, and they can start to listen and start to those their own questions. And then finally, the financial strategy. We're one of the only college consultants that I know that does this entire strategy. And we are truly global. We have students all over the United States, but now they have family members who are going outside of the US and coming inside the US. We are specialists of the FAFSA, the CSS Profile, and the SAI, which is the Student Aid Index. That number is what colleges think you should be able to pay. That number can be decreased, and we can show you how. Like I said, most people think, I make too much money, I'm not going to get any. That is the biggest mistake you can make. If you don't complete the FAFSA and you're happy to write a check, that's fine, but that student's going to be, you know, robbed from potentially getting a scholarship that would have felt so good for them. For students who just need additional help, like testing strategy or getting scholarships or essay support or demonstrated interest or FAFSA support, we help with all of that. The problem of overwhelm can be handled with this strategy I'm about to show you. It's 5 minutes, but it is such a critical piece that I don't want you to miss. When my son was going through this process, I built 33 spreadsheets, and I don't think he ever wanted to talk about another spreadsheet when I was done with him. What I learned between him and his sister is I needed somebody to build this tool. And so now we have the vault. And so I'm gonna show you This vault is game-changing, and then I'm gonna dig back in of some really important things you can do to help your child. But this will tell you the how you can do it. The Knowledge Vault is an incredible piece of technology that I hope that you will enjoy starting today. I wanted to give you a brief overview of what you can expect from the vault. We call it our knowledge vault because it stems from 17 years of knowledge and staying up to date of who got in last year. So the first thing you will notice is that our vault is password protected. Every student has their own standout strategy, and therefore the student can work in here and feel protected. The only people who have the password is your parents, the student, and the consultants. So the first thing you'll see is our message board. This is where we discuss what is happening right now, things that need to be taken care of today and in the future, resources from everything that you would need from research, internships, and summer opportunities, as well as prep programs. In here, you'll also see an opportunity to view meetings. If you purchased one-to-one with a college consultant, you would do that right here. Otherwise, you will have access to our email, which is right here. You can leave questions directly in here, and we will get right back to you. The next thing you'll see is whatever the student is currently working on. Or still needs to do to keep the process moving. This is just the dashboard. Then you can see there are several other tabs. There is the testing tab. This is where the student can come in and look at what kind of test, test dates, register by, when they need to register, when it's too late, and any results. They can add test dates directly here and keep track of all of their testing scores. The next one is my favorite tab, and this has every college in the world. You simply click the button, you add a college, you click on it, add it, and now you have the opportunity to see what it does. Like I said, this is not something you will find on Google. This is part of your vault. So once you click on any school that you add, you will see some very important things. You will see quick facts, you will see admissions, you will see GPA, test scores, you will see total cost, you will see financial aid, how generous they are. And other campus activities. You will also see notes that I have left for our students. You will see the program that each college has. Most people don't realize this, but not every college has every major. You can see that if there's no checkbox, they do not offer it as an undergrad major or master's or doctoral. So in here is everything you need to see Is this an academic fit for the student? Then you can see the details— when it was started, what's important, everything you would possibly want to know. From here you get to see what does it take to get in. At this school there are 10, 13 essays for one school. So we help the student understand what are the prompts, what are the activities, What are the additional— what are things that are optional? Are they truly optional? And then we have scholarship opportunities for the student. You can add any school in the world. The next one is the calendar. Once you decide what colleges you truly are going to apply to, all of them drop into the calendar. You can have this hooked up to your cell phone so you never miss an application deadline, due date, or test opportunity. From there, we have the to-dos. When a student is getting started, it may be a simple to-do. They click on it, they have all the details. When they're working on it, they move it to in progress. When they have completed it, they simply move it to completed. We get notified that the student is making progress. As they get down, we add more to-dos so we don't overwhelm them. With the 67 things they need to do, we only add a few of them at a time. Every email that we send out to our college-ready families gets put in here, so it's easy to find. In here you will find the Vault Files. This is our intellectual property of all of the details that you will need to know to have a successful college application season. So there are so many things in here that we want you to be successful that I can't go into all of them at this time. You are always welcome to, um, check this out, have fun with it. Ultimately, this is for you and your student, for their success and your success. Thank you so much, and I hope that was helpful. So I hope you can see that with a strategy and a structure, this is not going to be that terrible at all. As a matter of fact, I, I always love it when I have students who are with me and I meet them during their senior year and they're just clicking right along, no big deal. And they'll say, Shellee, I don't understand why all my friends are freaking out about this. I already have several essays done. My college is picked well before I start my senior year. And that is because we're proactive. Otherwise, leaving all of this up to your 17-year-old can be incredibly overwhelming. So we like families to know that not one high school that I've ever talked to does all of this. This is completely unique to College Ready and what we have found has been successful. So in overview, you're going to want to think that you need the academic rigor, a test strategy, passion with purpose, leadership, extracurriculars, recommenders, essays, picking the best colleges. I have to stop here because this whole thing can fall apart right here. If you just allow your child to pick colleges, you're going to end up with something potentially like a student I talked to yesterday when I said, well, what is your dream school? And she says, UC Santa Barbara. And I'm like, I love that school. Why is it your dream school? And she says, have you seen the view from the dorms? And I'm like, yeah, that— it's amazing. But why is it your dream school? And she goes, that's why. There's no concept of, is that a good fit academically or financially? And so picking the right colleges and having, um, colleges that you can put financial negotiations together— most people don't realize that the, the, the price tag on the website, nobody pays that. It's like when you buy a house outside of California, you, you don't pay the full price. Or when you go to buy a car, you don't pay the full price. We don't pay the full price for college. We do financial negotiations and reconsiderations and getting off the waitlist because this number one strategy right here starts the process. Number 2 is understanding your financial house, making sure what's on the FAFSA and what is not on the FAFSA. That is an important piece as well. Like I mentioned, we have free resources. We have scholarship opportunities, my best-selling book. We have webinars. I will even calculate your student aid index for you at no cost. I am a part of the Society of Financial Awareness. And what does that mean? I am on a mission to educate families on not to get into debt. That's the goal. That is the whole process, the way we look at it. Getting into college is the not end— it's not the end result. Getting out with a career That's the end result, and doing it without massive debt is just a beautiful thing. So as you think about putting this strategy in this process together, think about college is very different, and you have a few different ways in which you can help your student. You can help them by being there, listening, giving high fives and hugs, and hiring somebody to do it for you. Or you can be the one to do the research, or you can be the one that asks them, have you done your essays, your applications? Have you followed up with this? Have you done that? And your chores and your homework. And then unfortunately, those last few years go by really fast., and that student is really frustrated. And so I don't want that for anybody. I have 2 boys and 2 girls. 2 are out of college. One graduates this month, and one is studying international business in the Czech Republic of Prague because she thought I needed to learn another way of going to college. My point is, we have a strategy for every student. And if you need support, we are here to help you. If you just have a question that is, well, my child does this. So I was a scholar athlete. I played softball for the USA, and I remember my parents counting on me getting a full ride scholarship. I was okay. What I found out is softball doesn't get big scholarships. It's not a money generating sport. And professionals don't make great money. So my whole strategy was not one that was great. My firstborn, he was a soccer player. We thought he was going to get an academic and athletic, got injured. Thank goodness we had the academic. So it looks like at this point, between 2 to 6% of students get full rides for scholar athletes. Remember, D1, D2, D3, all very important. We help scholar athletes. We help, uh, VAPA students, theater students, actors, actresses. We help students in the band. We had a student last year who really wanted to go, really wanted to go to Berkeley, and unfortunately Berkeley had a very full band. Well, this young man wanted to be part of the band. So not only get into Berkeley, but also be part of the band. Well, we contacted the band director and found out that they needed a bassoon player. Guess what? My student learned how to play the bassoon, got into Berkeley, got the scholarship, and got to be in the band. So strategy is everything. Picking the right schools is everything. And I have a question in chat I'm happy to answer. What are your recommendations for adults who wish to return to school for graduate degree? Any tips or tricks? Absolutely. So first thing is you want to think about why. Is it for a change of career? Is it to better your career? Again, we're always looking for a return on investment. If that degree is going to increase your income or your, you know, assets, that's a great idea. But we always start with the why. If it's just because you love to learn, then you want to think of, how do I get an education without spending a ton of money. So as far as tips and tricks, it depends on where you went to undergrad, it depends on your GPA, and it depends on what you've been doing since. Unfortunately, there are no scholarships that are independent. By that time, they're hoping you can afford it, and I know that's not always the case, but the best place to find money is from your credit union, from your place of employment, and from working as you're going to college. There are 10 colleges in the United States that are work for tuition, and so they are not in California. They are in the Midwest, but that's another— there's always a will, there's a way. Unfortunately, we don't work with adults because Transfer students we work with all the time. Kids who go to community college start there and find out it's not any easier. We have a lot of transfer students. So it's important to know that as an adult, you do have a lot less opportunity. So I would just really encourage you to look outside of you know, what you're considering. Look at your return on investment and then make that big decision. But there are— that I'm aware of— there are no full rides unless your company pays. So feel free to put any other questions in the chat. I'm always happy to answer them. Again, I do this because I love it. And so I did want to share just a few more slides as you're thinking about You know, how do I, how do I navigate this with my child? How do I know when they're ready? I think that's an important thing to consider because every student is ready at a different time. So I'm going to go through just a brief timeline with you so you can have an idea of when all of this needs to take place. So you can see here that as a freshman in high school, We're teaching them how to prioritize, to get organized, to study, use study groups, explore their passions, goals, take the PSAT for the first time, work on their service projects, right? We're building community service, leadership, extracurriculars. We're building and growing. The sophomore year, we're starting to really solidify. Now, I will go back and say that I have students their freshman year who take the SAT and the ACT and get a perfect score and they're done. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen. So again, it just depends on the student and what their strategy is. For the sophomore year, it's very important that they take the PSAT. They start their testing strategy. They, they learn how procrastination is going to hurt them desperately. They start to think about their future, their leadership, How are they going to stand out? This is where they have to have some kind of strategy. The junior year— this is the year where the PSAT can earn them a free education. This is so critical that they start to ask for those letters of recommendation. They really start to shine in their passions and their extracurriculars. This is a very challenging year. Academically, socially, and I just encourage you to really be there for them. And finally, the senior year, putting it all together. Applying to college in 2024, the average student applied to 12 colleges. That equaled about 20 hours a week. If a parent was doing this on their own, they were spending between 25 and 30 hours a week helping them. Why are those statistics important? Because you're very busy people. I don't want you to get into a position of, I thought I had it, I thought I had it, I don't have it. So please know that having a strategy and a plan is going to be very important. So making the final college decision is so critical. If this is where you're at right now, focus on the student, who they are, what is the best fit academically, socially, athletically, financially. Focus on the reality of the school. Does it match? And really think through this. Here are the greatest tips. Here are 10 secrets to help you find scholarships, because I want all of you to be successful. Number 1 is the reality that most full-ride scholarships come from the college merit or athletic. Colleges have very deep pockets. If they want your student, they absolutely will go after them. And that's what happened to us. My son got a full ride first at USC, and that's where we thought he was going. A week later, Harvard came a-knockin', and they matched it. So again, Harvard doesn't give merit scholarships, but they do have deep pockets for students they want. Secret number 2: Private scholarships are available to everyone. 3: There are legitimate websites to help with your scholarship search. 4: Look for scholarships from your employer, credit unions, department stores, PTAs. They're, they're there. You just have to seek them out. There are no tricks, but there are just— it's just good old-fashioned hard work. Now you have to ask the question, would your child be better off going and getting job experience and making minimum wage, or would they be better off spending this time chasing, chasing independent scholarships? This is all about the strategy. The next thing is passion with purpose equals scholarships. Our student who started EmpowerEducation.World got a full ride to Vanderbilt. It is real. Colleges want changemakers. We're helping students be that student. Consider your background. There's a scholarship right now that's $10,000 if you're a vegan. I could be a vegan for $10,000, but they have all kinds of different scholarships. Number 8, if a scholarship advertises no essays, do not complete the application unless you have a really hard story. That is gonna be a huge waste of time. If it's easy, everybody's gonna do it. The essay is absolutely the true value that's going to get the big scholarships. If your student does not look for scholarships, it will not come to them. And then lastly, have your student follow the directions carefully. Most students don't realize that when an application for a scholarship says, does your parent own a home? Do they own a car? They don't understand that's a bait and switch and that you're now going to be blown up with refinance, buy a new home, all of this. So be very careful to educate your child. So again, we can help you, but the goal wasn't to sell the program. The goal is to let you know you can do this on your own. We have free resources. We have do-it-yourself programs. We are here to support you. The focus needs to be on you and the student creating that custom strategy and finding the perfect return on investment. Admissions decisions are difficult, and 1 in 3 students now get help. Parent support is so critical. Please don't have them do this on their own. It's really about you and your child. And so I wanted to share, um, two QR codes, one for a free copy of my book and one for a 30-minute discovery call. These are my gifts to you. Again, I want to support you, and if you have any questions, I'm happy to stay on and answer them. Thank you so much for your time. I will answer questions now. All right. Can you recommend scholarships that my daughter can apply? She's a senior right now, and we already committed to a college, but the few scholarships she applied to, she did not get. We just received a letter from the college regarding the cost of attendance, and she only received a small amount of merit. Scholarship from the school. Well, the first thing I would say is if she got money from another like-minded school, I would ask for a financial negotiation. If your finances have changed, ask for a financial reconsideration. Um, the best independent scholarships, um, we have resources on that, see ourfuturenow.com. Um, I could tell them to you, but it'd be too hard to write them down, so go there and get the free resources. We're happy to do that. Here's the challenge, and I hate to be the voice of discouragement, but it's like once you buy the home and try to figure out how you're going to pay for it, it's really difficult. You can refinance, right? It would be like a, a child transferring colleges. Every time a student transfers, you can add $100,000 to the bottom line because they pick classes that may not transfer to the other school. So just be very careful. The best thing you can do is plan and get educated. Knowledge is everything. The more you know, the more money you'll receive. And that is the most important thing I want you to take out of this. I wish I had a solution for every scenario. But I can tell you, we've had students get millions of dollars over the years. I mean, last year, um, the last 2 years actually, our total was up to $23 million. So the money is there, but it's going to get it early on. Your child can still apply to independent scholarships, but like I mentioned, if they don't have a really and like a really hard story or something really amazing, it's hard to stand out on those scholarships. So, um, again, happy to help. Feel free to reach out to me. My email is Shellee, S-H-E-L-L-E-E, at college-readyplan.com. The website is college-ready-plan.com. We are here to support you and just want you to know that students are very successful. It's not what the media says, and we know that you can do it. So thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to supporting you.