How to Secure Scholarships to Pay for College

Well, good evening everybody. My name is Shellee Howard and I'm the founder and CEO of College Ready. A little bit of housekeeping: if you want to go ahead and put yourself on mute so you don't have to worry about the background noise, that's always helpful. I love an active chat box, so if you don't mind putting your name— not your name, your location and the ages of your children. It's always fun for me to see and cater the presentation to you. I am so excited. We have such a jam-packed evening. There were over 100 people who signed up for this event, and I can understand what you're feeling and the need. So thank you, guys, for commuting, and we are going to go ahead and get started. I value your time and your energy. Okay, I'll go get it. Can everybody mute? Yeah, mute. All right, excellent. All right, here we go. So let's get this started. All right, the information tonight was created for you, and I want to make sure you're in the right place. Either you have a student in 8th grade or higher, you are overwhelmed and do not know where to start, you do not want to pay full price for college, you would like to find out how to get financial help for college, you are ready to take the emotion out of college and treat it like the investment it is. So if that sounds— any of that sounds like you, you are in the right place, and I am so thankful you're here. I would recommend taking out some notes and really getting ready because it's going to be rapid fire. So thank you all for muting. I'm so grateful for your time. All right, how to send your student to college without going into debt. That is the main purpose of this webinar. Tonight's agenda: first, I'm going to go over the 5 things you must do to receive college scholarships. This is not the theory or the idea, or I'm I'm going to sell you a product. That's not what this is about. This is me giving you massive information so you can go and do something with it. So just know I'm going to give you 5 things that you need to do. I'm also going to share with a special guest how to find and earn scholarships. Third, how to stay organized, not get overwhelmed, and graduate without college debt. That's where we're headed this evening, and stay tuned. If you stay to the end of this presentation, I am going to share with you a link to receive my best-selling book, How to Send Your Student to College Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money, absolutely free. So there's a good reason to stay. This is about your student's future. Please carve out time. Please try not to be distracted because it will go by very quickly. Who am I? I always think it's very important for families to understand who is the expert and why should you listen. First off, I am a parent like you. This is my crazy family, and I am a college admissions expert. I'm a strategist. I'm not just a college or a high school counselor. I have additional degrees. I'm a bestselling author and I am a mother of 5. So you can see 2 of my students, my 2 oldest. My son went to Harvard 4 years completely debt-free, went on to UC San Diego Medical School and is now an orthopedic surgeon at UCLA. My daughter is a registered nurse who went to University of Alabama completely debt-free and CBU completely debt-free. So I have come up with the best way to do this and I've done it for myself. And I really, my mission is to help a million of you do this for your family as well. It has been a game changer. My fifth student is in the middle and she's my Italian exchange student who has been living with me for the past year. I love teenagers. So let's jump in. A little bit more about me. I have posted in the chat all my social media links. I love to give away free content. I want you to have everything at your fingertips that you need, and the best place to do that is follow on social media. I've been featured on all of the major news stations. I have been doing this 13 years. It's hard to believe we just finished our 13th application season. All right, let's jump into it. Imagine what it would be like— think about this for a moment— to see your student graduate from college completely debt-free. It is possible to rest easy knowing you and your student are prepared for the college admissions process ahead of you. See your student earn scholarships regardless of how much money your family does or does not have. Let's get started. I'm going to give you a lot of secrets. And I'm going to give you a lot of strategies and it may feel like a fire hose, but I want you to get massive value. We will open it up after. If you want to mute yourself now, I will open up the mute and we'll progress at the end. All right. Secret number 1, more than anything, have a plan and get help, whatever that means to you. So the 5 things you must do to receive college scholarships, I'm gonna break it down and give the details to you, but here's the agenda or the overview. The first and foremost is plan. Picking the correct college is where all the big money comes from. Everybody wants to know, how did my son get 7 full-ride offers? It's because we picked the best college. He prepared himself with the best resume and application. Our family prepared ourselves to have the best financial house in order. It's all about planning, strategizing, and knowing exactly what it takes. Number 2, know your expected family contribution. It is critical before you apply to college, not after. Number 3, understand the FAFSA and the CSS Profile. Number 4, scholarship strategy. Think about, do you have more time or do you have more money? I wish we had it all. And number 5, using scholarships and the whole strategy to get a debt-free degree. That is what we're going to cover tonight. So let's get— jump right into it. Planning. What everybody wants to know: when do I start? I honestly have had students who have made appointments when the child is still in the toddler years. They want to know what does it take. So let's talk about that. The best time to start planning for college is when your student is mature enough to understand what that means. And that doesn't mean hammering on them about they have to do this, they have to do that. It could be just talking about your amazing experience of your college years, or going on a college tour and seeing all of the students, getting them excited, having that discussion in such a way that it's just a very nice, easy next step, and it's something they should look forward to. Can start at any time. But when does it really start? Well, in 3rd grade, students start getting into the Gifted and Talented program if that's the path they're going to take. Then by 5th grade, they're going to have entrance exams to get into middle school. Wow, you're thinking middle school. Yes, college starts counting when your student promotes from 8th grade, that summer before their freshman year, that is when you need to start really getting clear. Now, is it too late if you haven't got, you know, that much time? Of course not. When we help students when they're younger, we drip the information slowly without any mistakes, and we actually have a ton of fun. The older they get, the closer to graduation. It just depends on how many mistakes they made, but there's always time. There's always a way to fix any situation. We do get students from early on, freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, senior year. I even get people calling me weeks before the application season. So just know It's never too late. Let's jump in. So let's talk about some of the problems and the solutions. This is a common problem that I hear. Parents assume that the high school will help in the college admissions process, but keep in mind, high school counselors have hundreds and thousands of students they must help. They do not know your teen's social needs or your family's financial needs. The other important thing to realize is they do not get a bonus if you get into a great college. We don't get a bonus, but we get great referrals. So we have a lot at stake in how we help our students. The simple solution: have a family discussion and expectation meeting. It's unrealistic to think your teen can do this on their own. Either they, they need your help, or they need a professional's help. We help students create a standout strategy. And that is what it takes to have the best plan. All right, finding the correct college. Everybody asked me, Shellee Howard, how do I find the best college for my child? When I get on a call, a discovery session with a family, the first thing that I will ask is, What kind of college are you looking for? And that's usually when the parent and the, the child, the student, look at each other and shrug. I don't know. That's part of the problem. So teenagers unfortunately pick colleges based on either media, social media, sports teams, Greek life, Google rankings, but they just don't know what they don't know. So how can we expect them to pick the right college. So what's the solution? The solution is to get a clear understanding of what is important for the family. Is it an academic fit? Is it a social fit? Is it a financial fit? I know we want it all. Trust me, I want it all. But if you're not clear Which is most important? How will you know what's most important in the college planning process? So I'm talking about what do I do? Well, I'll ask a family, please rank in top to bottom, do you want academic first, social first, financial first? And I bet you're not surprised, the student wants social fit, academic fit, financial fit, and the parent wants financial fit, academic fit, and social fit, or academic fit first. But the problem is I don't often get a student and their family all agreeing on the same fit. So that's number one. Number two, if you can't figure this out, I recommend hiring a professional to help your family get clear on what is most important. So I guide families through this process and then help them find the perfect college match. You know, are you looking for a big school, a small school, East Coast, West Coast? Are you looking for a private, a public?

No.

What, what is a good fit school and how will you ever find them? There's hundreds, there's thousands of amazing universities. It's, it's— we have ways to help you do that. So thank you for being open to receiving. We can help you, and if you have a strategy, you can help you. What is the correct major or career? I get this probably 9 out of 10 calls. The problem is most teenagers do not know what they want to major in or the career they want to pursue. That's a problem. Most parents will ask them, what do you want to do? And the student will say, I don't know. So what's the solution? The solution is please don't ask your child what it is they want to major in or what kind of career. Save yourself that frustration, that time. There's two things that happen when a parent asks their student what they want to major in and what kind of career. They're afraid to tell their parent because maybe their parent doesn't want them to be a dance major or a philosopher, or maybe they truly don't know and they truly don't know how to figure it out, and that doesn't feel very good either. So what we do is we help our students get really clear what are their core values, what are their gifts and talents. Then we help them to test it by putting together a passion with purpose project, an internship opportunity, a research project. They need to test what are they good at, and what comes out of that is always an amazing major and really close to a very solid career. All right, not planning equals debt. That makes sense, right? In any part of our life, when we buy a home, when we buy a car, Whenever we make a large purchase, that's nothing new. But here's the problem. Do not assume your teenager understands debt. I ask families all the time, if I gave you $1 million and you had 24 hours to spend it, what would you do? And they buy a yacht, they buy an airplane, they take all their friends on vacation, and it builds and builds and builds. And then you have a very clear understanding there's not a big connection between money and debt and the where it comes together. They cannot understand that they cannot get a loan. You must cosign. I've had many parents in shock when I explain they have no assets, therefore they can't just get this huge college loan. So no that this is very important to your family. Figure out how will the family get through this. How will they understand the plan? Figuring it out after your student gets into college is like figuring out how you're going to pay your mortgage after you've already bought the house. It is a rule for disaster. I often hear families say, well, I'm not going to worry about it until they get in. Well, then you have the problem of your child has now gotten into this college that you can't afford. How are you going to tell them that? Much easier to do it on the front end. So here's the solution. Help them understand the consequences of what happens if you pick incorrectly. College debt is not forgiven. Even if a student passes, that debt passes on to the family. It cannot be bankrupt. It is a debt sentence. And if this young person marries somebody who also has debt, now they're doubling down on debt, and the rest of their life they're going to be paying it off. Please think about it on the front end. We help students create not only a 5-year plan but a 10-year vision Will they have to get a secondary degree? You know, the number one most underutilized major is psychology because nobody tells these students when they graduate there's no job called psychology unless they want to go on and get a further degree. Some students have no idea that that's part of the plan. They just like the idea of learning about how people interact or how they act. So knowing and discussing this is so critical. All right, let's get into the next piece. Know your expected family contribution. Some of you may be like, oh, that's, that sounds great, but how do I do that? All right, this is the problem. Families are applying to college without knowing the cost of attendance. So you can go on any college, it doesn't matter what college, it is a government-mandated thing that you go on to a college financial page website and you put in, I want to know what is my expected family contribution. What it is at School A is going to be different than at School B. And different at School C. So if you think you're just going to go on to one school and find out, yay, this is— or sadness, this is what it is— please know that is not how it works. Every school does a calculation unique to them. Solution: go and get your expected family contribution before you apply to that school. We help students find the perfect college fit before they apply And we help them understand what is this piece to the puzzle. If we don't do this, it's left up to the family. There is nobody else who's going to do this. What is your return on investment? People are like, what do you mean, college return on investment? Yes, college is a business. And therefore we must think of it as such. So families, often don't look at it as a return on investment. They look at it as something that must be done, and it's an emotional decision. So the solution is consider the graduation statistics and job placement. Will they need to get additional degrees? We map all of this strategy out for families, looking at the desired career, the years it will take to get it, and how much the family will be expected to contribute. The colleges you pick will matter. It does make a difference. I hear people all the time, it's not worth paying for an Ivy. I beg to differ. When my son graduated from college, his very first job without any experience, not even delivering a newspaper, He made $106,000 a year as a consultant. I watched him graduate with zero debt, starting at 23, making over $100,000. Yes, it does matter, but debt matters and opportunities. So the problem is students are picking colleges based on the name of the school. Families are listening to other families as if they are the expert. The solution: make sure colleges are offering students their top 3 majors. I was on a call last night and I asked the student, where do you want to go? And they said Columbia. And I said, what do you want to study? And they told me. And we went and we looked at Columbia. They didn't offer any of those majors. I said, how did you pick Columbia? And they said, well, I have a friend who's going there and they like it. Be careful of how this teenager is going to pick their colleges. The solution is have a plan, a Plan A and a B and a COVID plan. We do all of this for our families. So finding the perfect match college is the number one way to get a debt-free degree. Gain knowledge before you apply. People assume they must pay the sticker price. I tell the story of this all the time. You would never walk up to a home, pull out a flyer, and say, yep, that's the price I'm gonna pay. You would never go to a car lot and look on the windshield and go, yep, that's the price I'm gonna pay. But for some reason, people assume that the, the number on the college website is what they will pay. That's a problem. Families have no idea how to lower their expected family contribution. And families are just overwhelmed. They don't know who to believe. They don't know where all this information is coming, and therefore it's hard to know how to make this decision. So here's the solution: consider how generous a college is. We can show you exactly what percentage of every student who got in last year, how much money they got. Way before you apply. If that doesn't look doable for your family, maybe that's not the best school. What percentage of the students get aid at that school? There are some great deep-pocket schools, some very generous schools, and there are some very non-generous schools. You can hire a CPA for your taxes to have lower your taxes. Why not hire a professional to help lower your expected family contribution? We help families make wise choices and know the facts and not make a decision on assumptions. Let's talk about the third thing, the FAFSA and the CSS Profile. Everyone should complete the FAFSA unless they wish to pay full price for college. That's as simple as I can make it. The government already has your taxes, and that's all the FAFSA is going to consider. You're not giving the government anything they don't already know. So here's the problem: most parents assume they make too much money. I live in Southern California, and I receive plenty of grants, scholarships, and opportunities. Please don't assume The solution is we help families understand what is on the FAFSA, what is not on the FAFSA, how to get your financial house in order. This is all part of the process. You know your finances best. The problem: parents have their student complete the FAFSA and the CSS Profile. There's no way they'll get it right. The solution is If the FAFSA is not completed properly, you will not get any money. So please complete your FAFSA. We explain step by step so you do not make mistakes. Not all assets are counted the same. The problem is most people assume it is what it is. Oh, this is what I have and I won't get anything. And that is truly not it. The solution is know the FAFSA, know the CSS Profile, consider this when looking at scholarships. We can show you what the FAFSA and CSS Profile will consider. You need to know before you apply. Ask questions and gain knowledge. The problem: parents choose not to complete the FAFSA because they simply don't understand it. The solution is we teach you. We are happy to show you how to save thousands of dollars and we don't sell you anything. This is just part of our mission of helping a million families get into college and graduate debt-free. Know that the 529 is the only plan your certified financial advisor may know how to offer you, but also know this could be a debt sentence. I had a 529 with my first child. When Harvard found out, they wanted to take all of that money away from me because I did such a great job saving for the $529. You are presenting this as, yes, School A, I've done such a great job of saving money, I simply don't need your scholarship. Be very careful how you present this and how you go forward. College is a business and an investment. What you do not know will cost you. What's the solution? Get educated, either on your own or hire a professional. Learn. I've been doing this 13 years and I still get educated every single day. Here's some things you must know about the FAFSA. I just could not leave this without being said. It is not just for poor people. Colleges rely on the FAFSA to award their own student aid. To make sure you know the deadlines, you must set up a FAFSA ID for you and your student. You can move money, and you must do it as soon as possible, into what the FAFSA will not consider to lower your expected family contribution. You will need to submit these documents: your tax return, your W-2s, records of untaxed income. Yes, you do have to show your cards. And parents who own a 529, it's an asset. It will count against you. Submit the FAFSA as close to October 1st as possible because it does run out. Keep all of your documents handy because we can use it for a financial appeal. Scholarship strategy. Do you have more time or do you have more money? In 2021, college-ready high school seniors earned over $10.7 million in scholarships. That is the best way to get a debt-free degree. We had 61 seniors. If you do the math, that is a lot of money and an easy way to get a debt-free degree. So Another secret: use our 13 years of experience so you can find out how to get the big scholarships. Here's your opportunity. If you would rather do it on your own, I have brought in the best of the best. I would like to introduce Jennifer from Imagine Scholarships, who's going to walk you through an amazing opportunity for you to go and figure this out on your own in an amazing platform. So Jennifer, welcome, and please share with our families exactly how you can help them do that.

Hi everybody, I'm excited to be with you tonight. Um, I'm excited to bring greetings from Central Texas where we're about to have some wintry weather finally tomorrow, and I've got a terrible voice, so please bear with me. I'm so sorry. Bear with my Texas accent and my hoarseness, so you get it all, you get it all together at one time. Super excited to explain to you the Imagine Scholarships platform. In just a moment, I'll share my screen and walk you through how simple it is to find money for school. We offer Quality Scholarships. We offer a, a simplified program and platform where you can organize your scholarships and what you're interested in applying for, what you've applied for, and how much money you've received. And some of the best parts about our platform, because we know there are many out there, one of the best things— two of the best things about our platform is that we keep your information safe. We do not sell your information. And we do not sell any ads. So you'll never have to scroll through ads. You'll never have to deal with pop-ups. So those are some wonderful things about our platform. I'll go ahead and share the screen. This is Imagine Scholarships. Let's see, imagine-scholarships.com. And this is what it looks like when you first get there. And we've got some videos for you to watch to tell you a little bit more about what we do and why we do it. We were created by a woman very similar to Shellee Howard. Her name is Sherri Graf, and she also is a college consultant. And she was tired of getting the student to the perfect college and then the student not being able to pay for it. And so she didn't like the platforms that were out there, so she created her own. So a little bit crazy, but a little bit fun. So basically, when you get to Imagine Scholarships, we'll talk later on about, about some different opportunities for you to get a subscription to Imagine. But basically, I wanted to show you— I'll log in for myself here. So when you come to Imagine Scholarships, you can see all of your scholarships that just pop up automatically based on your profile and based on what is out there for all the different students. So we like to offer students an abundance of scholarships. If you fill out your profile and you say that you're a pre-med, pre-med major and you play the violin and you were on the golf team in high school, you might get 6, 8, 10, maybe 20 scholarships. We want everyone to know that there are scholarships out there for all different types of students. You don't have to be the valedictorian. You don't have to be the captain of the football team or the volleyball team. There are scholarships out there for every type of student, and we don't want you to miss anything based on your profile. So we offer you an abundance of scholarships that might be available, or you might be eligible for lots of them, but also we want to offer you a really easy way to get specific in your search. So I'll show you a couple of different things. I know Shellee can see the chat box, so if you want to stop me and ask any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. So we have 3 sections that I want to make sure you understand how to work. We've got Match Scholarships, which is where I am. That's where you pull up this grid view of just hundreds of scholarships. You can also look at it in this way if you want to see in a more simplified version. I like the grid view because I want to see all of the descriptions of the scholarships. So if I were a journalism major like I was, um, I might sit here and type in journalism. So journalism might be in the name of the scholarship, or it might be in the description of the scholarship. So here we have a whole list of scholarships that have to do with journalism, and when you look at the description of the scholarship, you'll see that it's in blue, and that shows you why that scholarship came up. So I love this scholarship that I want to show you. We've got a couple of vegetarian scholarships. I'm not a vegetarian, but if you are, there's a lot of money out there for vegetarians. So when you are using your keywords, think about all your different interests. Maybe you've got, maybe your major, your career goals, your your race or ethnicity, your— if you're a first-generation student, I would highly recommend typing in first-generation. Like I said, any word that could be in a description of a scholarship is a great word, and the more you get into the platform, the more you'll see what a good word could be for you. There are scholarships for students who have pets, there are scholarships for students who want to write an essay on the dangers of texting and driving or cyberbullying, or maybe you have gone through a medical, a medical situation in your, in your life. Gosh, I mean, the sky is the limit with your keywords, so have fun searching. So let's look at this Vegetarian Resource Group Scholarship because I might turn vegetarian for $10,000, right? So when you're looking at scholarships, you can go to the website of the scholarship two different ways. One way is by clicking the name of the scholarship. That just takes you directly to the scholarship, but it doesn't change anything. Another way is by clicking Apply. So I'm going to go ahead and click Apply, and that's going to take me directly to that scholarship. And this is where I, uh, Encourage students to read about the scholarship, make sure you're eligible, check those dates, check the requirements. We like to tell people, don't send 3 letters of recommendation if they asked for 2. Excuse me. So this is, that's, this is all the information and it tells you exactly how to apply. So students will apply to scholarships through the scholarship website of that specific organization offering the scholarship. So I'm going to take us back to, back to Imagine Scholarships. And now you're going to see that under Applied Scholarships, because I clicked Apply, now my scholarship, the Vegetarian Resource Group Scholarship, is now in my Applied list. It's no longer on the Match Scholarship.

Area.

If I were to apply for this scholarship, I would want to— this is where the organizational part comes in. So when I tell it I have applied, it gives me 3 opportunities to answer this question. I've either applied and I'm waiting for, for the results, I've applied and I did not receive the award, or I applied and I did receive an award. And that's where you can keep track of my $10,000 that I— only numbers— that my $10,000 that I, that I won, that I was awarded. So that's how that works. Let's go back to match scholarships. I want to encourage you, set aside some time each week to scroll through the different scholarships, to brainstorm some keywords. And whenever you see something that you're interested in, click save, that's gonna take that scholarship directly to your saved list. And that way you won't miss it, you won't lose it, and you'll be able to keep track of the ones that you're interested in. I always tell my students, and I'm working very closely with all of the students that are at Baylor University right now and all of the incoming students, and I like to encourage them to, you know, set aside some time to look at the scholarships but also check those dates because I don't wanna spend a lot of time today on a scholarship that has a deadline of December 1st, but I do wanna really look at those scholarships that are due February 1st, March 1st, and really spend time on the ones that are coming up. So I've gone over the match scholarships, the SAVE scholarships, and the applied scholarships. All of this comes up because we have a profile that you can fill out. Um, anything that has an asterisk with it is mandatory. Otherwise, you're just really putting in information that's gonna get you to start thinking about, um, maybe what you wanna study, maybe some of the questions that people like Shellee Howard would be asking you. And then also that's gonna bring up some different scholarships. I recommend students look into their state, their county, their city. There are many scholars—

I get no scholarship. Hopefully you can hear me.

Am I muted? Am I okay?

Okay. Okay.

So we've, we've looked over all those things. Something else that we're real excited about at the Imagine Scholarships platform is our internships. So I would love to encourage you to Check out the internships. It's something new we began last fall, and this is an incredible resource to find opportunities, both virtual and in-person. And a lot of students have had much success with finding internships. There are high school internships, college internships. We offer scholarships and internships for kids, students of all ages. Trade, trades, certifications, grad school, law school, you name it. It's, it's, uh, this will, this platform will follow you through all of your education.

We did those with internships.

If you want to save something or find out more information, I would recommend clicking on the name of the scholarship or clicking on apply to put it in your applied list. And if you decide not to apply to something that you put in your applied list, Simply click on remove and that will take it out of your— out of that list. One of the neatest things about Imagine Scholarships above and beyond all of the information that's there and all of the opportunities that are there is what we like to call our secret sauce. So we have video resources to, to encourage you every step of the way. This is a great place where We think that we come alongside whatever your college consultant is telling you. And if you don't have a college consultant, this might be a place for you to start to get some questions answered. Um, I'll just quickly scroll through here and let you know that all of these are buttons. And if you want to click on one of those, it'll take you directly to that portion, that area of the video resources. And, um, we offer We offer a lot of videos. We offer some downloadable budget worksheets. We offer a FAFSA magazine. We offer tips and tools for applying for scholarships and writing that winning essay. And we also take the time to— we also take the time to dissect scholarships. So we just basically said eenie meenie miney moe, picked a couple of scholarships. I believe we over— did an overview of 5 different scholarships. And we said, this looks interesting. If I were a student and I were applying to this scholarship, this is how I would do it. So I encourage you to check out the, the video resources and set yourself apart, get a great resume, get a great essay. And, and also we have a lot of students who, who've given testimonials here as well about how they went to school debt-free. Free, how they chose their college, what they thought about going out of state or joining Greek life, or all the different things that, that students are interested in learning when they haven't gone to college yet. So I'll go back to the platform there. If you have any questions, we can always be reached through the chat, through the contact box under the menu. And I'm always happy to, as the customer experience director for Imagine Scholarships, I'm always excited to visit with students and encourage them and answer questions or help them with any problems that they have. So I don't know if any questions have come up, Shellee Howard, but I'm happy to answer them.

And we do, we do have one. Okay. When do you start to apply for the scholarship and how many can you apply for?

When is anytime now. It's never too late. Start Now, and you can apply to as many as you want as long as you meet the eligibility requirements and send in the appropriate information that they ask for. You can apply to as many as you want. Those are great questions.

That's it.

The only other thing I wanted to mention is if you are a College Ready client, Shellee Howard will be sharing more about an exclusive opportunity for you to utilize this platform at a big discount. And if you are not a College Ready client, I'll put Michelle's email address in the chat box. Please email Michelle at college-readyplan for more information on how you can access the ScholarshipPro platform. So I'll go ahead and put that in there.

Outstanding. Thank you so much.

That— thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to share Imagine with everybody tonight.

Wonderful. Um, so let's go ahead and keep moving. Um, hopefully you're seeing that there is so many ways to get so much money. Many people think that it's just not out there. I, I, you know, I want you to know there's a ton of money out there. It's just knowing where to get it. Before I leave what Jennifer was speaking about, I want, I want to give you two suggestions I give all of my clients. Number 1 is have an email address specific for college or applying to scholarships. Um, just be very mindful that you will get a lot of great information, but you want to not miss any opportunities if they need follow-up or if it's a timing thing. So that is one thing that's really important. And then 2, like Jennifer said, Remember when I said you have more time or money? This is something you have to do. And I always tell students, make a date with themselves, a scholarship date. You know, if, if you have a student who's going to get a full ride to a university and they want to do this to pay for books, or they want to do it to pay for travel or whatever, or on the opposite, if you have a student who maybe, you know, didn't get the best grades, but figured it out their senior year, they want to go to college and they need every penny they can get. Here's another great opportunity. So the goal tonight was just to give you opportunity. So hopefully you're feeling that. All right. The third secret, it is possible to get a degree debt-free. I am here to tell you, after 13 years, our students are doing it. Sherry's students are doing it with Imagine Scholarship. It just depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it. All right, so things I would like you to consider, how you can up your chances of getting scholarships. First, number one, plan. Do not wait and see. Two, plan a balanced college list. Remember, picking the right college is critical for the big money. Then have an academic strategy. A testing strategy, a passion service project, extracurricular leadership, letters of recommendation, and an essay strategy. You cannot just do one or two of these if you want debt-free. You definitely need to put more energy than that. Here's some other factors that will affect your financial aid. Completing or not completing the FAFSA and CSS Profile, your family's finances and your plan, standardized test scores, GPA and course load, leadership positions, and demonstrating passion. Your student's financial aid could be compromised if any of these puzzle pieces are missing. Did you know that the FAFSA looks at the second semester of the sophomore year and the first semester of the junior year? Are your finances in order? Can you afford to leave all of this up to your student? Would you trust them to buy you a home or even a car? The admissions process is extremely complicated, and about 1 in 3 students Get help from a professional. Do you need help? Does your student need help? Do you both need help? Parental support is so important, but you can't do everything. You don't want to sacrifice hundreds of hours of your free time for months or years, and even then you can't be sure that you've got the full picture and that it's correct. So even after all of that work, you may have left thousands of dollars on the table, but your child only gets one chance to qualify for scholarships as an incoming freshman. I realize that this is a high-stakes scenario and it puts parents at a really impossible situation, and I knew I had to do something. So remember at the beginning when I said I was going to give you resources? That's what I'm going to do. So honestly, if you think that you're going to do this on your own, I wish you the best, and I'm here to support you every step of the way. But if you now realize, I have no idea how I'm going to do this on my own, and I sure can't count on my teenager to do it, stay tuned because I want to give you resources. The College Ready Debt Free is a complete system that walks you through the financial side of college planning. It took me over 13 years to put all of this together and includes everything. This is the same steps my son used to get into Harvard and graduate debt-free. And today I want to give you a chance to access College Ready Debt Free. What is College Ready Debt Free? I show you how to decrease the cost of college I show you how and when to complete the FAFSA and CSS Profile. I show you how to determine college affordability and so much more. This is just a snapshot of— it's 16 lessons with 6 bonus items for financial freedom based off of 13 years of college consulting, and I know the information on how to save you thousands of dollars. Which is why this could be valued at well over $600. But I don't want you to pay that. The goal, right, is to help you not spend money. So I want to make sure you have everything, absolutely everything that your student needs to graduate debt-free, which is why as a bonus, I'm also including the high school and college resume template. This template is going to help your student get to get the best letters of recommendation, which equals scholarships. Another bonus is the high school resume template. So with that, we're talking well over $600, but I don't want you to pay that either. The FAFSA Helper— I'm going to give you exactly what the FAFSA considers, what they don't consider. This alone will save you thousands of dollars. The total value— again, I don't want you to pay that, but I want you to have everything you need. I'm going to give you a list of 198 CSS Profile colleges. If you do not want to have to complete the CSS Profile, then just don't apply to these schools. But some of these schools can give you some really great scholarships. Again, I don't want you to have to pay for that. So I want to give you the scholarship aid and comparison guide so you can really compare apples to apples, grapes to grapes. But I don't want you to have to pay extra for that. So the total value is well over $1,000. If all this did was— if I just walked you through everything you needed to do to qualify for scholarships and financial aid, would it be worth it? If your student can earn thousands of dollars in scholarships and keep you and your student out of debt, would that be worth it? If it saved you hundreds of hours and headaches of researching financial aid and scholarship requirements, would that be worth it? You can see why this is an amazing deal even at $1,000. But because I want College Ready Debt Free to benefit as many motivated students and families as possible. For this webinar, participants only, I'm going to offer it at $297 today. And in the chat, you will see the link. Now this does have a 30-day money-back guarantee. Because I want you to know that this is not about the money, but I do know that if you don't spend money, you won't do it. So registration is only open for 24 hours.. And if it's something you want to do, I encourage you not to wait. Just imagine what it would be like to read your student's award letter for thousands of dollars in financial aid, to have complete peace of mind knowing that you and your student are prepared for the application process. But don't just take my word for it. Here, here's a student— or a parent of a family.

Hey, Shellee Howard, it's Cheryl from Laguna Beach. I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your help and guidance getting our daughter into college. Not only did she get into her dream school, which was NYU, which she's been wanting to go to since she was very young, but she also got into a number of other top colleges that she was thrilled about, including UC Berkeley, which is where she ultimately ended up going. So we're so happy And we couldn't have done it without you, your guidance on everything from leadership to community service to passion projects and scholarships and financial aid. We're so thrilled. Um, most of the colleges that she got into, um, offered some sort of scholarship. Uh, I think she was awarded more than $200,000 worth of scholarships. In total. So again, so thankful. And to anyone who's looking for a college counselor, I highly recommend you to everyone that I meet. So thanks again.

Bye.

So there you have it. You can't make that kind of thing up. And so I have testimonials all over the website. I encourage you to, to listen, to learn, to gain knowledge I'm sure you can see now how amazing and valuable this offer is. So here's how you can get access. If you go to college-ready-debt-free.college-ready-plan.com, or you click, click the link in the chat box, or you reach out to us after, you have 24 hours to receive this at a severely reduced rate. And all you do is you go, you click on the link, and you get started. There is no time to waste because you can start working on scholarships and opportunities immediately. Once you enter your payment information, you will instantly be taken to a secure members area with unlimited access to the College Ready Debt Free program for as long as you want. For those of you who are already signed up, And you use— you'll see the member area includes multiple video modules plus a resource section with all of your bonuses. This is about you and your child. At College Ready, our mission is to help students get into their best fit colleges without thousands of dollars, um, of debt. We want you to get scholarships. We want it to be debt-free. That is our mission. The question is, do you want to get on board and make sure your student graduates without debt? Here's a recap of everything you will get. And for the next 24 hours, it's honestly $297. The bonus is you get a discovery call with me to talk about any subject that you want. And that's an hour of my time just pouring into your family and how to help. Remember, you don't get a second chance. This is about you and your child. If you have any questions at all, reach out to Michelle at college-ready-plan.com or myself, Shellee Howard, at college-ready-plan.com. As promised, here is the link to your free How to Send Your Student to College Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money book. It's a bestseller. It's listed on Amazon, I think, for $15. But you took the time to be here and we want to give you massive value. So with that, if there is any questions, I'm happy to take questions. You can either put them in the chat or you can go off mute and I'm happy to answer them.