How to Turn Your passion Into Scholarships in 3 Easy Steps

Thank you, everyone. My name is Shellee Howard, and I am the founder and CEO of College Ready, and I'm so excited. We are expecting a full house today. And why does that make me so happy? Is because this is one of my favorite parts of my job, of what I get to do every day. And that is inspire your children to do things that they want to do, to lean into what they're gifted, to lean into their passion, to help them even figure out what does that look like. For a lot of students, they feel a little sad, a little frustrated that it seems like all their friends know exactly what they want to do when they grow up, what they want to major in, what type of career. And for those students who maybe don't, that could be kind of daunting because as you get up in age, everybody's asking, where do you want to go to college? What kind of career do you want to do? You know, what, what major? And for some students, like my firstborn, he knew in the 8th grade exactly what he was passionate about and exactly what he wanted to do through college and career. And crazy enough, he stuck with it. That young man is now turning 30 years old, ah, uh, next week, and he is an orthopedic surgeon on his way to fellowship and to ultimately replace hips and knees and fix joints. And it's so humbling that he knew this in 8th grade. I know it's not what every student goes through because I have 3 others. My second had a huge passion for little people. From the first day that she could babysit, she was like, "Mom, can I babysit?" I'm like, "No, you're still a baby." And she, "Please, Mom, can I babysit?" And I'm like, "No." And finally, when she was, I think, 11 or 12, she's like, "Please, can I babysit?" And so we sought a way for her to get babysitter certified. Actually CPR certified and got a certification for being a babysitter. And then I finally let her babysit. Well, what she found out is she didn't really like the baby care child thing. She really wanted to just make them feel better, to love on them. She is now a pediatric registered nurse and she works in the emergency room. And I have to say, if I had a little baby in need, she would want the nurse— I would want her to be their nurse. So number 1 and number 2 knew they had a passion and a gift, and that is what I get to help your children do. So at College Ready, we are more than just getting students into a name of a school. Yes, we do that, and we do it well. But what we also focus on is something truly unique. We start with the student. We start with their gifts and their talents and their advocacy. We start by helping them think outside of the box. And just so you know, most students that struggle with this are really gifted at a lot of things. And I know that may be counterintuitive, but after doing this almost, oh, 8 years, 18 years, I can guarantee you, based on all of the students that I have worked with over all those years, the ones who are good at math, English, history, science, a sport, they struggle in this area more than others. Because if you're just good at math and maybe not gifted in the other areas, it's very, you know, simple. Which— what am I going to link to? But for students who don't know, that is really my superpower. Honestly, I have this ability to help teenagers figure out what they should be based on their gifts, their talents, their advocacy. And yes, we use a lot of assessments. I am a certified career counselor. I'm an independent college strategist. I am a part of the Financial Society of Financial awareness. I am a company who is part of a kindness program, and so really, we at College Ready are college experts, and we're going to dive into one of the many things that are going to help your students stand out to get accepted as well as get the big scholarships. So thank you so much for attending. We are so excited you're here, and I'm going to go ahead and jump into my presentation. I will be taking questions at the end of the presentation if there's time. So just know, hopefully I will answer your question before you even realize it. So without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and share just a few screens so you can help your child, or if they are on this call, you can help them to get prepared. And let's go ahead and do this. So as promised, tonight we're gonna talk about turning your passion into scholarships, 3 easy steps. It really is 3 easy steps once you understand what it takes. So your passion is something unique to yourself, and I started offering what's called Passion with Purpose, a about probably about 11 years ago before Passion was a thing. And why I did it is because I knew that there was something missing as soon as our students started getting really connected to their cell phone and their computer. We were missing out on that learning. Are you the fastest kid on the block? Can you jump the highest? What is your superpower? And so I started an organization and I am now offering it to the world, and I'm doing it for free. So if you're looking for a bait and switch here, you're not gonna find it, because my passion is to inspire your teens to be the best version of themselves, pick the right major, pick the right college, and do it without going into debt. I know that sounds like a lot, but I've done it 4 times. My firstborn graduated from Harvard pre-med debt-free. I spent zero. He spent zero. My second child, well, he went on to medical school and then now is a resident at UCLA. So he'll graduate in total as a surgeon with $30,000 in total debt. That is a great return on investment. My second child, her dream school was University of Alabama. She found her passion early. She ended up getting a full-ride scholarship to Alabama. My third is graduating in 3.5 years from San Francisco State this May, next month. And my fourth is studying international business in the Czech Republic, Prague, living her passion. So I've done this 4 times personally. I've done it with thousands of other students. And what I can tell you is We're 100% successful. Why I offer this at absolutely no, no cost is I believe this is a game changer for the world. I believe that if every 17 or 18-year-old student served their community, our world would be a much better place, and that is part of my mission. So you can see this young group of smiley faces on my screen. And unfortunately, it was multiple screens, but I can only screenshot one. These are the students who meet with me every week to help them figure out their passion, their purpose, and their advocacy. We are part of a Kindness Certified organization, and these students are a student-led organization called Empower Education World that I get to mentor. I have the honor of mentoring where they can earn 8 national awards certifications and 4 leadership certifications. These students are winning massive scholarships to the tune of almost $30,000, and that's 51 students. So I'm going to show you how we do it, and if you want to do it, I encourage you to go and get it. So without further ado, discovering the right path for your future so you can confidently pursue your dreams. We are all about dreaming big here, going for what it is that we want. So ways your child can, number one, find their passion and turn it into scholarships. That's going to be the first thing we talk about. Remember the 3 easy steps. The second thing we're going to talk about is using the pa— using the student's passion to lead others and create positive change. And the third secret is using their passion to position themself with a standout strategy. The outcome of doing these three simple things is they will stand out on their college application, their resume, get scholarships, and ultimately choose a career they will enjoy. And remember, this didn't cost you anything. So you're in the right place if you would like to learn how 51 college-ready students have earned $23 million in scholarships utilizing their passion. As I, uh, spoke about, the number one thing is finding the passion. And having a purpose. Community service equals scholarships. I— hopefully you're not shocked by this, but some people don't realize how big the amount can be. But if we don't know our passion, does that mean no scholarships? It may even mean that you won't get into college of your dreams. I'm going to show you how we're able to do this. And feel free to try this on your own. But what I can tell you as a parent is that my 4 children, I had to hire somebody else to help them go through this process because my kids, every time I said, what about this? What about this? What about this? No, no, no, no, no. And as soon as somebody else that I had do this with my students, my children, they're like, that's genius. I love that. So just know sometimes having a complete stranger mentor coach is the best way to help them be successful. So we created a program called See Our Future Now, and this program, and I show you how your student can use their passion to get big scholarships. So I wrote a book called How to Send Your Student to College Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money. That could be your as the parent or your as the student. Our approach is that we support the parent and the student. We have a ton of services, but I'm not here to sell you that right now. I'm here to show you how you can help your child. So finding their passion can start as young as when they're, you know, in elementary school. That's when it started for these two beauties, my two oldest. I took my son to Kenya, Africa, in hopes of finding out, did he want to be a doctor because of the Dr., or did he have a heart to serve his community? Turns out He has a heart to serve his community. And so it was a wonderful experience for him to go to another country to serve children who are completely happy, who have nothing. And then I took this beauty and I helped her by taking her to Cusco, Peru, and we served in the orphanages there. Now, you don't have to go and serve internationally. That's not the point of this. You can do it from the comfort of your own home, and I can show you how. I'm just trying to help you to see there are many ways to do this. So our passion is to help a million families prepare their children to be successful in the future. I recently spent 17 days in Uganda with 3 other female entrepreneurs where we helped families provide for themselves. Our goal is to do that for families here as well. So the first problem that we see when we start to dive into this is, my teen has no plans for their future. Well, you have two options. You can face it head-on and get it done, or you can hope and wait without a plan is not a good strategy, especially if you want scholarships. So as I mentioned, what I did is I took to help families figure out what they want their future to look like, but do it now. So we talk about picking a major, a college, and a career. We help them figure out who they are, what matters, how others see them, because as a teenager, that's very important to them, how they see themselves. We help them to map out what a career would look like that fits who they are and what matters to them. We then talk about the return on investment, because not every student has to go to college. That's not what we're trying to figure out right now. Most figure out they need it, but that's not what we're trying to help them figure out. We want them to understand return on investment and financial freedom, because if they can figure that out before they apply to college, they won't go into debt. They'll be able to pick a major, pick a career, and know when they get out of college they have something that will support them. I won't say it, but there are several majors when students graduate that have no career attached to it at all. That can be a very scary proposition. We help them to put it all together, and then we help them to figure out, do they need a 2-year college, a 4-year college, a trade school? Nowadays, there are students who want to be influencers or entrepreneurs, so we have to help them map that out with a business plan. What does that look like? To not have a plan is a plan to fail. So that's the first thing that you're going to want to do. The second thing is the big problem is people don't know how to start. What do they do step by step? The first thing is you need an academic strategy. You need to know what classes they need to take. Do they need AP, IB, dual enrollment, honors, college placement? What classes do they need in what order? Most people don't realize that not every college has the same requirements, and it's very important that we, we know that prior to them getting to their senior year. The next thing you're going to want to do is you're going to want to do strength and career assessments, because what we have found is is with the right career and strength assessments, students are amazed at the careers that they had never heard of that would be perfect for them. The next thing you're going to want to help your student do is to have a test strategy. When should they take the PSAT? How many times should they take the SAT, the ACT? How many times? How should they prepare? And what score do they need? They need to have a strategy. If a school is opt— test optional today, it may not be test optional tomorrow. Colleges are changing their minds every day. It is not a strategy to just hope they stay optional. Then you need to help your child create a leadership strategy. Yes, colleges pay for leaders. Remember I wanted to give you the secret, the 3 secrets? This is secret number 2 that I'm going to jump back into, but just while we're here, leaders get paid to go to college. Hands down, that was one of the main strategies that got my son into Harvard and 7 other top-tier schools. They need an extracurricular strategy. You do not want to do what everybody else is doing, especially if it's something that is not unique. Tutoring, playing the piano— if your child doesn't want to do those, they don't need to do those to go to college. The extracurriculars need to yell to colleges, "I know what I want, I know what I'm good at, and I'm gonna be amazing." if you pick me. Extracurriculars equal scholarships. Recommender strategy— those teachers are critical to this process. You need to know who to ask, how to ask, when to ask, and what is the process. You need to have an essay strategy. Essays are really, really important for your student to stand out and get big scholarships. If you want scholarships, do not complete a zillion that don't need an essay. Pick a few that need a really powerful essay. Those are the ones students are not going to take the time to do, and so your student will have a better chance of getting that scholarship. Uh, I don't know if I mentioned, but I meet with students every week, and I will give you the link to do that. There's no charge. I know you're thinking, okay, what's the catch? There's no catch. I meet with students every week to work on their passion with purpose because it is my passion. I travel the world internationally so our students don't have to. They can see the needs, they can see the benefits that they're giving to these children all over the world. That is my gift to you if you stay till the end. We also offer one-to-one, um, life group and financial strategy. So these are the ways I want you to know you don't have to be in overwhelm. If you go to crfuturenow.com, you can look at how you can get yourself out of overwhelm and simplify the process for your family. So I'm going to jump into free resources. If you need scholarships, right, you're going to need to know your student aid index. This is the first step to getting scholarships. If you need support on step by step how to do this, you definitely want to get a copy of my book. If you want your student aid index calculated, I'm happy to do that for you. Again, no charge, just trying to help. If you just want free resources, you can just sign up for those emails. So I hope this shows that we're really all about supporting your family. So now I'm going to jump back into the presentation, and I'm going to share— oops— number 2: use your passion to lead others to create positive change. Remember when I said leadership equals scholarship? "Here is how we do it." So it's really important for families to know that scholarships are available, and it's important that your students know how to get them. So I'm going to share my screen, and now you can see how we do it. So right here is a student-led organization that I started over a year ago, and it was really me sharing my passion and my students saying, hey, that's really cool, can I do that? But I don't want to go to all those third world countries. Of course. So I now mentor students who lead others in this organization called EmpowerEducation.World. And again, there's no charge to doing this. This is my gift to helping your children figure this out because as a parent, it is really hard to do. So if this is something that you think would be helpful for your child, join these other students. They're super welcoming. They're from all over the country, US and abroad. Their mission, if you want to check it out, is right here. They have objectives. They have the benefits. They share why they're doing this. The neatest part is your student gets to figure out what they're passionate about. Do they love medicine and science, athletics, visual and performing arts, business and finance, STEM, literature? Everything we do is connected to their passion. So how exciting is that? If they are wanting to partner with other students to create change, I've done it all right here. All they have to do is show up 1 hour a week, and all of this opens up the world for 8 national awards and 4 leadership certifications. This project is an international organization that leads to big awareness. With awareness comes beautiful essays and beautiful interviews. So again, that's empowereducation.world is the how. There's no charge to be part of it, and we welcome your students. Now let's jump back into The important steps of, okay, what is the third thing? The third thing is use passion to create a standout strategy. So I wanna show you an example because what I've learned by doing so many of these presentations is people are like, but how, Shellee Howard, how do I do this? And so that is what I wanna show you now. Is the how. So, oops, it never ceases to amaze me, technology. All right, so the how is here. How to help your student find their passion? Well, the first thing I will tell you is don't ask them because they're going to tell you they don't know, or they're going to say, I don't know, I don't want to do it, I don't have time to do it. I've heard every excuse in the book. How? I have 4 teenagers, or now young adults. So what we do is we help them, and you can do this. We help them to create a mission statement. What do they want to do? What do they want to serve? How are they going to do it? We help them create a timeline. We help them set goals. Who, what, where, when, how, why. This is all things that we do custom for your child. So it's important that part, just so I, I'm clear, that is part of being in College Ready. But I'm trying to help you see if you want to do this on your own. It took me about 30 hours a week with my firstborn. So just know it is going to take you substantial amount of time. But my goal is to really help you to see that it is possible. So now let's talk about some secrets, right? I shared with you passion with purpose, how community service can get you scholarships. I talked about how leadership, leading other students to create change, can get you scholarships. I talked about being tenacious and creating a mission and starting a passion with purpose project. Colleges are looking for the leaders of tomorrow. They're not looking for students to just sign up and show up and check a box. So there is one other piece before we get into the secrets that I think would be really helpful, and that is— oops, I clicked a little too fast— is this one. To college, extracurriculars are a very important piece of this process because They get to know your child. But I want you to understand from a college perspective, there's good, better, and best. When I meet with families, they're like, well, my child's doing this and that and this and that and this and that, and all of them are under the good category, right? They don't even hit the better category, let alone the best category. So if your child is busy doing stuff, I don't want you to be shocked when they don't get into their dream school and they don't get scholarships, because just doing stuff is not enough. Just like a GPA and a test score are no, no longer enough to get into the college of their dreams. So it's important we help our students understand what is good, better, and best, and maybe they shouldn't be doing a zillion good things and maybe just focusing on some of the best things. So we help your child. I actually analyze everything they've done since they promoted from 8th grade because that's all colleges allow us to count. I can give them a point system of how well they're doing or the gap that they have. So This would be up to you to know that, but just know sign up and show up, they can do a zillion of those, and that's— colleges are not going to be impressed. Or play to pay, where you sign them up for something really, really expensive, hoping it's going to be amazing. It may not. So just know that all of these tools I'm providing for you so you can do this on your own. But it's not an easy process because if it was, everybody would be doing it. So here are some secrets that I want everybody that's on this call to know because you took the time to be here. You didn't pay anything, and I want you to get massive value. Number 1, the reality is most full-ride scholarships come from the college merit or athletic award. It comes from picking the right college list. Everybody just wants to know when they ask me, you know, how did your son get a full ride to Harvard? And they just want like one thing. It was all of these things. And so it is a massive undertaking, but college is expensive. And students work really hard. And even if you can write a check for the full price of college, it would feel really great for your child to earn their own scholarships. Number 2 is private scholarships are available to everyone starting in 8th grade, and I'm happy to share with you where to find those. Number 3, there are legitimate websites to help with the college scholarship search, but there are some very scary, uh, websites out there and scary scholarships. Beware that if your child is completing these online scholarships They're being asked, do you own a home? Do you own a car? Do your parents have college degrees? They're trying to find out, do your parents have money? And then you will get refinance now, buy a new car. Be very careful when you let your young teenager do this. All right, number 4, look for scholarships from your employer, credit unions, department stores, even your high school PTAs. Those aren't the big ones, but everything helps. There are no tricks, but just good old hard work. I tell students who really want to work the scholarship process, it's, it's a part-time job. Like I mentioned, when I did this with my firstborn, I spent about 30 hours a week. He spent about 20 hours a week. Now I have it down to a science that my students are now spending an hour maybe 2 hours a week, because we have figured out how they can do one thing, get leadership, get extracurricular points, get community service, lead others, stand out, all with a very simple strategy. So more is not better. Actually, less is better, doing it strategically. Number 6, passion equals scholarships. I just spent time on that. Number 7, consider your background. I work with students from all over the world, and I have students who are Native Americans. They have particular scholarships. I have students that are vegans. They have particular scholarships. So just realize you don't have to have a sad story. To get scholarships. There are tons. I, I can't even tell you. $23 million, right? 51 students. There are a ton of money out there. Number 8: if scholarship advertises no essay, don't waste your time. Zillions of students complete those because it takes no effort. Number 9, if your student does not go looking for scholarships, it will not come to them. And then have your student follow directions carefully. Most students see optional and they don't do anything. What I'm here to tell you is that is a way to weed out the students who don't want to do the hard work. So now I hope you feel that you are armed and ready to go. Oops, I have a couple of gifts that I wanted to give you, and the first one is if you want me to show you. Okay, so in other words, show me— oops, darn it. Um, if you want, show me how and I'll do it on my own. So in other words, hey, I've got all the time in the world. I, I really— my student's gonna listen to me. I think this would be super fun. Great. Scan that code. There is a Passion with Purpose online class that you and your student can do together, or your student can do alone if they're self-motivated. Now, that one is $495, so I don't want you to think that I'm throwing a bait and switch on you. I just gave you a ton of free content, and that is just an option for you if you're like, Okay, Shellee, that's a lot. How do, how do I go from here? The next one is completely free, and that is, can you help me find my passion? Absolutely. So if you click this QR code, it will gift your students and, uh, myself 30 minutes where we get to dive into this together, and then I get to invite them to be part of the Empower Education group where they can do this completely free. So again, the goal tonight was to show you how to get scholarships from their passion, which hopefully you've seen, how I can help you, give you the foundation, or how I can guide you and offer opportunity. So without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and open it up for questions. I'll give you just a few minutes. If you want to do it on your own, click Passion with Purpose. If you would like my help figuring out their passion and connecting to the, um, Passion with Purpose online group, we are not going in person, or I should say the students are not. I'm taking their passion projects to Uganda this June and, uh, to Oaxaca in June. And so I am the connection. We have people on the ground who come to our meetings and show the students the impact. Empower Education built 3 classrooms in Uganda last year, which educated well over 500 students who were meeting under a tree in the hot sun. So I'm hugely passionate about this, and I hope you can see that my passion will provide their inspiration, and their passion will create scholarships for them. So I'm gonna go ahead and take any questions that you have.