How to Use Your AP Score to Save Money on College 1920x1080 avc1 mp4a

Hello everyone, welcome. We'll get started here very shortly. No one is on.

Can they hear and see us, Dr. Joe?

They should, they should be able to.

Yeah, can they put in the chat where they're from and the age of their student? So Um, thank you all for, for coming. As we're waiting for a few others to hop on in the call, if you could put where you're located and the age or ages of your students. And if you really want to get it, be an A+ student, you can put the AP classes that they're going to be taking or the AP tests they're going to be taking, uh, coming up here. It just gives us a little bit, uh, better idea of what we should talk about.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm trying to get the— got 3 people here. Yeah, we have 59 register.

Okay.

All right, waiting for a couple more people. You guys can put in the chat while the Q&A open. Uh, here comes some people.

Hey, AJ, please.

All right, my, my assistant's going to send out a reminder email or reminder SMS too.

Okay, awesome.

So, yeah, everyone, if you're just joining us, please put in what we say, grade of your student, name, grade, and AP test they're going to take.

I just put a reminder in chat. And if you don't know, if it's parents on the call, that's okay. Well, we'll cover them just as well, but it always is very interesting to see which APs are most popular.

Yep, absolutely. So we'll ask you guys to participate because we got a lot to go over tonight. This is honestly for you though, because what I've found is there's a lot, there's a lack of really the connection. Um, it's something that Shellee and I are very passionate about, about making. On the left it says chat disabled.

Oh, okay, so they have to put in Q&A.

See if we can fix that. Panelists can chat with everybody, attendees can chat with everyone. There we go. Host and panelists. Okay, it's disabled. Try now. Thank you, EJ. There we go, some more people coming in. All right, perfect.

Test, test. We have a test, test coming in.

More people, you betcha. Thanks, EJ. All right, chat is still working. Yep.

Cool.

It's like we never done this before. My, my setup's still messed up. I'm, I'm waiting on, uh, I gotta get a new screen. So I have like my camera's here, my workstation's over here, but I put a new screen behind me, but it's not, for some reason the connection's not working. So I have to get, I'm getting a replacement for it. So I'm in between a couple different systems right now, but so, um, we're good.

Challenging.

It is, but first world problems, you know.

So, for us, 11th grade.

There we go.

If you all know the AP classes that your kids are taking, having those in there would be great. If not, that's okay.

Yep.

We are going to dive in, talk a little bit about how APs are not only going to get you accepted, but they're also going to get you some scholarship money.

Yep. All right, all right. I think we give one more minute just for a couple more people to come in. Uh, my assistant said she's sent— working on sending out just a reminder. What are they saying, Ricky?

See AP US, AP seminar, AP— woo! EJ, that's a big— that's a lot of APs. Be very nice, very nice to that child. Wow, awesome. Physics, biology, calculus. That's what he wanted. I know I had one of those. My firstborn was just like that. I remember making him pasta each night before he took the AP exams, just going, you need some carbs, man. I don't know how you're going to get through it.

Right. All right. Right. So, um, right. All right. I think we get started. Um, some more people will come in. Um, so AP Precalc, AP Stats, both right now, or is that two different kids? As I say, that's like, uh, I've never seen that combination.

Yeah, that's a big load. You ready to kick it off?

Yeah, I think so. Let's get started.

All right, outstanding. Well, we don't want to hold you up, parents. You were here on time. We are grateful. Is there any students in the room? I always find that to be interesting. I assume it's parents, but But if there's any students, just let us know so we can add you to the list. But let's go ahead and get started. My name is Shellee Howard, and I'm the founder and owner, um, CEO of College Ready. For the last 18 years, I've been helping families navigate college admissions and financial strategy. So, uh, College Ready is a very unique, uh, college consulting business in the fact that We care about the academic fit, the social fit, and the financial fit. Little bit, very brief background on me. Uh, my firstborn attended Harvard pre-med, graduated debt-free, went on to UC San Diego Medical School, took on $30,000 total in loans, and then is now chief resident at UCLA Orthopedic Surgery. He will graduate with a total of $30,000. Total. My second went to University of Alabama full ride, third went to San Francisco State debt-free, and fourth went to Europe and she studied in the Czech Republic of Prague. So I've helped well over 2,700 students over the last 18 years and they have earned over $80 million in scholarships. So I think that's important to, to hear a little bit of excitement. I, I want to give you guys inspiration and know that it is possible to get accepted at any school, and it is possible to get money. So I am super excited to introduce, uh, Dr. Joe this evening, who is going to be all things AP. So Dr. Joe, can you give them a little bit of your background?

Yeah, thank you, Shellee Howard. Excited to kick this off with you. Hi everyone. If you don't know me, I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian. I am a lifelong educator, still actually an active educator, uh, first as a teacher and now as an administrator. Um, I got my doctorate and my master's in educational leadership. Um, I started tutoring when I was a teacher, stopped for a little bit, went back in during the pandemic, and I started and founded a company called Supported Tutoring, otherwise known as AC and AP Exams as a Facebook group. Uh, where we help kids ace their AP exams. And when we say ace, we mean 4s and 5s, because that is the top scores you can get on those exams, which helps students not only unlock college credit but savings and time— time saved, um, through the college admissions and college scholarship process. So it's become my mission to help a million kids, uh, score 4s and 5s. Uh, so far we've helped a couple hundred This is our biggest year yet. We are currently tracking 439 AP exams across our student population that we have inside our program. And AP exam season is only 8 weeks away. And it is— it's not what people think in terms— there's a lot. I've just done a lot of these calls with a lot of families. And the gap of knowledge, not that it's— it's kind of like the ignorance gap that we all we all have to learn, right, of what, what their grade is versus what their score is. That gap is where we see a lot of high-achieving and well-deserving students underperform on the AP exams. So tonight I really want to spend some time just to kind of be a resource for you, uh, and for Shellee Howard's audience, uh, to basically bridge that gap, to show you why right now is the perfect time to start thinking about starting some level of prep for your kid in an AP course to make sure that they unlock those savings.

So important. So we're going to do this very casual style. So if you have questions, please put them in the chat. We are happy to take them. But a first question I have, Dr. Joe, is if we are a parent of a, you know, our firstborn What is this AP thing? It's like a whole nother language that my kid's talking about. Is it even something they need to do? I had a student I met with this morning and they had convinced their parent that they would be better off taking all easy classes and getting all A's versus taking more rigorous classes and getting a B+ or an A-. So maybe just real brief, can you tell the parents why APs are even in this process.

Yeah, and I'll just start off by saying that APs aren't right for everybody. Every, you know, one thing is not right for everybody. But AP stands for Advanced Placement. They are one of our highest level college courses in the high school that is offered. AP is a national curriculum, meaning all 50 states and international. It is controlled, developed, and assessed by College Board. So that means College Board, who is— I call them the cartel of college, but affectionately, if you're watching. They are there controlling the PSAT. They control the SAT. They control the AP exams. And it is all data. And they have a huge data collection on students in high— so their job is to help turn around and provide the best students to the top schools so that we can still be a very competitive and top nation. And so the AP is our closest thing we have to a national curriculum at the secondary level. There is also IB, which I taught— International Baccalaureate. It's not as popular as AP in the United States, but it is very popular abroad in the international settings. They compete with the Cambridge and Oxford exams in the British curriculum and some other competitive, uh, curriculums as well. So it's basically the equivalent of taking a college-level course in the high school. That is not to be confused with dual enrollment or college in the high school or community college. Those are still college classes, but, but they are less rigorous. They're still controlled by a college professor, and usually just taking it and passing the class guarantees college credit, but it's not what you think. That I see a lot of haters on my Facebook pages about dual enrollment's better, and I just want to clear the air. It is a very powerful tool if you only want your kid to stay regional, right? A lot of kids from UT or want to go to UT, they're in Texas, there's a great community college system and they have college in the high school, and those credits will translate to the UT system, but they won't translate to Harvard, they won't translate to the Ivy League because there's nothing— there's there's a thing called reciprocity. Harvard is not going to accept a community college credit. The UC system, very similar. A lot of great dual enrollment in the high school courses that are going to help at the state level of college classes there, get you through sooner. But when we talk about the benchmark, the gold standard is the AP right now in terms of universally accepted as college courses and rigor. So taking a college— taking an AP course is challenging for kids because it's supposed to be challenging. It's, it's a college-level course. But what's different is College Board creates those assessments, and those assessments measure how well they are ultimately do, how well they know the, the college curriculum cumulatively, and then give them a score. And the score is out of 1 to 5, with 5 being the top. And so those 4s and 5s are what we're going to talk about as considered acing. And there is a big gap between your grade in the course and ultimately what the exam score is. So that's kind of a big summary of what AP is.

So important. So parents, if your head is like still kind of spinning, it will settle in. I will tell you, my firstborn, like EJ, uh, son wanted to take them all, and it was terrifying because I didn't understand what it meant. But at least now you know. Here's something that I want to share from a college admissions perspective. As APs, and we talk about the 4s and the 5s and what does that mean. So when a college sees a student who gets an A in an AP class and gets a 1 on the AP exam, they're very, very concerned. Either the AP teacher didn't teach to their best ability the student just didn't retain the information, or they don't test well. But either way, it's very— it's, it's not a good thing. So we want students to be mindful. The question I get often is, does my child who's a senior, or any age, have to take the AP exam if they took the AP class? Dr. Joe, you want to answer that one?

Yeah, 1,000%, right? So it's— I have kids that don't even sit for the course that take for the exam. So it is, it is a— you're setting yourself up for a disaster. Now, if you ask Harvard or other Ivy League schools, they want to see kids get A's in their AP courses and 5s on their AP exams. But it is better to sit for that course and maybe underperform a little bit than not take the exam at all. Because what you're leaving to an admissions officer— and again, Shellee Howard, you probably can elaborate on this— But what you're leaving to an admissions officer is for them to fill in the blanks, which is not something you want them to do when your child's application is in their hands. Okay, I see here Johnny took 3 AP courses and we have no scores. So what should I conclude? Either Johnny didn't pass any of those APs and he's not— exams and not submitting the scores, or Johnny didn't take those AP exams, which means he's just paper chase in a GPA. And so we are probably at the peak, the antithesis of grade inflation in our country at the high achieving students. And really, I'm going to say something very controversial. The grades to me, your grades in the class matter the least out of all these formulas because grades can be artificially inflated by a multitude of means. And really that benchmark score, just like the SAT and the ACT, it's the only thing standardized we have that separates kids. So yeah, it's not in the control of the teacher. And so really that shows the highest level of rigor for elite schools, but for any school really. And that's the separator.

So you talked about very quickly that a student doesn't have to take the, the class at the high school and they can still sit for the exam. So for many parents that I talk to about college admissions, they're like, no, that's That's not true. And I'm like, but, but it is true. I have students do it all the time where they self-study and they do well on the AP exam. So just because you don't know it to be true, parents, I want you to know that's why Dr. Joe and I are here tonight. Please put any of those myths in the chat so we can help you understand the consequences if you if you follow that path. So getting back to how does this look for college? Colleges are a business. They're looking for students who will do well at their school. That means, can they take their rigorous amount of work? Can they pass the class? Can they take the test? So it's not that they don't like your student. It's just they're trying to figure out who's gonna be successful when they get here. So let, let's just jump now to how is it even possible that a student can get a 4 or a 5? Because all over the internet, it begs to differ.

Yeah. So let's just start by breaking down some simple numbers, right? So nationally, only about 30 to 35% of high school students will take AP courses and exams, which means if you're joining us tonight and your child is one that is taking a or multiple AP exams and courses, congratulations, you're already in the top third of the nation. Now, the scary stat is out of that top third, 70% will not get a 4. 85 to 90% won't get a 5. Now, those scores— I'm giving you ballpark numbers— can range per exam and how many are taking it, but that is the gap. Now, 3 is passing. Now, here's mind-blowing, because we think of 90s and 93s as A's in our school. A 3 is passing, and that's 50%, and it's usually a scaled score, meaning average. 60 to 65% is a 4, and 70 to 75% is a 5. So the APs, uh, there is this big disconnect when we start talking about AP scores from the grades. So the teacher is responsible for teaching the curriculum of the AP course, and truth be told, there's not much to differentiate except speed and amount of content than your honors, it's just following the AP curriculum. We have to cover the content so you're ready for the exam. And we're gonna get into that here in a second of the big gap and why there's such a big discrepancy is because the AP exams do not measure content knowledge. They measure skills. They measure what your kid can do and think, applying the content to skill-based questions in the forms of multiple choice, and free response questions. And the biggest kicker of all is half of the test, sometimes more, but 50 to 60% of the test is judged by an AP reader, meaning it is open to interpretation using a rubric through written responses. So you have to be able to write the way the AP grader is going to award points, and that's what makes it so rigorous.

Mm, so good. Before we jump into the details, I do want to make sure we talk about why it's important if you are looking for scholarships. So first thing is, in order to get accepted, there are many schools that have a minimum AP requirement. I know what they are, and I'm happy to tell you. If you, if you want to set up an appointment. We don't have a time to go through all of the APs, but here's the important thing. If your child has a 4.5 GPA and a 32, uh, ACT, and so does, so does this student over here and this student over here, how will a college decide who gets to come. Now you get into the APs and the other exams. So I just want to help you to see that it goes GPA, right, then test scores, and then the AP exams. Like, they're right up there. Then we have community service and leadership and extracurriculars and letters of recommendation and the essay. Like, there's a lot, but I kind of— I wanted the, the families to understand that The APs are a very important piece, not at every school, but at a lot of schools. So go ahead and, Dr. Joe, and take us through.

Yeah, so it's like building a house, right? So the, the foundation of your child's academic profile and college profile is going to be based in academics. So, you know, and Shellee Howard is a big advocate of that. That's why I enjoy our partnership, because there's a lot of college services out there. That are seriously misleading families, and they're thinking that they are going to get into an Ivy League school regardless of grades just because they have a unique passion project. And so foundationally, your kid has to perform well academically. So number one, like you said, the GPA has to be good. Now, perfect GPA? No, there is a range, right? But usually I say unweighted GPA of a 3.7, 3.75, or higher. For an elite school, for a top 25. Okay. And there's— we can get into that in the common data sets and stuff. And then the traditional tests are the SAT and the ACT of what they need to do right now. Unfortunately for you all out there, your kids— and we're 6, it's haunting because 6 years ago today we were getting the word that COVID was here. And 6 years ago tomorrow, Friday the 13th of March, we shut down. Schools closed in Pennsylvania, and I know they closed around the nation, and we didn't open our doors for it. And that, that unfortunately, a lot of the high school students lived through that in elementary and middle school. And so there's a huge, there's a lot of learning loss and gaps there. But before COVID the astronomical SAT scores that you are required to get into a Stanford, into a Harvard. They were like in the 14s and the 13s. Now you basically can't even touch an Ivy League without a 1500 SAT. And the reason that happened is because the law of averages— kids stopped submitting scores. So score optional hurt everybody. It hurt us, it hurt you. Here's how it skewed the averages up. Kids looked at the Common Data Set, and there's a 25th, a 50th, and a 75th percentile of scores accepted by first-year, first time admission students. And so kids that saw their scores fell below the 50th percentile didn't submit because it was score optional. Kids that saw it was above 50 submitted. So what it did was created a whole new average. So now the scores are through the roof. So it's like almost made Ivy League somewhat untenable, combined with more kids were applying. So their percentage of kids accepted got even smaller., and it's just this vicious cycle that's hurting. But that might be our, my, still our foundation, the second story. But a lot of times kids take an AP exam before they take their SAT or ACT or even their PSAT. There's a lot of schools that allow kids to take an AP course and exam their freshman year or sophomore year, well before those standardized scores. And that is actually your first on the radar of College Board. So APs we have seen as like this last frontier of the strong academic foundation where you can actually make yourself a differentiator. Because it's better to show that rigor across multitude of AP courses because the SAT and ACT don't measure anything other than your ability to take those tests. But the AP Biology exam measures your ability to think critically about biology. And if you're going into medicine, what better way to show, hey, I got a 5 on my AP Biology exam. I know this stuff. That shows rigor. So that's the foundation we want all of your kids to have before we start putting on the differentiators. And that's something Shellee Howard can talk to you about in terms of the activities, the, you know, potentially a passion project, the research, the internships, all those ways to make yourself look different. But that foundational core is most important. And I think a lot of families skip that and just assume my kids got it, they got good grades, we're moving on.

Mm-hmm. And the differentiator also equals scholarships. So I'd like to help families understand college is a business. And if your child brings a beautiful, well-thought-out resume that explains exactly who they are, what matters to them, and prove that they've done something about it, that is going to get them money. So the more they have, right? And if you're an AP Scholar, and I'm sure Dr. Joe will talk about that, but we have to rank them for students. So a student may have an Eagle Scout project and they put it on the bottom, and I'm like, why did you do that? And they said, I didn't, I didn't really want to do an Eagle Scout project. My parents made me. And so unfortunately, they may never get to that Eagle Scout project or AP Scholar. Students tend to put them on the activities tracker any which way, and unfortunately, that often hurts them. So just know that the more the student has to back up what they've done— proof, right? Just like a resume when you're an adult. That's going to get them more money. And we'll talk about negotiations, financial reconsiderations. We'll get into that. But let's go ahead and jump right into the AP portion.

Yeah. So to be an AP Scholar, which when you start submitting that, like, to— on your college application, it now becomes— you, you go from a kid who just dabbled in AP to a different tier. Okay, so there's something called AI, which we all think is artificial intelligence, but in schools it's academic index. And so colleges have a formula, and every college is different, on what they can award both institutional scholarships and merit-based aid based on your academic index profile. The higher your AP scores, the more money it unlocks. So a difference between a 3 and a 5 is literally at some schools $20,000. A 3 gets you $5K, a 5 gets you $25K. So to be an AP Scholar, you need to have taken 3 AP exams and gotten an average score of a 3 on those 3. So you have to basically have a 3 or higher. To an AP Scholar with Distinction, you need to take an— you have to take 4 AP exams and get an average score of a 3.25. So you had to have some 4s in there. AP Scholar with Honors is 5 AP exams with an average score of a 3.5. So doing that, then that's like creating a whole package of APs that signals, hey, this kid got it. So the more 4s and 5s you have, obviously the higher you're going to get there, easier they're going to get that AP Scholar with Honors. Now that unlocks the part of the aid. So the ways this is going to help you, it's really a— it's it's really a virtuous cycle because first they're going to help you get into schools. So a lot of these elite schools that are super competitive, it unlocks it because it's a signal to schools that you can perform at a very rigorous level. So it gets you in the door. It is then going to unlock merit scholarships and institutional aid. Now, not everywhere because Ivy League has only need-based aid,. But a lot of the other good schools, private and public, have merit scholarships at their disposal, and you can unlock that partially with the CSS profile or through academic rigor. And the best part about it, parents, is it doesn't matter what the income is because it's your kid's merit. It's not tied to income, so it's not need-based aid, it's merit-based aid. And those can come in all kinds of scholarships that you might or might not have to apply for. Like they give away these scholarships just because they're high performing. And so the scores are what gets you that. It's not the transcript of AP courses, it's the scores. Once you now have that, now we have gotten in the door, we got the scholarships, now comes the college credit. How many courses can I get out of because I took these already and they count? It is going to depend a lot on the major and the college you go into., but usually they can get you out of something. Or if you're in a super competitive major or selective major, it might just unlock the ability for your kid to get 2 degrees for the price of 1. I have a kid at UC Berkeley who got 52 credits inside the California system and is a neuroscience major and has to take all of his sciences anyways. But he's like, I'm gonna dual major cuz I, I can do it with these credits. And the 4th reason that I don't even say in my marketing or anything like that in terms of my, that I've started that I've now come around to is, like, Shellee, you talked— I think you talked about it too— no one counts the cost of getting out of college faster. If you can get out of college a year faster and your son or daughter can get into the workforce in a career and get a six-figure salary, now that's an extra $100,000 that they otherwise wouldn't have made, or plus that. So it really starts to multiply when you have the correct strategy and you don't just throw everything against the wall and hope something sticks.

So true. So it's really about a plan. So what we do is we start with the student and helping them to figure out, you know, what are their, their goals? What do they want to achieve? Are they shooting for an Ivy League? Are they not? It's important to know what that strategy looks like and have a Plan A and a B and a C. See, because one teacher could actually spin that whole thing on its head. So as you're looking to help your child, number one is do not leave it up to them. Some of them will bury themselves, and some of them will— they won't think that they are, uh, intelligent enough, and they always are. And so they really need some support in this area. So either you, the parent, if you're qualified, or hiring somebody who is, will make a huge difference. Because in the California, um, the UC system, they have what's called an A through G. And if you don't meet the A through G, you can't even apply. And so that comes down to picking the right classes, which is AP classes. So it's important that you understand that everything plays into it and every class plays into it. So when you're deciding how many APs should my child take— I had somebody ask me today, um, if, if one was enough, and I said it depends on what school you want to go to. You know, if you want to go to a local state school, it could be enough. If you want to go to a UCLA, there's no way. So just know it's not, um, this or that. It's what is your student shooting for and what are they bringing to stand out. All right, here we go. We're going to jump into the next stage, which is— are you going to go through the AP program.

Yeah, I actually, um, was going to map out just to visually show an audience, because it's one thing for us to tell you, it's another thing to show you. And I will offer this to everyone on the webinar tonight as a link that they could go through. You have an option to book a call with the report, but basically came up with a way to visually show this so it really makes sense. So Shellee, I'm going to ask you as a parent to walk through this with me, um, just to show what potential— if we're cool with that. And then we can talk about the program, which really we have a couple different options for families depending on how they would like to engage with us. But, um, so again, how much are your AP scores actually worth, right? So we're gonna— and again, you'll have a link for this, but just to show you some important stats: 40% of students fail their AP exams. That means earns a 1 or 2. Only 25% on most exams. 4s and 5s are what matters the most. I see a couple people in the audience have AP Physics. It's one of the hardest exams to pass, a 53% fail rate. And there's only 23% get a 4 or 5. 164,000 students. What's more alarming is US History. Um, that's my, my bread and butter. That's my wheelhouse. 46% fail. This actually has increased. It used to be very close to physics. But you see how many kids— so there's 200,000 kids that are missing out on any college credit, not let alone a 4 or 5, because 3s unlock college credit in some schools. So there's 40, 453,000 people. Uh, government politics, very similar. Chemistry, environmental science, some of the hardest ones to pass. Human geography, which is like shocking, but that's because so many freshmen take human geography. That they do fail. So again, why it's the gold standard. So let's, let's do this together. Sorry, let's get our free savings report. Okay, Shellee Howard, Miss Parent, what AP exams is your child taking or plan on taking?

Okay, so let's go with Calc AB. Okay, Calc BC. Okay, uh, AP Stats.

Okay, these are just STEM, and then I have a Humanities down here too, but go ahead.

AP Bio. And chemistry.

Okay, any humanities or social sciences?

Uh, AP Lit and Lang. Okay, and history studies, AP Euro, AP Gov, and AP US. Cool.

And any languages?

Nope.

Okay, there's arts and research, which very seldom people take. All right, so expected scores, Shellee Howard, of your child in all these?

Oh, I would do Calc A, B, and BC, probably a 3 or 4.

We'll keep a 4. We'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

I thought he overshot it a little bit.

Yeah.

AP Stats a 5, AP Bio a 4, AP Chem a 4, AP Lit and Lang a 5. AP Euro 5, AP Gov and History 4.

Okay, cool. And now I have 100 schools listed here. Give me some schools that you are looking to go to.

Okay, let's go Columbia. Let's go Cornell, Stanford, Johns Hopkins. Uh, Notre Dame. How many more do you want?

Well, you want to do some of the UCs since we're out there? You want to do UC Berkeley?

Let's do UCLA and, uh, UC Riverside.

Okay, I'm gonna throw in— I'm gonna throw in Michigan. And, uh, let's do, uh, where's my— where's my school? Is it in here? Pittsburgh? I know it is. Can't find it under pressure. Dang it. All right. It's okay. We'll do that. We'll do— I don't— God forbid I do Penn State, but go ahead. Sorry, I went to Pitt for my doctorate. So if you know anything about that. But all right. We also have BSMD programs on here too, by the way. So just FYI, continue. All right. Income based of this hypothetical parent, Ms. Shellee Howard.

Let's put us right in the middle, $150,000 to $200,000.

Okay, cool. Calculate my ROI and I'll just put mine in there for now. And again, you guys can do this. You have this opportunity to do this here in a second. So it does give you a free PDF, basically just breaking down the maximum potential savings, $212,000 in this scenario at Johns Hopkins. And then it tells you $90,000 in college credit, $46,000 in merit scholarships with early graduation, potentially $60,000, and need-based boost, right? So Um, it's then going to talk to you about skills. Now, you know, I'm going to talk to you just loosely about my program and what it does, but this is more important for you in terms of why, uh, because every AP exam measures different skills. And so this is going to give you the key skills tested. It's not content, it's not content, it's AP exam skills with the content. And it's going to show you the score 5 rate and the FRQ weight, which is important again because I said it's subjective to the person grading it. And then it shows you the FRQ tips as well here. So it's pretty, pretty comprehensive. And then it gives you a breakdown of savings comparatively. Shocker, Stanford, they want you to pay, but then it has a detailed breakdown by college. So $212,000 and here's how it breaks down. In terms of semester saved, um, need-based boost here. But you can go through this and you basically have a pretty detailed report of how to— how this actually works. And then you have an opportunity to book a call with our team. Um, is this valuable? I mean, I— this— I'm debuting this for the first time tonight, but you do get this PDF here that shows the potential And what do you think, Shellee Howard? First time you're seeing it.

I think this is outstanding. I do this for the FAFSA, the SAI, and the CSS Profile. So I take it from a financial perspective. And so this is the first time that I've seen where you have quantified how much money a family can save by the student doing well. Not only is that important But the skills that Dr. Joe teaches will help them do well on their SAT and ACT and their LSAT, their MCAT, their college class. It's, it's not just memory and put it in, putting it in the box. The students actually have to learn a new way to test. And so the skill is brand new to them. The knowledge is there, but timing is so different. I'll give you an example. In the classroom, a teacher will say, take your time, get every answer right. This— we've allowed enough time. On these exams, for the first time, students are panicking. They're under the gun. They feel the pressure, the weight of the time. And so They need to learn how to pace and they need to learn how to get rid of things really fast. So with that, that what you just showed from a parent's perspective, I would definitely be supporting my children and saying, "Yes, we need to stay home on Friday night and we need to be working on your AP exam because that will save us X amount of dollars." Wouldn't that feel great that you could help us? Yeah, that's how I'd be approaching it as the parent.

So here's the scary thing, because, you know, most of us assume, hey, my kid's an A student, my kid's a good student, I go to a good school. Great. I understand because I've worked in good schools. I've also tutored kids from good schools. I tutored kids from probably one of the top— actually, no, it's not probably, it is one of the top schools in the nation, Thomas Jefferson STEM Academy in Fairfax, Virginia, and I tutor kids in— they're in some of the top 100 schools around Fairfax, Virginia. And this was 10, 15 years— 10 years ago when I was coaching baseball and hearing this then, and I just heard it again today. And I shouldn't be saying this on, on air, but I'm gonna tell you. So I have a teacher which will remain anonymous. I'm gonna observe them in a lesson. And told me that they're teaching the synthesis essay for the AP Language exam on Tuesday for the first time. Guys, it is March 12th. Is it March 12th? Yeah, March 12th. We're almost 7 weeks out from the exam, and this is the first time they're learning a key component of it. I've had history teachers tell me they'd start teaching the DBQ and the LEQ with a month to go. Or some not at all because they got smart kids and they'll figure it out. That's what— and it's not a teacher's fault, it's the system itself. It's the pressure to cover the content for the sake of covering the content rather than teaching the kids. And so what we focus on is the exact opposite that almost everyone in a tutoring business will. A tutor is incentivized to keep you paying. We're incentivized to get you an outcome. We have a guaranteed 4 or 5 program, and it is actually designed around a student's busiest schedule because it is a process that can be done in 12 weeks, that could be done in 8 weeks, can be done in 4 weeks, it can be done in 8 days. I had a girl come to me with 10 days to go for me to the RA push exam and did not know how to write, very similar to those stories I just told you., and we got her a 4 just by doing this process. So it's not time is irrelevant, it's really what do you need to do? Okay, so what can you do with your limited time? Cuz it's still got a lot of time. We got inside 60 days till this exam start, but there is something you do. So our process is a 4-phase framework. So if you joined us for test prep, we take every kid through the same process and it's all one-on-one coaching. But we start with a baseline. We start with data. We start with understanding where your kid is, where their gaps are. So we take a real diagnostic and we assess what gaps they have. Where are they strong at? Where are they weak at? Once we know the gaps, we come up with a personalized game plan on what we're going to focus over the next few sessions to improve that. The second phase is working directly with skilled AP coaches. And I'm not talking general tutors or college students, no offense to any of them, but we actually have AP experts who've graded AP exams for College Board, have taught this curriculum for 15, 25 years, and are experts in their field, or they're professors and PhDs. They teach students how to think like graders, write like how graders want, and teach the skills necessary in the limited time we have to be successful. And they reinforce it. So once you have a good foundation of skills, you then need to start taking the test. And so while we do that, we inform you. It's comprehensive coaching. As they start taking tests, we track their progress using dashboards. You get score reports, you get emails. So you're a part of this in all the journey, all the way. And in the final phase, we do the real thing. We do full length, 4 full length practice exams, timed. The difference is graded by their coach. And I ask this question now on some of the calls, it's like, well, I didn't get that. I didn't do this. Well, what did you do last year? Well, we just took up one practice exam a week to go before the exam. That's cramming. Your school is set up to let you cram. And the school only cares about them passing with a 3, not a 4 or 5. Excellence means you have to do something exceptional, which means you have to do something extra. Than what you're gonna do, what everyone else is doing. If everyone else does it, means everyone else is doing it, means it's average. Averages are 3s. We're not here to get you 3s. We're here to get you 4s and 5s. So most kids first don't know what skills are needed, like I just showed you in that report. So you gotta know what skills are being measured. You gotta practice those, and you gotta get feedback. That's where the difference comes in. You can go buy a book on Amazon right now for $20. Best $20 you'll ever spend. Princeton Review, any subject. And it shows your kid exactly what to do. But are they going to do it? Who's going to hold them accountable? And if they do do it, got news for you. Been with teenage— been around with teenagers for 16 years teaching them. They usually choose the path of least resistance. They're probably not going to time themselves writing free response questions. And even if they do, bless their heart, as they say in the South, they're probably not getting detailed feedback on what they can do better. So they're not forcing growth. We have to lift in the gym and break down muscle for muscle to grow back stronger. What resistance is your kid getting in their practice? And so if they're not training the way the exam measures, they're setting themselves up for failure. So our— we're leveraging our teachers' time with your kids' time focused on those free response questions that is gonna make or break your kid from getting a 3 to a 4 to a 5 with that feedback cycle. And then it becomes an iterative process of take the exam, get the feedback, improve, do it again. And most kids, in fact, I'd probably dare say 90, 95% of kids out there, probably more, of test takers are not gonna take 4 timed practice exams. Before their test in May. We do, and that's why our results are what they are. So we force students through that process because we guarantee outcomes. And that is our test prep process in a nutshell.

So good. I'm going to share my screen really quick because I do want to touch on— at the end of, at the end of all of this, I want you to understand the scholarship process because if you listen to the average person, they will tell you, my kid is perfect, they did this, did this, they didn't get in or they didn't get money. You know, so far this year, we're about halfway through the application season, our students have already received over $5 million in scholarships. So I want to break it down very basically for you here. So, and I'll tell you where the APs are going to fall in. So the need bucket, This is for families who earn under $200K. The independent bucket, this is going to be if you're a vegan, there's a scholarship for $10,000. In the institutional bucket, this is what we're talking about right now. The institution has big money. Right now, Harvard has $53 billion in endowment. They can give away money like nobody's business. So it's important to know The institutional bucket is one that most people don't know how to tap into to do financial negotiations, reconsiderations. And so tonight I'm going to be offering your family the opportunity to calculate your student aid index. That is the first step to understanding how much a school should cost you. Then with Dr. Joe's nice calculator, you should have a really good idea idea of how much those APs will help you. So between the two, you should have a really good idea of how much that institution will cost your family. Then there's the merit bucket. This is the one they earn. This is the AP Scholar bucket. This is the one where they stand out. Few other important statistics is the FAFSA looks at the second semester of the sophomore year and the first semester of the junior year. You may be in it right now, and you want to make sure that your money is not in your child's name. They will assess that significantly higher than money in your name. There's areas where the FAFSA looks and where they don't look, and it's really important that you know what bucket to put your money in to get the best opportunity. So the FAFSA and the CSS Profile, they're the government way of helping you navigate financial aid. CollegeReady is— we're more than just college admissions. We're really helping you help your child find who they are, what matters to them, and improve how they've gotten— how they've accomplished it. As well as tapping into all of the scholarship money. Even if your family can write a check for the full cost, it feels really good to get recognized for a scholarship when all your peers are doing that. So I did want to give you an opportunity, uh, to reach out. Here is an opportunity for 30 minutes where we can talk about your Student Aid Index. We can talk about how to lower it to increase your amount of scholarships. So AP scores do equal scholarship money. But as you can see, there's 4 buckets. I want you to tap into all buckets. So, back over to you, Dr. Joe.

Yeah, and as we kind of wind down and maybe allow for a couple questions, I put that link into the calculator, and Shellee Howard, I will give it for you guys to post too. Um, that it's in there if you want to start filling it out right now. I'm also going to drop a link to my team members if you just want to bypass this whole thing and talk to our team about getting help for your child's AP exam. I'm going to drop that link in there, um, but I will do encourage you to fill out the, um, the AP score calculator just to see potentially what is there because again, um, like I have my, my student Samisha, who's a senior right now, her dad had no idea. They had like— so that means they didn't have a plan. I mean, they— we helped them a little bit with some college guidance, but they kind of winged it, and they were not targeting any real big schools. They did get into UPenn, but they got into Ohio State, which is their dream, to go to med— medical school there, Michigan State, and a couple others. But they had to reconsider their entire college profile because Ohio State gave them very little money because they're in-state, they live in Columbus, and Pitt, Michigan State gave them tens of thousands of dollars. So again, don't wait until it's too late. You're attending this webinar, you should be proud of yourselves. You actually care about your kid's future. So like, you— we're giving you tools tonight to put in action, so use us as resources to help you guys navigate this complex system of college admissions.

So good. So are— is there any questions that you have that you would like us to answer before we sign off for the evening? I will get you started. Somebody messaged me and the question is, how many AP classes and exams How many exams should a student take?

A good question. It's really going to depend on what the goals are. You know, if you're just trying to expose them to, to college, a couple is fine. But if you are seeking top degrees from top schools, you're going to have to push that over 5, 6, probably 7 or more exams. So you need to introduce that rigor just to make it a little bit competitive. But there's not a one-size-fits-all solution. Colleges know that. That's why there's the Common Data Sets that they look at the academic profile. So basically, if you're trying to get into a top school, take the most rigorous courses offered is what I would say, especially in the area that they might potentially major.

Do you have the question?

Yeah. Sorry, can you mention again on whose name FAFSA should be?

OK. It— that's a great question. So the FAFSA is started by the student. They have to log in and create a student ID. They're not the ones who are going to complete the FAFSA. After they have their student ID, then the parent needs to go in and get a parent ID and connect it to their student ID. So this is where the big problem exists. Statistically, 87% of families who complete the FAFSA do it wrong, and that is why I have job security. I— it is unfortunate and it's super frustrating, but parents, please read everything, every question individually, because if the money is in your child's name, say a 529, is in Jimmy's name, the first thing they're going to do is say, thank you very much for saving all that money for us. Regardless of how many AP, IB, dual enrollment, all of that, you have told them this is eared for the institution. And so if the student has a regular banking checking account that they put their paychecks in, that money is going to go first, and it gets assessed twice as high as the parents. So scholarships is not as simple as I make too much money or I don't. That's not it at all. It's— there are many scholarships that have nothing to do with your financial situation, and then there's some that do, and then there's others that don't. And, uh, we tap into all the buckets, and that's why we're so successful. Many families will not know that you can do a financial negotiation, a financial reconsideration, how to get off the waitlist. We help families navigate all of that. So to your question, completing the FAFSA correctly is really a very important step. It does not ask for the value of your home, yet at least 60% of the FAFSAs that I check, parents put the value of their home. And so it automatically kicks them out of something they shouldn't be kicked out of. So just know it's— you could do your taxes or you pay a CPA who knows tax code. It's a very similar situation with the FAFSA. Do we have another question?

Yeah, regarding AP, my son was told that if he's planning to take AP Lit next year as a senior, he can only take credit for either AP Lang or AP Lit. AP score. Is this true? Is that for the college?

That is not true. So he can only take credit for either? No, he can take credit for both.

Yeah, at colleges. Yeah.

And it will depend on the college though. I will say at the Ivies, then they don't give you credit for any of it. You, you get to use it to get in, but they're not giving way free credit to anybody. And so it just— it's what you need to be competitive to get accepted. But at many schools, you— I mean, my third got out of a whole year of college because of his AP credit. So just know that it can absolutely give you a huge value of, you know, giving the student time back.

What are those AP courses accepted, accredited at all colleges? It really does depend. I mean, there's— common are your histories and your, and your Englishes, honestly, because, um, like, the chances of your kid having to take an entry-level English class and an entry-level history class in any university is extremely high. And so those often can replace those classes regardless of major. If you're going to go into medicine, they're probably going to want you to take their biology. They're probably going to want you to take their chemistry. If you're going into engineering, probably going to have to take their physics. They're not going to care that your high school teacher taught you AP physics. They want, they want you to go linear through the program. They also want your money too. But what ends up happening is some of the credits don't work out in direct, um,, you know, filling, it can roll over into elective credits. And so you can get out, you can get out of some of the required elective credits faster too. University is universal. So in America, we still believe in having a well-rounded education at the university level. So even though you might be hyper-focused on STEM, they still want your kid getting exposure to humanities because In case you didn't know, AI is taking over very fast. And when our robot overlords do take over, we do want them to care for humans. So we want to make sure we put that in the code there.

So, so crazy. So what it, what it's really important is once your student figures out who they are, what matters to them, what they're, what they've done about it, then they're going to look at here are careers that is a good fit, and then they're going to look at here are majors that are a good fit, and then we look at how much money that career or that future will provide for that child, and then we look at will AI be taking it over in 4 years. So it's really important that one, you can no longer go in undeclared, undecided. That's That's gone, poof. That went out with the caveman days, my kids tell me. And so your 17, 18, 19-year-old is being forced to pick a major. And here's the problem, not every college has every major. And so when I talk to families and I can show them, well, at the school that's your dream school, they don't have your major, they are shocked. They are, now what are we gonna do? Picking your college list, your reach, comfort, and your safety schools are really critical for scholarships. So it is a plan, it is a strategy. The more time and energy you put into it, the more money you will get out of it. So just, I want, I want to inspire you to encourage your children that testing is not optional. Even if it— the school says they are today, tomorrow they can flip the switch and make it required. And if your child didn't take a test, they can't apply there. So how optional is it to not take a test? If your student has test anxiety or they have a reason why they can't test, then that's another essay that we need to craft.. But just know it kept students out of applying to certain schools this year because at the last minute schools went test required and they weren't prepared. They were planning on optional. So hopefully that helps. And we are out of time just like that.

Our flew by. Absolutely. So again, we dropped the links. We will have the replay, I think, published hopefully pretty soon. I know our Team is already talking about it in the Slack channel, so we'll get that pushed out as well on YouTube. We'll drop the links. Shellee, I'll share— make sure you message me off, off this. Well, I'll get your link in our community. I'll give you our link, your own link for your community. And yeah, thank you guys for your time. Hopefully this was helpful. Appreciate you and see you next time.

Thank you. Bye.