Masterclass: Path to College Success—Maximizing AP Exams & High School Planning with Joe Sebestyen

Alright, let's get started. Outstanding. Well, welcome everybody. My name is Shellee Howard, and I am the founder and CEO of College Ready. I am so excited to share with you some amazing, important things about not only getting accepted into college, but doing it without going into debt. So Joe, Mr. or Dr. Joe, sorry, sorry, Dr. Joe.

No worries.

Dr. Joe is here and he is the AP guru. And so I am so excited for him to share. I'm going to kick off the meeting and then I'm going to transition it to Dr. Joe and we're going to go from there. So Please put your questions in the chat. We will do our best to get to those, and we are going to go ahead and get started. So I like to share with families a little bit about my story and, and why I do what I do. It will help hopefully clear up why this is so important to me. So very briefly, and then we're going to get into the how to graduate debt-free, because everybody wants to know by the time they hear my story. So, uh, when my son was in 8th grade— um, speaking of that, if you could put in the chat what age your student is or what grade, that would be incredibly helpful so we can speak to that age group specifically. Um, so when my son was in 8th grade, he came home and he's like, Mom, I know exactly what I want to do when I grow up. 11th grade, awesome. And, um, I said, he said, yeah, I know exactly what I want to do. And I'm like, well, what is it? I did not know. I changed my major 5 times. It was totally the opposite of that. He goes, yeah, 8th grade. There we go. He says, I want to be a brain surgeon and I want to go to one of those top, top colleges. He didn't even know the name of one, just top college. And I said, wow, what happened today at school? And he says, oh, the high school counselor came and asked us to pick classes. I'm like, did you pick them? How, how did you know what to pick? And he goes, yeah, I just kind of picked the ones that sounded great. And I was like, oh, we're in trouble. So fast forward, I went back to school and I got my master's degree, and then I became a certified independent college consultant. He actually did everything I requested him to do, and he ended up getting into 11 colleges. 7 of them full ride, attended Harvard for free, graduated pre-med in 4 years, went on to UC San Diego Medical School, and he is a 5th-year resident at UCLA as an orthopedic surgeon. He will graduate from all of that with $30,000 total in loans. So when you think it can't be done, I want you to know it can. My second child did it at University of Alabama, my third at San Francisco State, and my fourth is getting a dual European-US degree for $27,000 in total. So why do I share all that with you? You may not care about scholarships, but I will let you know how great it feels when you get one. Even if you can write that big old check, Your student worked really hard and they want to get acknowledged for all of their effort. So please know this is not a need-based kind of situation. This is a middle class, upper class, everything class, everything in between, on strategies that you can use. That's what we're going to share tonight. We want you to be able to use what we share and get into college and graduate without debt. So that is our goal tonight, because that is our wish for every family. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen, and I'm going to start off a little bit different than I usually do, because I wanted to speak directly to you know, who's in the room. We're going to be talking a lot about testing and strategy, and I wanted to kind of set the overall umbrella, and then we can get into the APs and how impactful they can be, especially to save money in college. Love it. So without further ado, I'm going to jump into the how. Um, we are able to do this because I want you as parents to be able to do this. So at College Ready, it's important for us that every family gets a return on their investment. College is not the end game. College is the middle, right? They graduate from high school, then they have their college experience. Now they may go on and get an MBA, a PhD, law, whatever that is. But when they graduate, will they have a job? Will it make enough that their family can live on their own? And how long will it take for them to be able to buy a home or whatever that is that they want? So I just released my second bestselling book, and it's called The College Admissions Plan Simplified. Because so many families were contacting me and saying, Shellee Howard, I'm overwhelmed. It's more expensive than it's ever been. It's more competitive than it's ever been. How do I even start? And this is what I want to do. I want to simplify it for you. I'm going to go rather quick because I want to get all of this in. So sometimes it seems worse than it is. And I like to start there because if any of you on social media I'm in those chat rooms and I'm scared for you. I, I, the things that are said are terrifying. And what I will tell you is they're not all true. And unfortunately, it leaves a bad situation. Last year we had 29 seniors graduate. They received over $9.2 million in scholarships. That's a lot of money. There is more money than anybody can possibly need or want. So if these are any of your questions: when and where do I start? Does this process have to feel overwhelming? How do I make my student stand out? I'm scared I will let my child down. How do you start a passion project? What if I don't What if I didn't grow up in this country? How do I find the best fit college? If you are asking any of those, that's what I'm going to dive in tonight. So our goal is to give you information, but more importantly, next steps. The next thing I'd like you to do is write down either in notes on your phone or, or a piece of paper and make 3 columns. The first column is Parents. The second column is student. Third column is, um, other. As I go through all of the things tonight, I'd like you to put the thing we're giving you into one of those columns on who will be responsible for getting that done. So let's start with the academic plan, right? Because first they have to get in. If they don't get in, we don't have to worry about scholarships, do we? So who will plan the 4-year academic rigor? How many AP? How many IB? How many dual enrollment? How many college classes? What will they do this summer? That's the GPA and the rigor. And then who will plan the testing strategy? You, your child, somebody else? Will they take the SAT, the ACT? How many APs will they take, and PSAT. I know it's a whole nother language. Testing is huge, and I'm not going to steal the thunder. I'm going to keep moving on because we're going to dive into that in a moment. Who will help your child stand out? Will it be you, them, or somebody else? Our students in this last year have put together an organization, a 501 now, And it was all because of somebody's passion. And it's called empowereducation.world. I highly suggest checking it out. Free to join for your child. And we help students lead other students to make that change. This year they built 2 schools in Uganda, raised over $28,000, earned 10 national awards and 4 leadership certifications. This is what colleges are looking for. Who will plan the extracurricular? Okay, when they're not in school, colleges want to know what did they do, how many years did they do it, how many hours per week, and how many weeks per year. And it starts from the day they promote from 8th grade. So thank you for putting in the grade that you're in because it helps us to know what we can speak on. The next thing is leadership. Who will help your child decide which leadership they're going to step into? How to apply, how to run for it, what, which is the better leadership? Super important. Then we get into letters of recommendation. Remember, teachers don't get paid extra to write all of these letters of recommendation. You want to be very kind and very strategic. Actually go in for extra help during lunch or before school because the teacher needs to get to know you. So who will build that plan? The parent, the student, or other? Then if you have the opportunity to interview for a college, who will prepare the child? They're twitching and twirling and all of these things they've never done before. Will you do it? Will they learn how to do it, or will you get help? Then we get into the essay. The essays are the icing on the cake. But think about it. When they apply to college, there are colleges they have to write zero essays, and there are colleges this year, one college, 18 essays, one college. That's a lot of things to talk about. Does your child have 18 things to talk about? Who will do it? Who will plan it? And then ultimately, what is going to get them recognized? This is my son when he was being welcomed in his white coat ceremony, and I will never forget when he came back and gave me a hug and he, he said, Mom, I couldn't have done it without you. I want that for your child and for your family, because right now there's two, there's two paths you can take. The path of bury my head and wait and see, or the path of let's be proactive and go and get it. Then we have the financial strategy. Do you see the thing at the top that says testing? That is why We have a webinar on it tonight. Testing done well equals dollars. More on that soon. You understanding your EFC, or now stated as SAI. This is basically how much colleges think you should be able to pay. Without knowing that, you're putting your family in a financial situation that you don't even know. The FAFSA looks at the second semester of the sophomore year and the first semester of the junior year. So if you are a junior or senior, you're probably going, oh, we missed that window. If you're younger, you're going, yes, we are not too early. This is fantastic because the FAFSA is easier to get money than the CSS profile. So the sooner you can start and navigate this side of things, the better. If you have a 529 plan, I definitely want to talk to you. I am not a financial salesperson. I don't sell any of the financial stuff, but I can educate you to see if the 529 is a good plan for your family or not. It almost cost my son $63,000 a year at Harvard because I saved money. So there, there's some strategy to that. Understanding what is safe for your retirement, where should your cash be, what does insurance look like, and how do you graduate debt-free? All you have to do is go to college ready plan.info., and I will give you a free, total complimentary evaluation so you can see if you are college ready. So here's what I'd like you to put in each of your columns: the academic strategy and timeline, passion with purpose and your standout strategy, essay strategy and timeline, testing strategy and timeline, application strategy and timeline, research, internship or entrepreneurship strategy, extracurricular activity strategy, the financial strategy to graduate debt-free. It is possible. Leadership timeline and strategy, where to find the perfect fit colleges, career choice and future plans. Understanding how much your family should have to pay, the opportunity to earn national awards, and understand how to get off the waitlist and financial negotiations. This is what we do with all of our families. I want you to know so you can either choose to go do it on your own or choose to get support. That is completely up to you. We are unique as far as college consultants go because we care about the student first, then we care about their acceptance, and then we care about what happens after college. So we have a team. We are made up of a team of, uh, 7, and so we're very much focused on the student and on the parent. Most of the time the parent feels so out of out of touch with all of this. It's important that the parent is there to support what is being asked of the student. Creating a standout strategy is critical, and it's what it takes. No longer is it a GPA and a test score. That's the foundation. We want to help the student pick their career, pick their major, pick what that strategy looks like, so they can graduate debt-free and have a career to get started. The best place to go is to our website, which is college ready plan.com, and read our testimonials. 77% of families are referred to us, which is the best compliment ever. So please know we believe that every student should have this opportunity. I have had a custom portal built for all of my students. It's password protected, and I'm happy to go into the details with you on a discovery call. I can show you the test score you need to get into the dream school you want, the GPA. I can show you what's important to the school and what's not important to the school for any school in the world. This is who got in last year. This is not something you can even Google. Ultimately, if you're just looking for a little support, our support starts at $7. We're not here to just bombard you with a barrage of, you've got to do this. Maybe you can handle this on your own. My newest book is on Amazon right now for $0.99 because I wrote it to support families like you. So just know. It doesn't have to break the bank. We can support you. And this is the best way to reach us. Again, I think it's important that you know what it takes to get into college, but now I'm going to turn it over to the test guru, um, Dr. Joe, it's all yours.

Thank you for that introduction. I appreciate it. And again, thank you for having me on your webinar tonight. I'm really excited to be back. I think we met 2 years now. It's been a while, right? So, and love watching you grow as well. And yeah, I appreciate the intro. Again, my name's Dr. Joe Sebastian. I'm the founder of Supportive Tutoring. We go by The Facebook group named AC&AP Exams. A little background on that. I was a history teacher for 7 years. I moved into administration and, um, I was a tutor during my teaching years, but I actually got back into tutoring during the pandemic. Missed some positive interactions with kids. Uh, tutored for 2 years, test prep mostly for APs, did really well, and then started my own company in '21. And we've grown since then pretty exponentially. And, uh, we're, you know, our mission right now, we, we helped 100 kids ace their AP exams. We've helped a couple hundred kids ace their AP exams. We're looking for our first 1,000, and so on and so forth. And we actually recently expanded to include more AP courses as well. So, you know, I'm here to talk to you and just discuss a little bit about missions with APs. If you don't know what they are, they're Advanced Placement exams. They are college-level classes offered in the high school. It's not to be confused with dual enrollment or college in the high school. AP is a separate curriculum run by College Board. Uh, College Board, you know, also has the SAT. And, um, so it is a great opportunity for your child not only to take college-level classes in high school but also earn college credit if they get a high enough score on the AP exams. And that can amount to saving time and money in colleges, and I'll get, get to that as well. But it is, it is important to understand this— the vast scale of the APs, just like with college admissions. And I'm going to run through this pretty quickly, so So there will be a replay. If you have any questions, go ahead and drop them in the chat as they come up. But last year, or sorry, in 2023, 2.6 million students took at least one AP exam in that year compared to 1.3. So AP exams in terms of access have grown. They have doubled in 10 years. And the most popular AP exams are AP English Language, AP US History, and AP Psychology. Respectfully, over half a million students take those, um, alone, and those are some of the most popular classes offered. Not every high school offers every AP, but a lot offer that. Um, 14.2% of students scored a perfect 5 in 2003, and that 5, the score is— the scale score is on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest, is a perfect score. But that's only a 70%, 70% or higher. A 50%, believe it or not, is a 3, and 3 is passing. So some classes have different averages, but usually about 14%. So your child has a 14% chance of getting a 5, net, by national statistics. Um, students who score 3 or higher can save thousands of dollars on college tuition. Uh, for example, passing 5 AP exams could save up to $10,000 to $15,000. I've seen numbers way higher than that. I'll get to a testimonial later, but it really depends. You know, 5 is the goal, but it doesn't have to be the only thing, especially if you're looking at the UC system. If you're looking at a couple other big systems like Texas and Florida, they're very, very generous with their AP credits. And you— and in terms of getting the score of like a 3 or 4,, and amounting to sometimes 4 to 8 credits at like a UCLA. The students who take STEM courses are more likely to pursue STEM majors, and it's shown to boost confidence and college readiness in technical fields. So over 85% of college and universities consider these scores during the admissions process, with many schools seeing them as a sign of rigor. So, you know, as Shellee Howard has said about test optional, we want to get away from that test optional thing because If your child is taking an AP course, they do want to do well on the exams. And students who take AP courses are, are like more likely to graduate from college compared to their peer, uh, peers, 62% there, that is. And many high schools offer weighted GPAs for AP courses, so that can help your child's boosted GPA, sometimes getting up to a 5.0. Um, the problem is there's a high fail rate on these AP exams, so I want to separate the AP exam from the AP course because are two different things. And I don't know if I stress this enough, but your child's exam score— or sorry, your child's grade in the class has nothing to do with how they'll do on the AP exam. How many watching right now, just by saying yes, uh, have a child or a student taking an AP exam, um, right now? If you could just let us know in the comments. Got one, Couple. All right, cool. So if they have an A in the class, great. If they have a B in the class, that's okay too, but it doesn't mean they're gonna do well on the exam or do bad on the exam because grades are arbitrarily made up by the teacher. The AP curriculum is controlled by College Board. The assessment's controlled by College Board. So hopefully they're preparing, but there's no guarantee. So it's a great booster of your GPA. Like I said, 40, 50% of students fail the exams. That means 1.2 to 1.3 million students only scored a 1 or 2 on their AP exams in '23. Out of those test takers, 1.2, 1.3 missed the opportunity of getting some college credit and some college savings without, you know, SAT scholarships, anything, because this is direct savings. Around 40 to 50% of AP test takers scored below 3 each year. So this is not like a one-time thing. This is a trend, and it's not uncommon to see that. AP Physics 1 is the hardest exam to pass. It used to be followed by AP US History. AP US History dropped out of the top 10 because they kind of eased up on what they accept for answers on their written part. But AP Physics 1 is still number 1. Um, 60% of students are failing that exam, um, with 40% earning a 1 or 2. Or sorry, with— yes, excuse me. So the, um, With 40% passing, 60% earning a 1 or 2. That was incorrect. We see a high fail rate in first-time test takers. Disproportionately, they often struggle with preparing and knowing the expectations. And so these are some of the toughest AP exams historically to pass— physics, AP Government and Politics, AP Environmental Science— for a variety of reasons. So why do these students— because guess what? AP students are high achieving. They're smart kids. If your child's taking an AP class, congratulations. You're in the top third of the nation. But still, smart kids fail every year. 50% will fail every year for a variety of reasons. There's misaligned grades with AP preparedness. I, I said that was an important point. Um, you know, their grades do all often reflect effort and participation but not actually the skill mastery for the AP exams. There's inconsistent curriculum alignment. Not to pick on my friend Shellee Howard's home state— or home state of California, right? Or no? Transient state. But, um, I've worked with several students from California, unfortunately, that their, their teacher did not finish the curriculum. They were like, they left 2 to 3 units untaught going into the AP exam. And so this, I think this number is much higher, but statistically, 27% of AP teachers do not fully align with their instruction. Unfortunately, I've still worked and I, I still see it every day in terms of overall educational landscape. I still work in a school, and, um, you know, I am, I'm a principal by my day job. Shellee Howard and I were talking before, and, um, the quality of teacher applicants— I have seen a significant drop after the pandemic. There's just not a lot of quality teachers coming out of colleges right now. It's few and far between. That's being seen nationwide. I'm not saying, I'm not saying anything in terms of good teacher, bad teacher. I'm just saying the quality of the product— that's— there are teachers that are going into classrooms underprepared, and that's going to translate in a variety of different ways. Consequentially, there's also veteran teachers that haven't changed with how AP has changed, so they actually haven't adapted their curriculum to meet the higher standards. So there's also difficulty with time-standardized testing, and I say this all the time because I'm an AP History guy. It's one thing to do a free response question at home as a project for 5 days versus under the gun, 45 minutes, delivering a top result. That is not necessarily practiced in schools. And like I said, AP History, you have to write 3 different types of essays and answer 55 questions in under 3 hours. That does take a skill. Also consider depth versus breadth. AP exams demand both deep understanding of, of content and broad knowledge, and usually you get one or the other. So AP US History, we just cover the content. We try to get through everything, but we don't actually try to seek to understand it at a deeper level. So students who excel in class discussions and essays still might struggle to recall some of the information for the exam. This is my best example of, if you were in education, you ever hear of Bloom's Taxonomy? Higher order cognitive domain thinking skills. Most APs are taught down here, understanding to remember, just because It's— class moves fast, school year is not that much time, but the AP exams measure evaluation, they measure analyzing and applying. So if you're not actually being taught the skills, you're not necessarily being prepared. There's a lack of resources and supports. A lot of, a lot of schools have not sent their teachers to the AP Institute to get trained and certified, so they lack the actual resources necessary to teach the quality of the curriculum. A lot of kids sometimes make the mistake, and I'm not— and I have kids in our program that are taking 4, 5, and 6 APs. It's a lot, but sometimes we're overcommitting just for the sake of doing as many, many as possible without that strategy. That's why people would hire a college consultant like Shellee Howard to help understand, you know, is taking 15 APs right for your child, or is a more appropriate strategy of like, what is my child interested in, and let's show some excellence there because that will lead to burnout, especially in junior year. For some reason, our juniors, God bless them, they take like 5, 6 APs. They have to take the SAT. They have to worry about college admissions. They worry about their GPA. It's like, okay, no wonder. It's like that, that it's, it's a lot. It's a lot. So you want to approach this in a proactive way, not a reactive way. Uh, test anxiety. My, my doctorate, my dissertation is, uh, Shellee Howard mentioned my doctorate. My research was on Mental health literacy for high school educators. I don't believe in test anxiety. I believe in lack of prep— preparing, right? I don't— there's literally— you cannot tell me you will have test anxiety if you've done the test 6, 7, 8 times. It's just impossible. So good prep reduces test anxiety, but kids will go into the test underprepared. And then overconfidence. On the other end, I have kids that have A's. I'm good. And then I literally have taught every year. A kid comes to us having— they had an A in the class, they thought they were good, they did no prep, and they failed the exam. So those are some things as well. Um, we talk about the specific subjects, but what can be done? So obviously targeted prep, focusing on critical thinking, argumentative construction, and data interpretation. Practice testing. Do, do not, do not— if you want your child to get a 4 or 5, Do not rely on the school. I am sorry. The school has pacing. I've worked in a school now for, I'm going on 16 years. Every spring, it's spring fever. Kids go nuts. Everything's like, there's so much distractions. Like, you're lucky if you get any weeks of test prep in, but most of the time we're just finishing teachers. Like, it just doesn't happen. Um, like, 2 weeks of test prep before the exam's not enough. Even a month of test prep's not enough. We start our kids at 12 weeks. By the way, we're 13 weeks away from the exam. We start our kids between 12 and 16 weeks because we found the greatest success with 90 days. Princeton, one of our competitors— I, I could be honored to be called a competitor of Princeton— but Princeton, they have guaranteed programs as well, and they guarantee, but their guarantees drop off after 90 days because the advantage of time and because of how much we're putting on the kids. But good practice testing as well as prep does take some time. And then also supporting, making sure our kids are getting support for skills, not just content. So they actually learn how to do the skills of the exam, not teaching to the test, teaching the skills. And that often doesn't happen. So again, why students fail: lack of prep, insufficient course rigor. I see a lot of projects. I'm working with a student out in Illinois, shout out if you're watching, but you know, their mom like is very frustrated because a lot of the grade, a lot of the assignments have nothing to do with the AP exam. It's like so mis— they're writing essays that have nothing to do with the 3 types of essays. So it's very frustrating, but that happens all over the country. Um, time management challenges. There is a required mix of multiple choice and free response questions. If you're not practicing like you are going to play, if you're not practicing with the time constraints, you're not prepared correctly. And then also the first-time test takers. So what this means for parents and students, it does not mean if your child fails an AP exam, it's an overall failure. They still gain valuable skills. Readiness GPA Boost. But support systems do matter. Proper coaching, personalized preparation, and practice. Many students can, can improve their odds of scoring a 3. So just to kind of like get a little self-promotion, just our success compared to national average, and we don't do anything miraculous, we just have good solid foundational prep. But over 95% of our program students have scored a 3 compared to 60% national-wise, a difference of 58%. In terms of top scorers and acing the exam last year, longitudinally, not— we, if we go to 90 days or more out, we are actually— numbers are better. But overall, even kids who came in with 4 or 3 weeks left, 70% scored a 4 or 5, um, 3 times the national average. So our program focuses on improving AP test scores by an average of 30%. National average is only 10 to 15. We double the improvement rate. That's a college impact. So our program, historically, students have saved over an estimated $500,000 annually in tuition costs by earning college credits. They've had a higher success rate for in college and graduating on time. Um, you know, students sometimes, like, I think the growing statistic of like 40%, I think, actually graduate on time and graduate. Some don't. Crazy. And so we've had over 250 students enroll annually in our expert coaching. We now offer over 20 AP subjects. And sometimes the exposure generally, like, the— there's only 2 or 3 offered in your school. We've served— I'm proud of this too, because I know Shellee Howard has done a lot of charitable work as well, especially internationally. 35% of our families served our first-generation Americans. We get a lot. First-gen Americans, immigrant families. Um, so we're higher than the national average there, and students in our program have gotten into top schools, not just Ivy League but other top 25 schools and some great state schools as well. Um, and so just on average, kids have improved in our program, um, and we've collectively earned over $1 million in scholarship annually as well as we did our study. So Really, really pumped about that. Uh, the best gift of all though, I mean, besides those is that I love checking out with the kids right before their AP exam, the confidence they have, checking in with them after the test that they felt ready. That's my greatest gift because I know I didn't prepare for my AP exam. I did not do well. It was on prom day. I'll give myself an excuse. No one else was in school but us. It sucked, but we had very little prep. As much as I love my teacher, we have very little prep. But the greatest gift is that the kids felt like it was easy, a piece of cake, walk in the park, because they were ready. So engagement and support, our comprehensive program. We offer group classes, we offer one-on-one coaching. You know, our most popular classes, like I said, the history, psychology, English, and— sorry, I was going through this. I don't know what I think we— I'm lost in my presentation, Shellee Howard.

I apologize.

Okay, I'm trying to get to That's— we're supposed to go here. Here we go.

All right.

Comprehensive coaching. I don't know. I'm— Canva and my mouth do not cooperate. So a couple highlights, like Avery got into University of Michigan. She scored a 4 on APUSH, 14% nationally, scored a 4. Combined with her other AP classes, she reduced her credit load, getting into a competitive nursing program to the University of Michigan. She's from California. Shout out the West Coast. Taylor was a homeschool student with us. Self-paced. I saw a couple questions on there, we'll get to that in a second. Um, she was a homeschool student with us, um, in Tennessee. She's trying to go to Stanford. She's still, um, she still hasn't completed high school yet, but she got two 5s and a 4 last year, part of an overall strategy we put together for her. Eliza got a 5, um, in AP World. She's now taking 5 APs with us, um, same system and process. She did amazing. Um, David got confidence where he did not pass or get a high enough score on his AP exams before, earned a 4, got college credit. Gonna be a music— he's a multi-talented kid that's in the arts and music as well. Uh, Bryce was one of my, I would say, golden examples of a kid from Michigan, soccer player, busy soccer player, traveler, uh, traveling soccer, uh, committed to the program, literally group classes and one-on-one test prep, got a 5, piece of cake because of the structured support. Um, Peyton, first-time AP student in Georgia, um, struggled with a couple things early on, but it became stress-free and she ended up getting a 4, um, in AP Human Geography, earning college credit. Gabe got a 5 from his APUSH exam, very proud of that. He re-enrolled with us, did some more as well. A couple other highlights Christian got a 4 on AP US History just last year. Um, Natasha is now an anchor. This was years ago. Natasha is an anchor in, uh, in news in Syracuse. Uh, just her writing skills carried over to there. Nebula, who helps with some success and helps with some mini college planning in our program, she actually got 30 credits to Columbia University. This was with IB, but a lot of the strategies we taught her back in the day we teach in our program. And so she leveraged early action, which is something Shellee can explain, and her advanced credits to save $65,000 going into Columbia. Laika graduated her medical program early. A couple other athletes did really well and earned college credit while continuing the dream of playing in college as well. And we have more and more testimonials after that. So we're very proud. Would love an opportunity for you guys to join the list of many students and their success stories. We have a growing team. It's not just me. We've hired many, a variety of tutors and coaches. All of our people in our program are AP certified, either college professors, high school teachers that have been to the AP Institute, or AP graders, which is unique. And so we, we specialize in like one-on-one support through that. And so a gift to your audience tonight, Shellee Howard, and if you guys are watching, hopefully you're not watching on your phone, but if you can, and we'll share the link too, but I have a free gift for you. Um, it's a free AP College Transfer Quiz. So what this is, is if you're curious how much money you can save at your child's dream university by leveraging the AP curriculum, scan this. It takes 1 minute to fill out. Put all the colleges you might be interested in, put all the AP classes your child might take. It will give you a free report. There's an option to book a call with us. That's not mandatory. But the report should come to you via a Google Doc. And then we can actually have someone go over the call, go over the doc with you and kind of tell you a broader strategy. But, you know, anyone that's in Shellee Howard's program, happy to share those results. If, if Shellee, we can look at the attendance list, I guess, after and can give you those reports as well. Happy to share them with you. So yeah, I welcome any questions. Sorry, I rushed through that. I want to make sure I'm respectful of the time, but Um, what do you think, Shellee Howard?

Okay, so I tried to answer some questions as they were coming in, but, um, there is one. Could you please type the name of your tutoring company or Instagram account?

Yeah, so, um, the best place to find out about us is on Facebook groups at AC and AP exams. And I told Shellee before we went live, unfortunately In the world we live in, our Instagram account, ACP Exams, got hacked and got shut down. So we have to rebuild that. Uh, so the, the group is still active under ACP Exams. My company's name is Supported Tutoring, but, um, believe it or not, when you start a business and have a website, the, uh, the, um, people don't just come to it. You have to have marketing strategy behind that and everything. So we actually started a website called Supported Tutoring. Got like no clients. This was way back in the day. And then we started a Facebook group and we got clients. So we've slowly built this company completely off of a Facebook group. So that's the best way to access us and get in touch with us as well.

So here's another question.

Sure.

AP classes versus community college classes. And then it says, I'm guessing California. Shellee Howard, you want to speak to that?

Yeah, great question. So it really depends on what the overall strategy is, right? And this is something that is the, the, the word I want all parents to realize is, is reciprocity. So reciprocity is the light, like basically accepting a credit from another university at a different university. So I talked to a lot of parents from Texas about this because college and high school or dual enrollment or community college programs have grown in popularity. One of the reasons is because they're competing with APs, because APs don't guarantee the college credit unless you pass the exam, and even then it's sometimes complicated to navigate, whereas you're getting credits in those places. So it really depends on the overall strategy of your child. If your child is looking to go to a top 25 university and you're going to take a community college class for exposure, great. If you're taking the community college credit for transfer, the likelihood of Harvard accepting a community college credit is kind of like none. Like, so, so just keep that in mind. Now, if you're okay with that, if you really— if, if this community college has reciprocity with the UC system and that is the goal, then I— all— by all means, like, that is a good strategy. Um, There's nothing wrong with that. AP is just another option. I try to avoid getting into Facebook fights, but people comment on our other page on Facebook about dual enrollment's better and this and that. And this is like the— and so the thing is, you know, I don't believe education that we should lower standards. And I'm not saying dual enrollment lowers standards, but a lot of the reasoning of these parents is because there's a guaranteed credit, they don't have to take an exam. Um, and I understand the frustrations with AP. I totally get that. With dual enrollment, it's not offered as wide-ranging as APs. In some bigger schools it is, but it's just simply not as popular as AP, um, in terms of scale. And second, it's like, so what dual enrollment is, is the high school teacher teaches a college curriculum, and as long as the kid passes the exam, they pass, they get the credit. But that does not guarantee any level of college readiness. And so if you're afraid of standardized tests, I mean, oh boy, you're going to come into the ACT and SAT as well. So like, unfortunately, it's part of measuring where kids are. So if you're just grade chasing, just paper chasing those grades, like, and not actually making sure the kid actually has the skills necessary for college, I do believe you're setting your kid up for success— for failure. So if you're going to— you're going to put your kid into a top university, building those skills right now and challenging them is a good, good strategy. Yes.

So while you think of your questions, I'm gonna speak a little bit now to wrap it up. We still have plenty of time, so just put your questions in. But I want you to think about this, um, parents and students alike. It's all about choices. Every student wants the dream school but may not want to work hard enough to get there. And so it's important to think about, one, can your child handle that rigor and do well? Because the flip side is that they have a high GPA and a low test score, and now colleges are thinking, wow, maybe they have grade inflation at their school. Did they really learn enough to do well on a test? So you don't wanna put that question in the admissions reader's mind. The best thing would be if your testing all matches your grades. That would be like in a perfect world. The other thing is, don't feel bad if your school doesn't offer enough APs to keep you challenged. Again, it's a choice you get to make if you want to do college-level work. So please do not do what everybody else is doing, because how will a college choose your child over the other child if you're all doing the same? You want to have your child really focus on their gifts and talents, the things that they came to just naturally, and then you want to downplay Don't have your child take AP European History if your child does not like to read. It will be a disaster for all involved. That class has sunk more ships than any other AP exam over the last 17 years. Is that true, Dr. Joe?

Yes, absolutely.

When I get a student telling me, I want AP Euro, and that's their first one they've ever done, I'm like, Okay, how do you feel about reading? How do you like European history? What's your thoughts?

Yeah, so the, um, AP Euro— because California has a weird sequencing, no offense— of like, they do AP Euro before. And so AP Euro is actually decreasing in popularity because of AP World has become more Eurocentric, unfortunately. I've always taught AP Euro as a— for 12th graders, um, after they took World and US. Um, the thing is, you don't need to do both World and Euro because chances are the colleges aren't, unless you're gonna be a super history major, you're not gonna get your, that credit is only gonna replace a World or Humanities. The AP US History has a much more likelihood you're, I didn't mention that too and I'll get to that in a second, but the European history is like, you're now knowing the entire history of European history at a depth level and a lot of kids that are young don't actually have that. Like they just don't have the background. That's okay. But it is a challenging course and might ruin it early. I've helped a couple of kids from California get unstuck in AP Euro. So yeah, that's important.

Oh, that's beautiful. Okay, another question. What extracurriculars should my student take to stand out in college? So in another college application. So think of it like this. Every university, college gets to choose what application they use. It could be the Common App, the Coalition App, the UC App, a private app. That's number one you want to think about. Number two is on the Common App, there's a place for 10 activities, honors, and awards. On the University of California, there's 20. So when you say, what extracurricular should my student take to stand out? I would come right back and say, what have they done? How long have they done it? Can they write an essay about it? Will it tell colleges who they are and what matters to them? It's not just check a box, do the thing. That actually is the opposite of what you want to do. If you do community service and you check a box, the essay may read, "My mom made me do this homeless feeding thing and I don't even want to be there." That is not the essay that you want to share. Our students start with their passion, advocate for something or someone, use their passion to lead others to create that change. That's what extracurriculars should look like to help your students stand out. Happy to discuss it on a discovery call. It is really unique and has to be. I mean, if your child wants to go STEM, it's going to look very different than if somebody wants to go VAPA, visual and performing arts. So I don't want to just say a thing because it's not going to help you stand out if everybody's doing it.

Um, can I add to that too?

Of course.

Um, so the most important thing when you talk about stand— like that, Pat, like in passion projects, um, and that— and I think it's important because I will— I've talked to so many parents in terms of looking for college admission support, college counseling, and, you know, they hear their friends are doing this, their friends have done this, friends are doing these internships and these things. Like, it's— if you're doing what everyone else is doing, you're not gonna stand out. And the most important word in passion project is passion, and passion has to come from authenticity. If you're just doing it because it's going to look good for an Ivy school, it's fake. You're gonna— they're gonna sniff you out. It's not hard. These people are experts. Why do they want your kid in their school? You know, especially top 25, they're looking for your kid to represent the brand. So it's as much an interview for you as an interview for them.. And so they're not like— they get kids that have top scores. I guarantee you that they're going to have top SATs, top APs, top grades. You have to do something that stands out. And so those 9th grade parents, those 10th grade parents, those 8th grade parents listening out there, authenticity does not mean you have to pay for it. Like I've given this example, a kid who's interested in building computers, um, and You could literally start a blog about computers or writing about it. If your kid has the discipline and the coaching to make one blog post a week for the next 4 to 5 years, they're going to have— first off, the SEO is going to be great, but they're going to have 200 posts building up a blog of like interest, things that they're interested in. That's really hard to fake. Right, for a college, then that's, that's, that's authentic. I've had kids we work with in high school that have turned a service project, have turned community service into a foundation and a nonprofit to give back. That's passion, that's authentic. So don't just, don't just jump for the shiny object syndrome. Really, really, it does not have to be directly aligned to your kid's potential degree or college career or career. It can be something that they want to see, something that they are actually passionate about and unique, and that's how you start to build that profile to stand out.

Yeah, no, that's— I mean, there's so many directions you can go. The one thing that I just want to circle back on, Terence, is students, when they meet with me, they will tell me, I've done this and this and this and this. But if I ask them, tell me in your own words, what would you write an essay about? They're like, oh, I wouldn't write an essay about that. That's— that was boring. I didn't even want to go, but my friend dragged me along. And remember, 20 activities, honors, and awards, like, that's a lot to do. And so it's important that you also remember that an international award beats National beats a regional, beats a school, beats a club. So if your child's doing a zillion hours at clubs like, you know, Pokémon or whatever in their high school, that's not the same as getting an international award or a national award. Again, it doesn't have to cost your family money. It just has to be thought about. How do I take my little idea that I'm really fired up about and make it grow. I'll finish with an example of this. My second born saw pictures of when her brother came back from Kenya, and she was devastated that the little girls did not have any pretty clothes. Total fashionista. This is real passion right here. She was devastated when she saw them in dirty, yucky clothes. And I said, so what do you want to do about it? And she goes, well, I want to, I want to, I want to make them pretty dresses. And I'm like, but you don't know how to sew. She goes, that's okay, YouTube does. So she went on YouTube, she asked for a sewing machine for her birthday, she got everybody in her high school to bring gently used pillowcases and drop them off at the office. She took them and then she led other friends, Friday pizza night, music, lots of fun making pretty little dresses out of pillowcases. Then they ran into the cost of shipping them, so they thought that through and they ended up sending them with Doctors Without Borders, who not only took them there for free because they're light in their suitcase, they took pictures and video and put it on their blog. Do you see how one thing— that's what colleges are looking for. That's what got her a full ride at University of Alabama. All right. That's what I'm passionate about as well. So if there are no further questions, we are 5 minutes early, and we would like to say thank you for your time. We've given you ways to reach out, and I hope you found this valuable. We will send the recording and, uh, Just so thankful for Dr. Joe and your time.

Thank you, Shellee Howard. Thanks for having me on. I'll see you soon.

Okay, take care.

Bye-bye. Bye.