In this presentation, Shellee Howard, CEO of CollegeReady, explains her "Passion with Purpose" project—a structured, purpose‑driven approach to college planning that begins as early as 7th grade. She argues that colleges look for authentic evidence of a student’s interests, leadership, and sustained community impact, not just generic service hours. Howard describes how she helped her own children discover career interests by pairing service with leadership roles, testing passions, and reflecting on outcomes. The program guides students to identify what they love, how they want to serve, and whether they lead or follow, turning those experiences into compelling college essays and scholarship applications. Howard shares concrete results: over $17.6 million in scholarships awarded to students in the past two years, and multiple success stories across diverse career paths. She invites parents to schedule discovery calls and attend a webinar to learn how to support their child’s journey, emphasizing that the ultimate goal is to develop confident, purpose‑driven young adults who graduate debt‑free.
Chapters
Hello, this is Shellee Howard, the CEO of CollegeReady, and today I have the opportunity to share with you one of my favorite parts about planning for college. Many people ask me, how did your son get into Harvard? That is not an easy thing to do, and I often refer to his Passion with Purpose project. That's what I want to share with you today. The Passion with Purpose project is more than just community service. I like to let everybody know I believe that all community service is good, and I believe that that's what colleges want students to do. But what does it take to really get into the college of their dreams? Colleges want to know who is your student and why do they matter, or what matters to them. On the college application, they will have the opportunity to share what they've done over the last 3 years and how they did it, how often they did it, with who they did it. Did they lead it? How many hours a week and how many weeks a year? So with all of that in mind, we know it's coming. So we start working with students in 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and even some at the early side of 12th grade to help them figure out who they are. So a passion Life Purpose Project is something that I created years ago, actually when my son was in 8th grade. I wanted to help him understand what he wanted to do for a career. He knew he loved helping people. He knew he loved science. He knew that he didn't have to study very hard to get A's. What did we do with all of this knowledge? We tested it. Just like anything else, we planned, we prepared. So we started talking about what's important to him, who he wanted to serve, how he wanted to serve, and most importantly, leadership. He was the freshman class president, sophomore class vice president, junior class president, and ultimately ASB president. Now, is this the plan for every student? Maybe not. But if that student has a dream school, that dream school wants to see why that student would be successful at their school. Leaders lead other people to success. Leaders have a vision. They want to solve a problem, and they want to lead to get it completed. So a Passion with Purpose project is more than just Sign up and show up. So like I mentioned, I believe all service is fantastic, but for a student just to sign up and show up and tutor, it's not going to say very much about who they are and what matters to them unless they want to be a teacher or they want to be some kind of instructor. But what is that really sharing, and what are they learning from it? It feels more like a punishment to them than it does to something that should be amazing. So then what's better than that? Well, what we do is we help students first to find out what are they passionate about. This college planning process should be fun, and it should be led by, by them and what, what's important to them. I get really passionate about this myself because I feel sometimes students do things just to get into college. That is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to develop a young adult who will be successful and happy in life. How do we do this? We help them to test the water. So while they're serving their community, doing something they passionately love, they find out, do I like to lead or follow? Do I like finance? Do I like marketing? Do I want a desk job? Do I want a research job? When they are serving others, they step out of their comfort zone and figure out who they are. I speak to so many students every day. I truly speak teenager. And what I can tell you is they're frustrated. They don't know what they wanna do. They don't know how to get there. If this sounds like your student, I highly encourage you to hop on a call with me so I can help them. Having a discovery call is the easiest way to help that student figure out what is their plan, what is their path. Are they going to college? When are they going to college? And why are they going to college? Don't be a statistic. Don't let your student get into college, change their major 5 times, and graduate with a, a major that has no job. We want students to know what they wanna do, and many people believe that they don't. I'm here to tell you they do. My firstborn is an orthopedic surgeon. My second is a registered nurse. My stepson is going to be broadcast journalism. And my youngest, my stepdaughter, is going to go study international business at Prague. So every one of them is different, but everyone figured it out because of their Passion with Purpose project. They didn't know automatically. They knew that being an entrepreneur like myself might not be a good fit for them. So what will your student do? Will they continue to shrug their shoulders and be, I don't know what I want to do, or will they rise up in confidence and say, yes, these are my 3 top careers, these are the 3 opportunities of how I'm going to get there, And then they will be so confident, their essays will be amazing. And it all starts with the simple gesture of giving to another. When you serve, or the student serves another person, they receive so much. It is my belief that if every 17 and 18-year-old did at least 200 service hours our world would be a better place. College Ready's mission is to help students not only get into college, but to graduate with, with no debt. My son did it, my daughter did it, and my next two are on the same plan. It can be done. It's not easy, and it's not going to be written on Google's wall, but I can tell you the College Ready plan has helped hundreds of thousands of students. In the last 2 years, our students have earned over $17.6 million in scholarships on top of need-based. How did we do it? It all starts with a Passion with Purpose project. If this sounds like you are a candidate to want more information, I have good news. I'm going to be doing an hour-long webinar on how you can support your child through this process. The links will be in the information below. We would love to have you on the call. Please help your student prepare for their future and help them figure out who they are and why they matter. Thank you.
