Unleash Your Student-Athlete's Potential: Balancing Academics and Athletic Performance

Welcome everyone. If you want to go ahead and put your student's age, location, and if they play a sport, what sport. I think it's really fun to see all the different sports that show up. So name— I'm sorry, I have your name. Where are you? Geography? Age of your child and their sport. That would all be fantastic.

And more sports, multiple sports. Yeah.

Can you really do that anymore?

Right?

Yeah, we can talk about that too.

Awesome. Elisa Viejas, 17, baseball and track.

Hey, there you go.

Cool sports.

Way to go.

So I'm always impressed when a parent's on a webinar and they have multiple children in multiple sports. I'm like, wow. Wow, that is super impressive.

They're probably sitting in a parking lot somewhere.

Exactly.

Uh, 16 Soccer Texas, excellent. So we're gonna go ahead and get started, everyone, and as people just keep coming in, we'll welcome them as well. My name is Shellee Howard, and I am so excited you are here this evening. I want to make sure we are recording.

Uh, uh, uh.

Yep, we're recording. Good. So we can give everybody the feedback. Miss Carrie Anderson is on the call. She'll be in, in the chat answering any questions you all have. Miss Kirsten Jones, go ahead and take it away and welcome parents.

Thank you, Shellee. Thank you so much for having me. Let me figure out how to get to my screen. I'm so excited to be here. I know you guys, everyone's busy. You might have multiple kids, you might have multiple activities going on, and making time to listen in on this is, is a huge pleasure. My name is Kirsten Jones. I'm a peak performance and sports parenting coach and mother of 3. Mine are 24, 21, and 18. I'm a former Division I volleyball player. I played at San Diego State and then William Mary, but I grew up playing all the sports under the sun. Back in the day, in the '70s and '80s, we just played what was in front of us. And I want to talk to you tonight about how it's changed, how it's evolved, and how we can be the best versions of ourselves to help our kids through this journey. So really, there's a triad that we want to talk about is the parent, the athlete, and the coach. We all have a role in making this a great experience for our kids. And when we are, you know, in our best version of ourselves, then we give our child the best chance to also enjoy the ride. And coaches, you know, about 30% of youth sport coaches get any coaching themselves. So I know it's, you know, if you've been on a team where you've been frustrated with the coach, a lot of times they've been thrown a clipboard and a whistle and a roster and they said, great, you played in college here, now go coach this team. So we all need to be aware of our own blind spots so that we can help and support one another. When I got pregnant with my first, I remember, I think I got at least 3 copies of this book, What to Expect When You're Expecting, right? And I see some head nods. And you are just like, it's the best gift because you're like, I'm going to be the best parent ever. I have the Bible. I know exactly what to expect every single— it's the size of a lima bean. I'm doing really well, right? You get super excited about it and you think this is awesome. Like, that's what we want as parents. Remember then delivering the baby and thinking, they're going to let me go home with this? Like, you're, you know, like, how, how am I allowed to bring this little one home with me? Right? And then fast forward to kick and chase or T-ball or whatever, 4 or 5 years old, and you're standing next to some Yehu on the sidelines who's like, we're not doing this rec thing. Like, you're not doing club. You don't have a travel. You know, you don't have a pitching coach yet. Like, you're behind. Well, I had played sports all my life, all the way through college. I had worked at Nike with some of the best athletes in the world. And yet, as a mother of young kids, when I got to that stage, I thought— I looked around and thought, is this right? Like, is this the way this is supposed to go? So I wrote the book that I wanted to read, Raising Empowered Athletes. You know, I don't have a PhD in this. I have a lot of lived experience. And now I work with parents and their athletes and clubs and schools to help bring some, you know, hopefully sanity to this very crazy $37.5 billion business that is youth sports. The opening story, or one of the opening stories I have in the book, true story about a parent who had hired a plane to fly over his son's baseball diamond that said, "Fire Coach Smith and Coach Kowalczyk." Not because the team was losing, not because they didn't like the coaches. In fact, everybody actually really liked both of the coaches. But because his son wasn't playing. We need to check in with ourselves about what messages we're sending, not only our kids, but everyone around them as to what we value. The game is changing a lot. As I mentioned, $37.5 billion, they're projecting it to be a $50 billion business in the next 5 years. But what we know about kids is those who remain active into their 20s are less— more likely to be active and healthy. They're less likely to suffer depression, anxiety, and overwhelm. We're specializing way too early. We're cutting out all the fun because who needs that? We need to go to the U9 national championship, whatever that is. And we're compressing what this experience is meant to be for them. If you look at just the NFL, 91% of them were multi-sport athletes that came, that are playing in the NFL. We want to keep them playing. I'll go a little deeper on that and how, how we can, when, how and when we should specialize. But what we know too is less than 7% will go on to play past high school, D1, D2, D3, any level. So if we think we're signing our 5-year-old up for kick and chase because we want a full ride scholarship, we're doing it for the wrong reason. And I have a lot of parents who say, I don't care about the full ride. I don't even care about my kid playing in college. I just want him to make the high school team. And that's the reality is now even making the high school team has become a super duper challenge, right? It's really hard to even make a high school team if your kid's not on a club team. I was speaking out in Pasadena a couple months ago and the head of the school came up and she said, so how do we do this? And I said, well, how many no-cut sports do you have? And she said, oh, we have a lot of no-cut sports. You know, we have badminton. And the mom standing next to her said, No, we don't. She said, my kid went out for badminton and he got cut, right? Like even badminton. Okay, I understand soccer, but you know, we're, we're making it harder and harder to even just participate. What we know are girls are dropping out at twice the rate of boys. Girls who drop out, 70% of kids are dropping out altogether by age 13. And that's causing what we know are 90, 94% of girls in C-suite positions, women in C-suite positions played sports. We want to keep them playing. I joined Nike in 1995 where the best ad I've ever seen came out and it's called, "If you let her, let them play, less likely to have breast cancer, more likely to leave a man who beats me, less likely to suffer depression." These are the reasons we want to raise athletes for life. And what's happening when we stick them into one sport really early all the time, 13 months a year, no breaks, we're forcing them into early retirement. Their bodies can't sustain what the pro athletes— I call it the professionalization of youth sports. Their bodies get really broken down. And even those who really love it, even if they've become really good, I know my oldest is 24 and he had multiple friends who've had back surgeries, knee surgeries, you know, sports hernias. It's, it's not sustainable for the long run. And we as parents want what's best for them. And that goes long after the ball stops bouncing. We want them to learn skills like here are all the good things about sports, executive functioning and time management and mental toughness and leadership, growth, resilience. Those are the lessons that most of us will get that will take you to college and be effective, to take you to the boardroom, to take you to the White House, wherever it is your child, you know, wants to be. We want to keep them playing for life. And I like to say, if they're under 13, parents, focus on the 3 Fs: friends, fun, and fundamentals. Get them into a team where they can meet some new friends, where they can have some fun, and a coach that really wants to teach, that's not so worried about their record, that isn't worried about saying, yes, I've won the most championships in this league. Our barometer should be how many kids sign up for sport the next year. That's an indication they had fun. When I see 7 and 8 and 9-year-olds dropping out of sport because it was such a miserable experience, That's when we're losing out. And, and who's really losing out? Our kids. Parents, avoid the fourth F. FOMO. Yeah, but they've got a private coach. Yeah, but they're going to Sweden this summer. Yeah, but— yep, we got to stay in our lane. We only get 18 summers with them. Going to grandmother's 80th birthday party means you might miss that one club tournament. It's okay. Having to sleep out in the backyard where that's not going to happen. I'm not saying Yes, just do what you want to do. And trust me, I'd lived all of this with my own kids. But I am saying you need to be protective of what your family values are so that when you're done playing, you look back on it, and even more importantly, your kids look back on it with a smile and a, wow, that was really fun. So there's a little bit from the adult's perspective. But let's hear what the kids have to say about how they want their parents to show up.

Oh, shoot. That my parents, if I play bad, don't say anything. And if I play well, it doesn't really matter if they compliment me on how I play.

I just like, I don't know, I prefer my parents to, I don't know, not talk to me so much. I can hear them like cheering me on and I'm like thinking in my head, "Just shut it, I'm trying to focus." My mom yells in Spanish, like, "Go, go, go!" My mom just says, "Use the backboard, Shellee, use the backboard." I get angry because it annoys me. I'm kind of embarrassed. She tells me to get in the position that my coach told me not to get in. I'm like, "Well, no." And then she's like, "Get in your position." I'm like, "No!" I get a little tense when I have a certain score to get, and she's like, "You've got to get that whatever score." And I'm like, "Ah." I don't like it when they try to push me even more. Even though I'm trying really, really hard. Coming from the coach's mouth is kind of better, I feel like, because your parents are there to support you and your coach is there to help you, you know? She starts screaming, "Valentina, run faster, make a basket!" But I just start going slower every time when she says that. The other people were like, "Wow, that mom is like really—" wanting her kid to win. In my inside, you can't see it, but I'm inside saying, "Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet." Sometimes I just look into space. Try to listen to them and then do what they say to like, so they don't start yelling again. I don't really want them to give me that much advice because then I might forget it all. Sometimes I get nervous when they yell and nobody else is yelling. Sometimes they can embarrass me, like a lot. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What's going on? Um, we're just trying to do this, but you want us to try harder? Well, I am. I'm not going into a game not trying my hardest. That'd be like messed up. Yeah, it's a lot of pressure. Sometimes when they try to get the ball in basketball, you kind of think in your head that they're kind of like gonna push you and you're gonna fall and hurt yourself. They don't need to like always be like telling me what to do like every minute of the game. They kind of just gotta let me play. I love when you say it like really nice. I got it, Mom. I'd like to look back and I'd like to see you like smile or like give me a thumbs up. Mom, I wish you would be a little bit quieter. Say like, "You played good," and like, "You probably— you can get them next time." When they smile and say like, "Good job." Mom and Dad, thank you for loving me. I love being my supporter. When I'm upset, my mom and dad cheer me up.

Sometimes I forget about all the work that they do for me.

Be my biggest fan. We need a lot of love. I want you to know I need big hugs. I love the snacks that you bring me. It makes me happy when you always encourage me. Thank you, Mom and Dad. Please just be my mom and dad. Yep, that's it.

The only words they need to— 6 words they need to hear: I love to watch you play. How many car rides— well, that coach was awful, and that kid, you're better than him, and why did he not play you, and I can't— I'm gonna go talk to your coach. No, we don't need to, and our kids don't need to hear that from us. They need to be supported. Half the time, by the time they're halfway home, they've forgotten about the game already, but we perseverate on it, right? Like we want to talk about it. We want to, my rule usually with my kids is like, just let's get home for sure. But if you can wait till the next morning, say, hey, you want to talk about that game last night? Most of the time, like, nah, I'm good. But if they want to talk about it, ask them, what do you want to talk about? How did that go for you? We're snowplowing both in the classroom and on the field or court right now. That's the parenting style that we've gone into. We're going to talk about academics and how important that is. But I saw that happening again when my kids were— my youngest was in, or middle one was in first grade, where I went to a parents meeting. We were getting ready for a picnic. We sat down at the table and all the moms said, have you done the book report? Have you done the book report? I thought, we were supposed to do a book report for this meeting? No, no, no, the first grade teacher. She says the book report's due on Friday. You haven't done it yet? I'm like, I haven't done anything. But I went home and asked my 6-year-old, Parker, have you read the book? He's like, I don't know. Have you done the book report yet? I don't know. I go into the classroom a couple weeks later and here are these mobiles hanging from the ceiling. And the first grade teacher, Mrs. Cunningham, is smiling at me as I'm looking up at Parker's. It's got like globs of glue and crayon and, you know, all this stuff coming off of it, and it looks like a 6-year-old's work. And she says, some parents don't think I can tell who did the work, but these ones that are perfectly spaced, 24 font, no spelling errors, with beautiful pictures all cut out, you know, I get it, we all want our kids to succeed, but when we start Then in first grade, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll just do this one. And sure enough, fast forward when that son was a sophomore in high school, same thing around the dinner table. Hey, how'd the physics project go? That was okay. I got a B, but you should have seen Dave's. His was amazing. He had a trifold and had it all. So I asked him like, man, you must have spent a lot of time on that. He said, nah, I let my mom do it. She likes to do it. Right? We need to let go of taking over for them and doing everything for them. My book came out in August of '23. I've been going around the country speaking everywhere. I didn't originally have this slide in, but I think we all need reminders, and I truly do not believe there's not a single parent out there trying to mess up their kids. We're all doing the best we can, but I like to think of it as a little angel on my shoulder when you're sitting on the sidelines. And be voicing to yourself and/or your spouse or people around you, what are the reminders you need? Cheering for everybody. Cheer louder for the other kid than for your kid. Encouraging your child to advocate for themselves. This goes in the classroom and on the pitch or court, right? If there's a problem, hey, do you want to— with younger kids, I say, let's role play it. I'll be the coach. You be yourself. What do you want to ask the coach? If they're really young and you have a very small child, shy child, sure, you can go with the coach, but just remember that's a superpower that they're learning is I need to stand up for myself. And when they go in there and they have a successful discussion with a teacher or a coach, that's, that's agency, that's a win for them. And that's ultimately what we're trying to get out of this whole youth sports experience. Ask your kid after a tough loss, hey, do you want to talk about it? You know, I just— it was great to see you out there. I love to watch you play. And let it be at that. If you need to buy a lollipop for every game or go take a lap, that was what I would do if I needed to. I couldn't deal. Some— our emotions get the best of us, but our kids' heads are on swivels, always looking to see what mom or dad thinks. And if your emotion is always So disappointed. That's where I see kids opting out. They don't want to disappoint us. And when it becomes so evident— I had one girl who was throwing up before games, 16-year-old, very good future D1 soccer player. And I said, what's going on? She said, well, my dad texts me in the middle of my soccer games. I said, what? How does that work? Well, when I go to the sidelines for water break, he Look in your bag. I go over to my backpack and in there is my phone and it says, why did I even bother coming? I don't think he's a horrible person, but he's making a really bad choice about empowering his daughter in that moment. As the kids in the video said, nobody needs to hear you're having a bad game. We know when we're not performing well, right? Just think about any time you've gone in for a presentation and it didn't go well. You didn't need 10 people to remind you of that. I always like to challenge myself at the next game, outing, swim meet, whatever it is, find a kid on the other team. Go point them out. It costs you nothing. Wow, that was an amazing shot you hit. Oh, you played such great defense. Watch their eyes light up and their whole posture change. Maybe they had a bad day, but they made that one really good play that they can take with them. Don't spend all of your time criticizing the refs, the coaches, yelling at the other team. I was at a volleyball tournament in Kansas City, 16,000 kids there, and I walked past a court and saw a dad yelling at his daughter. The daughter's in tears, bawling her eyes out. The mom looks upset. I just heard, I don't know what the situation was, but I heard the dad say, why did I even bother coming? You and your mom can waste my money alone next time. Oh, right. Just, I don't think, I'm guessing if he had a do-over, he would take it. That's not, you know, he probably was upset for whatever, they didn't play well or they didn't win or she didn't win, but that is not serving your child in that moment. Don't spend the car rides home rehashing, blaming, name-dropping, because all your kid is hearing is, is that what they think of me? And of course, don't heckle the other team. Don't post on social against other teams. And I only say that because I know of instances of that happening. So what is our role? Sorry, I know I need to wrap it up, Shellee Howard. I'm going to go fast. But here's one last video. The two-time national championship, back-to-back national championships in men's basketball. Dan Hurley was asked how he recruits kids, and he talked about Guess what? The parents landscape now in college basketball.

How are you continuing to get kids who buy into that?

Yeah, I think you— there's measurable talents you have to have, right? The, the height, the speed, the skill set. But we spent a lot of time really focusing on, on the parents. The parents? Yeah, on the parents. Are they, are they going to be fans while they're on campus of their son, or are they going to be— or are they going to be parents? Are they going to, um, you know, hold them accountable, um, have an expectation that when something goes wrong, um, that it's not the coach's fault, that it's, uh, their son's got to work harder, he's got to do more, he's got to earn his role? We've got a real old-school culture here of accountability. Um, I'm an old-school coach in terms of The tone I take with my players in practice, the expectations with effort, um, the focus on, on winning and we over me. Like, what does that mean? Have they played on 7 different travel teams? Have they transferred to 4 or 5 different high schools? Um, when you talk to the parents in the recruiting process, are they constantly complaining about the coaches after a bad game, or are they you know, sending you a text or you having a conversation, you know, where their son has got to do more, he's got to play harder.

He goes on to talk about how, you know, he immediately will take out a 5-star recruit if he calls it neon talent. He goes, I'll pass on neon talent when I see kids who don't elicit these 10 things. And here's the really good news. It's not about height. It's not about, you know, how you were born. All of these 10 things we all have 100% control over 100% of the time. Are you on time? What is your work ethic? What is your body language? That's the biggest one I get when I work with athletes and talk about what happens. Oh, my body language gets really bad. Your energy, your attitude. Are you coachable? Are you passionate? I just had the USA women's volleyball coach on my podcast, and he was talking about, he goes, I remember a woman who happens to be a friend of mine now who said, She was trying out for the '96 Olympic team. Her energy and effort every single day in the gym. And then she'd come up to me after practice and say, what do I need to do, Coach? He said, when it came down to the wire as to who I was choosing, I chose her over 3 arguably more talented athletes because I couldn't not have her on my roster. These are the things we should be gauging as parents about ourselves and how are we modeling all of these things and how are we holding ourselves— oh man, Boy, did I miss the boat on that one. I totally— we were late. That was my fault. Showing them that we're not perfect either and giving them permission to make mistakes. This is do— give it your best effort. Do your best, not be the best. And when we do that, they get permission to take big swings, to fall flat on their face and go, oh, that was interesting. Let's try again. Wrapping up really quick, the last, you know, message I want to leave you with is a little boy runs into the kitchen with a caterpillar and says, "Mommy, can I keep it?" And she says, "Sure," and she gives him a jar. And a couple weeks later, she sees him flying out of the kitchen with the caterpillar in a cocoon. He comes back 15 minutes later sobbing. She says, "What happened?" He said, "Well, I was trying to help help him. He was his— he was breaking out of his cocoon, and I ripped open the cocoon for him, and his wings aren't strong enough, and he died.

He didn't make it.

Parents, stop ripping open the cocoon. Sometimes they need to struggle. Sometimes the struggle— how are they going to finish that project? How are they going to, you know, get, get onto a playing— get the playing time they want? How are they going to get onto the higher team? We humans learn when we have adversity. Usually it's not the, oh, it was easy sailing, right? What hero story do you know of where they just sailed off into the sunset with not a headwind in their insight, right? No. So I like to have the little saying, let them, let them. And particularly in these first 18 years, if we let them have failures, opportunities where they can learn when they're with us, Those are the best times because they're going to have them out in the brave new world too when they leave us. And we want them to feel empowered and we want them to have agency over the decisions that they make. So thank you so much for listening. Again, my name is Kirsten Jones. You can find me at KirstenJonesInc.com and find my book everywhere books are sold. And the podcast is called #RaisingAthletes.

We're on weekly. Thank you, Shellee Howard. Outstanding. Wow. So I was rehashing. I don't know if this happens to you parents, but I was going, was I that parent? Was I that parent? Each of my kids, I'm like, did I do that? And interesting enough, I remember being the parent going, you know, you're going to have a boss someday like that coach, and you're going to have to learn how to deal with that kind of person. And so I'm sure I had my moments, but thank you so much for that. It just really brought into that fresh perspective. So we're going to switch gears a little bit now, and we're going to talk about, as a student who wants to go to college, will they be a scholar athlete? Will they be an athlete that tries to go without scholar, or are they going to try to blend the two? To help them really stand out. So I'm going to talk about how do we help blend. I often tell parents it's like this: if you're, if you're a really good academic, you are applying and competing academically. If you are an athlete, you're competing twice. You're competing with the athletics and the academics. So it's really important to remember I'm going to start with one idea and I'm going to finish with that same idea. And the idea is this: a college team, whatever sport it is, has to hold a certain GPA or they get in massive trouble at the university. They could be fired. And if that coach has a brilliant scholar who's a good athlete, who's coachable, they will take them all day long because they're going to raise their GPA, they're going to raise the team, and they are going to make it a wonderful experience. For all of those students who are trying to just get in based on their athletics, the statistics are not good for that direction alone. So I'm going to kind of circle back to that because I want you to see how— why we started with Kirsten so you can get your mindset into the athletics. Now we're going to transition into the scholar athlete. So super excited to share my piece of it is how can a scholar athlete stand out on college applications because they are busy being that very intense athlete, but that doesn't mean that the scholar piece is going to be any easier on them. So let's go ahead and dive in. I'm going to share my screen. Um, for those of you who just joined, my name is Shellee Howard and I am the founder and owner of College Ready, and I'm going to be talking about How will your child stand out? That's it. And it's not the end when they get to college. How will they stand out in their career? How will they stand out in life? So when I talk about standing out, it's not just getting into the name of a school. It's really standing out and being confident in who they are and what matters to them. So before we dive too deep, I had to share this with you, Kirsten. I don't know if you all can pick me out in this mess, but I'm right here. I actually played softball for the USA back in 1984. We had real fancy uniforms. We were actually playing in Hong Kong and China, and my life was my sport, but my parents never showed up to a game. I had quite the opposite experience. This is a long time ago, keep in mind, but I would beg my parents every game, will you please come and watch me? And they just were busy. They both had full-time jobs. And so I drove, like, I would get rides, I would ask parents, I would I would really figure out how can I play. And when I made this team, my parents didn't even know I tried out. It was truly— I went to them and I said, listen, I made the USA team, can I go? And my dad's like, yes. And my mom's like, no, because back then China wasn't quite safe at that point. We were still the big wall. So my mom was fearful. My dad was like, chance of a lifetime. You've got to do this. Now, I was gifted as an athlete, and I worked really hard for my A-minuses. So when students come into our program and, you know, I have the ones that have well over a 5.0 now, and you're like, I didn't even know it went that high., and I have students who are fighting for a 2.5, and everywhere in between. I like parents to know that that child living in their best place can go wherever they want to go. So I just thought I would lend myself out there to say I get it. I did end up playing softball my first year in college at San Diego State, which is we share the alma mater. And when the coach said he was going to pick my major, I said, "Thank you so much, it's been a pleasure. I have no desire to be that major." And he looked at me like, "What?" And I said, "Yes, thank you so much." And so I think, again, it was my mindset of why I was there, because these were my girlfriends. These were like my family. That coach right here, Mr. Baruchy, he is still very much in tune with my life. So I just like to share that sports can be amazing and it can be such a wonderful place to grow up that it's important for us as parents and, um, families to really, where are we at? The check-in, I think, is really what I'm talking about. So today was a really big day. So when I made the USA softball team, that was like huge in my world. And today had another big, awesome day. My book was published and it became a bestseller in less than 12 hours, and it's my second bestseller. And I, I share that because it's the big win that I learned as an athlete. It's— it, it was my why. My why started with these two right here. This is my oldest, and this is his younger sister. And so I'm going to help you see their path and bring it back to how will you stand out. So the firstborn— whoops, let me back up for a minute. The firstborn, he loves soccer, and I was that parent, I'll give him opportunity, I'll let him play club, but he always let it. I said, the minute you want out and you have a good reason for it, we'll talk about it. Not that you just want to play games on your computer, but If you have a good reason, let's talk about it. Well, he actually ended up playing soccer in Europe and loved playing soccer in Europe. And then he came back to high school and the kids didn't take the sport seriously at his high school. And he got really frustrated because he was last defender on the field and he just felt like he was just being beat up 24/7. But he said, you know what, Mom, I've worked this hard. I'm going to see it all the way through, but I think I'm done. I think I'm not going to play in college. And I'm like, oh, I mean, oh, parents, I'm telling you, that was the hardest thing to hear because he was good. He was a 4-year varsity athlete and he was all-state, all-league. And I was thinking, cha-ching, like Yeah, show me the money! And I was like, oh, okay, maybe he'll change his mind. And what ended up happening is, as he was going through high school, he started really falling in love with math and science, and he decided he wanted to be a doctor. And he knew that he was not going to play his sport after college. He knew that that wasn't his path. And so he said, Mama, I really want to start focusing my attention on my career. I don't like what I did, which was so strange. He had this just wake-up call. It really wasn't until his senior year that he really got very serious about where he was going to apply. And his last soccer game in high school, went up for a header, somebody's elbow took across his face and busted his nose from left to right. And it was— wow, it really— I mean, it was not good. And so we rushed him to the hospital. He's okay now, but I will tell you, he never wanted to play soccer again. And it was like Oh, every weekend I spent taking him to games, every, every combine, every opportunity we had. And ultimately he ended up focusing on his applications. Well, luckily he had gotten all A's. He was freshman class president, sophomore class vice president, junior class president, ASB president. 4-year varsity leadership. He was a scholar athlete. So even though we pivoted at the very last position, he chose not to do his sport and just go as a scholar. The best news is he ended up getting a full ride to 7 universities without a sport, strictly on his academia. He got the presidential scholarship at USC and Harvard matched it. So he got to go to Harvard 4 years pre-med in and out, zero cost to our family. He ended up walking on as a row— rower in a boat. He rode in a boat and he had never rode a day in his life. Why? Because he had the mindset of a scholar athlete. He ended up rowing for Harvard against Yale and Dartmouth, and I mean all the Ivies, and he absolutely loved it. That is child number 1. So helping you understand that they can pivot if you have the scholar and the athlete. Child number 2, 4 years younger than her brother, she was determined at age 3. Don't know how this happened. She was watching competitive cheerleading on TV at a friend's house, came home and said, Mom, sign me up for gymnastics. And I'm like, why? He says, well, I want to do what those girls do, tumbling and dancing. And I'm like, all right. So we signed her up for gymnastics. And I'm like, I was like clueless. I didn't know. I was a softball player. I didn't know what the heck that was all about. And before I knew it, her and her best friend were asking to sign up for competitive cheerleading. I'm like, that is a thing. That— what? And so at age 4, she asked to be part of a competitive cheerleading team, a club team. Okay. And she just loved it. I want more. I need more. I want this. I want that. By age 9, she was a world-class competitive cheerleader. By age 12, She was being recruited for college as a competitive cheerleader until one day I was sitting up watching her compete. Actually, it was a practice, and all of a sudden I'm watching her tumble, twist, tumble, twist. She had too much momentum and tumbled right into a block wall headfirst, and my heart stopped. And I was devastated. And of course, I flew down those stairs and I ran right onto the floor screaming, somebody call an ambulance. She ended up having a very massive concussion. She's completely fine, completely recovered. But what ended up happening is she had what they call cheer fear. Didn't know that was a thing either. She never, never tumbled again. And so her dream of being that competitive cheerleading athlete really did not happen. But what ended up happening is she found a love for nursing. She found a love for caring for others and nursing them back to health. And so that young lady decided that her dream school was going to be University of Alabama. Why? I asked her, duh, Mom, the football. And I said, so you're going to play football? And she's like, that's just not even funny. And she ended up not being a competitive cheerleader there, but absolutely loving the whole school experience. Got straight A's, got her nursing degree, and now she's a pediatric registered nurse. In an emergency room taking care of those children like she went through the hospital. So you never know the path they're going to take. And I just encourage you parents, as you navigate this process, to really be thinking about how will they stand out. I'm going to now switch gears and help you help them. I just thought it'd be important to take a little bit of reality, a little bit of our story, and really lean into how do we help our child. So this is it. It's all about the story. You just heard about my son's story to Harvard and my daughter's story to Alabama. They both graduated debt-free because their story was powerful. And so the essay is the opportunity to tell colleges everything about your child, but you can't wait until it's their senior year. This compelling story must start the day they promote from 8th grade, not in a way of, where do you want to go to college? What do you want to major in? No, no, no, no. What are you passionate about? What are your core values? What are your gifts? What are your talents? What do you advocate for? That's your story. So everybody wants to jump to what college do you want to go to? We do it very different at College Ready. We start with the child's passion. We help them to create their purpose and lead others to create that change. Interesting, right? That's not what most people, how they address college admissions. Why College Ready has been so successful. Last year we had our students earned $9.2 million in scholarships, academic only. We have lots of other scholar athletes. We have lots of other need-based, but I like to break them up in little buckets because ultimately scholarships come in different buckets. There's the merit-based, the need-based, the independent, the school-based. There's so much money out there. Harvard has $53 billion they need to give away. I like some of that for you. So it's all about understanding how will your child stand out and how will colleges learn about them. So one thing that you want to think about is it is no longer a GPA. And a test score that gets your child into a college. It can help them if they're a scholar athlete get on a team. So let's get clear, it is still very important regardless of the student. Just to get in, they have to meet the baseline. So I wanted to share with you and show you what it takes to get into a specific college. So let me back out, and I'm going to take you— yep, we have about 3 minutes, and then we're going to take questions. So I'm going to take you into what we call the Vault. The Vault is something that we built for our students that will help you understand how to help your child stand out. So here is the Vault. Vincent is one of my fake students. Every student has their own password-protected portal. This is where Vincent will get his standout strategy that I build for him. Every student needs their own why they need to stand out. So Vincent's standout strategy is built for him, and then he's given resources for research projects, internship opportunities, summer program opportunities. Test prep resources. These are all things that are going to help that student stand out. Then we can show the student what it takes to get into any school in the world. So I think versus picking on just a random school, let's just beat up Harvard for a minute. Not that all of our students go to Harvard, it just happens to be at the top of my list. So what we can tell families is we can say This is how many students are— were admitted. We can show them the ratio. We can show them the cost of attendance without scholarship, who applied last year, who was admitted, and who enrolled. We can even tell you based on early action and regular decision. We can show you the average GPA, the test score. The dark purple is average. The blue is my student. So now you're starting to see at this school— and every school is different— what it takes to get in. This is the part I want you to get really crystal clear on, because every admissions program is looking for a unique student. At Harvard, they consider things and they don't consider things. At some other schools, these are very important or important because Harvard gets the best of the best, right? They're going to consider a lot, but let's take a look at a different college, and then I'm going to answer questions. So let's take a look at, let's say, UT Austin, and let's take a look at their positioning. Well, they have a very similar positioning. So I picked the wrong one to do compare and contrast. Let's take a look at Rice. We, we help students all over. Here we go. So as you can see, Rice has a very different position in what they think is important for your student to have. So if you're just randomly picking things and not knowing what they're looking for, it's really hard to stand out. It's like a moving target. So what we do is we help you understand, here's the target, how do you line up with it? If you don't line up with it, then it's not a good fit school. Interesting. Then we show you not every college has every major. So if your student wants to go into biology, it has a somewhat decent program. If they want to go into business, a little smaller program. Computer Science, woo, very small program. And then we could show your student— this is how I'm wrapping it up, and we're going to go into questions. When a student starts with us, we show them, here are the essays, 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, here they are, you guys. If you can't answer these, we need to go create that experience. When you're applying your junior year, the end of your junior year going into your senior year. Our students are like, Shellee, this is so easy. Why is everybody stressed out? And I'm like, because you genuinely lived your story. So I hope that helps parents, for you to see that it's about the child, not about the university. It's about the child, not the sport. And that is the brilliancy that I thought would be so great for Kirsten and I to partner on this website or this webinar. At this point, are there any questions, Miss Carrie? No questions. Wow. Kirsten, is there any last minute or things, questions you may have for me? I have a few for you. Oh, go ahead. Outstanding. So, you know, for parents who are trying to figure out the process of recruiting, the, you know, they just had signing day, huge day on a, in a high school campus. How do you even know about all that stuff?

Yes, that too is like, it's like the college application process really, right? And it starts you know, long before you get to where you're signing, obviously. And depending on what level of athlete you have, and you know, what we're talking about here are super high academic, and I'm sure you go into it in your— but there's so many great D3 schools that are so high academic where they can get a great education and they can still play their sport and they can have more of a life. They can have more time off. They don't have to do summer school. They're not missing every holiday. So if you, you know, if you have a super academic kid who wants to continue on— I have both of my sons played D1 basketball, one at Boston University and one at Colgate. The oldest one graduated in 3 years. He's now playing D3 basketball at Claremont McKenna, getting his MBA. He's like, Mom, I'm having so much fun playing now at a D3. I think The D3s are what the D1s used to be. Now you have NIL and the transfer portal, and there's so much pressure on these kids. Again, the NIL could be a whole hour discussion too about it's 0.001% are getting any money. That's not why you want to be doing it. If your kid wants to get on the recruiting track, I'm happy to talk to you about it, and I have helped athletes get into college and get recruited. Both of my sons, had zero interest, zero offers out of high school and got full ride scholarships. They went to prep school for a year and it was while they were at prep school back east, they both had 15 D1 offers over the course of time, which kind of reiterates the point you made, which is whose dream is it? If it is their dream, then it's finding the right people who believe in your kid. It can't be mom or dad ringing the bell saying my kid's great. But a coach, a prep school, a college coach showing interest, and you start to form a list of what are the things, the likes and dislikes. What are you looking for? Big campus, small campus, big city, little city, and what kind of coaching style? You know, some kids will want to play for Bobby Knight. Some want to play for John Wooden. I'd play for John Wooden every day and twice on Sunday. I would not play for Bobby Knight, but there's some kids who don't care. So understanding what your kids' preferences are as they get to that point, because that too is its own, its own beast. Absolutely.

And the one thing that I didn't get a chance to touch on because there's so much to this is the financial side of things and scholarships, right? The FAFSA just opened. And for those of you, I think there was one or two that I saw had seniors, you are now in a place of, oh my goodness, what, what do I do? Well, think about this. If you have a younger student, the FAFSA looks at the second semester of your sophomore year and the first semester of your junior year. So regardless if you're a scholar athlete or just a scholar or an athlete, you still need to understand what is the FAFSA, what does it look at, what doesn't it look at. What is your student aid index? How much money do colleges think you can afford? Nobody believes it, but that's what they, they think you can. And how do you lower that? So regardless, you don't have the pressure of my kid has to get a full ride offer because you're working all of the buckets of money and you have all your financial house in order. Your child knows how to write their essays. They're building their story. So really, it's 4 years of fun. Remember, once they leave home, we want them to come back on holidays. And that is the thing I would like to leave you with. Kirsten, anything else you, you think would be important for our families?

Yeah, it's keep checking in, right? What your child wants at 5 or at 10 or even at 15. They change, you know, and so you're, my kid doesn't know what they want for dinner. How are they going to know what they want 4 years from now? Which is why you want to partner with people like Shellee early on to start building from the foundation. And same, it's understanding, you know, again, they thought they wanted it, both of your children, right? Thought they had this one dream and they had to pivot, but because they had the foundation in place, it was much easier to pivot. And P.S. We all have to pivot at some point. You know, the ball stops bouncing for us all. But having that academic readiness and rigor in place is only going to be upside. Every college coach I've ever talked to, every recruiter said, it's really easy to recruit the high academic kids. It's the ones that I really want that have a 2.5 or under that I can't even touch.

Yeah. Well, I dropped in the chat, if you would like a complimentary one-to-one call where we can talk about the academic fit, the social fit, the athletic fit, the financial fit, how it all comes together. Please go to that link, sign up for a complimentary discovery call. If you want a copy of my book this week, 99 cents, can't beat it. Thank you so much, Kirsten. Thank you so much, Carrie. And parents, we are here to support you all the way. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you.