Webinar- How to Create a College Stand Out Strategy

Well, we're gonna go ahead and get started. I really value everybody's time, and I like to start on time. So thank you so much for joining us. My name is Shellee Howard, and I'm the founder and CEO of College Ready. There will be people entering in, but they will be muted upon entry, so please Try not to get too distracted by that. I'm really looking forward— tonight is one of my favorite topics. We're gonna talk about how to create a standout strategy, which always equals big scholarship dollars. I also have a very special guest this evening that I'm going to save for just a bit, and I will introduce her as we go through the process. I wanna make sure everybody's here. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and share my screen, and we're going to go ahead and get started. Uh, if you have any questions, please put them in the chat, and I will answer them, um, as we go along. Uh, if you wouldn't mind dropping in the age of your child or ages and your location, that would be fantastic. And I'm going to go ahead and jump on in. So thank you again for being here. My name is Shellee Howard. I am the founder and CEO of College Ready, and tonight's topic, we are going to touch on 3 big issues: how to, uh, send your student to college without losing your mind or your money, how to create a standout strategy, and how to get leadership that will help you stand out. So it's a jam-packed evening, and so I'm gonna go ahead and get started. So this is my why. My son graduated from Harvard debt-free, which allowed him to go to UC San Diego Medical School and ultimately, uh, become a surgeon at UCLA. My daughter graduated from University of Alabama and CBU debt-free, and she's now a pediatric registered nurse. These two are why College Ready got started. Everybody said it couldn't be done, and what we showed everybody is it is possible. Over the last two years, our students have earned over $20.4 million in earned scholarships. That's on top of need-based. So, um, it's important so everybody has clarity. Our goal tonight is really to figure out the academic fit, the social fit, and the financial fit. And all of that has to do with standing out. So that's what we're going to talk about. If you stay till the end, you are going to hear about 4 fantastic leadership opportunities that are free, and my guests will be talking about those as well as, uh, an opportunity to get a free copy of my book. So this is all about your teen's future. Please get something to take notes and put away any distractions. Imagine what it would be like to see your teen receive their college diploma and not be in debt. The— to rest easy knowing your teen is prepared for the application season ahead. To see your teen earn scholarships regardless of how much money you would do or don't make. So let's go ahead and get started. This is where the problem starts. Colleges— college admissions can be overwhelming. It has never been more difficult to get in or more costly. The solution is a standout strategy. Getting expert advice and planning with a strategy is how you can achieve a debt-free degree. So we have proven this time and time again that the GPA is still a very critical piece of the application, but it's no longer just a GPA and a test score. Long gone are the days where you could apply to just 2, maybe 3 schools and give them a GPA and a test score. That is not going to give anybody a standout strategy because we know Somebody will have a higher GPA and a lower GPA, a higher test score and a lower test score. So we want to be really clear about how we're going to stand out. So these are the things that you're going to want to pay close attention to. Of course, the academic plan. How many APs? How many IBs? Will they do dual enrollment? What— how many APs do they need to take and in what subjects? There is a plan. You can't just wait and see because that is not going to help you stand out. The second one, test prep. Super important. Even if your school is test optional, think about this. If my student writes an essay about how hard they work to get their test score of this number, now how optional is it? Think about everybody has a strategy and a plan. To just not do something is dangerous. Having a financial strategy, we're going to talk a bit about the FAFSA, the CSS Profile, the Expected Family Contribution. All of these will make up your financial strategy. Then we have the application submission. This is a critical piece because students are so used to texting that unfortunately they do the same on their college application. So if it says list activities, they'll put NHS, they'll put MUN, they'll— I mean, it's abbreviation, abbrevi— well, They may not know. The reader may not know what that is, or was it hard to get into or easy to get into? So be very thoughtful to what that looks like. The next one is the essay strategy. We have professional essay editors that do not write the essays. They help polish the essays. They help brainstorm to bring out what essay are you going to talk about, What topic will that be, and how will you put them all together? The essay is not just some random thing you're going to share. It's really important that the essay fill in the gaps. If you have a GPA, great. If you have a test score, great. But what else have you been doing for the last 4 years, or truly 3, maybe 3 and a half years? So do not leave this up to just a random essay. It needs to be strategic. The passion project, probably the most critical piece when it comes to a standout strategy. It does so many things for the student. I could talk for, for a lot, a whole— I've done a whole webinar on it. We're going to touch on it this evening when Haley, uh, speaks, but Let me help you think about why a passion project is so critical. One, serving your community is a wonderful thing, a gift that a student can give another person. But also, it helps the student figure out, do I like to lead or follow? Do I like people? Do I not like people? Do I like business? Great, let's go test out those skills while achieving community service. We are certifiers for the Presidential Award, the Congressional Award, and our students can earn 8 nationally recognized awards. These are the things that are going to help them stand out. So it's not just do what everybody else does. That's not going to help whatsoever. Tonight is all about setting your student apart, and that is our specialty. So valuable lessons: what you don't know is going to cost you. Because if you do everything that the older brother, older sister did, or a niece, a nephew, a cousin, a best friend, it will cost you because no two students are alike. Colleges are not looking for students to do the same thing. I'll give you an example. Every one of the students in my program tutors. So if you're super excited your student is tutoring, be very careful because a college is never going to go, "Check this out, my kid, I, I have a tutor." No, that is not going to be helpful at all. If they want a tutor, great, but don't have them tutor because they need it. They don't need it. Here are the ways to decrease the cost of college. Number 1 being a standout strategy. Hands down, number one. Number two is a high GPA. Think about it this way. If you graduate at the top 5% of your class, you are showing you're the best of the best. Well, what did the best of the best get? It's like when you have a resume that's filled with amazing things. You get a big salary, you get a, an office with a door, you get some pretty impressive things. The GPA is the foundation, but it's not the only thing. Test scores are the foundation, but not the only thing. The interesting thing about test scores is every one of my students who got into a solid school this year had test scores. Yes, and they were proud of them. They worked hard for them. So keep in mind, test scores are going to be important. Dual enrollment and AP classes are standout strategies. Look for scholarships with strong merit scholarships, big money, big alumni groups. Choose a college for your student that they will graduate in 4 years. Yes, many schools are now taking 6, 7 years because they're a little overcrowded— no, they're a lot overcrowded. Look for out-of-state public colleges or international schools with special pricing for out-of-state students. The WUE is a perfect example of this. Look for private schools that meet 100% of your need. These things will help you to stand out. Have you talked to your teen about your financials? Is it something your family discusses? Because in a Stand Out strategy, it's very important for the student to understand that college could be the same cost as their first home. So if they don't plan for it, they're gonna have to wait a long time for their first home. So we want the family to work as a team, to be advocates. We help students do financial negotiations, help them get off the waitlist, reconsiderations. These are the things that are going to give them the opportunity to stand out, get noticed, and get the big scholarships. Preparing for college and why it really matters. Many people think about college as the thing, right? Where's your kid getting into school? It's a, it's a brand name. It's a label. But in all reality, college is just a stepping stone. It's really preparing your child, your teenager, for the future. And if you do it well, that really matters. College should be an opportunity for them to explore, to learn, to grow, to mature, to set themselves up for success. That is our strategy. And plan. This is a question I always get off— uh, asked, sorry. When should your students start preparing for college? The answer for me is always now. Regardless of where they're at, they could always be doing something to get them closer to community service hours, a passion project, leadership. Leadership is a critical piece for a student's success. And I'm going to have Haley come and speak to us in just a bit about how your student can get amazing leadership for free. So knowledge is everything in this process. I bring people into your world, your children's world, to prepare you for what's ahead. So the sooner you start that process, the more successful you will be. Teaching your student to love to learn seems like, yeah, that's, that's easy enough. But what that, that most parents don't understand is they see you with a cell phone all the time. They want to emulate what the parent is doing. And so it's very important that the student doesn't do what everybody else is doing, but really focuses on knowledge communication and the college visit. You can start visiting colleges just like you would a museum. When we went to Massachusetts to visit family, my son was in 5th grade. That was his first college tour. That is an important piece for families to understand. It doesn't have to be a big planned-out event. You can walk on any college, ask as many questions as you want, Have a meal and enjoy the process with your child. These things will help them to stand out. The top 3 things colleges are looking for— oh, sorry, let me back up. I touched on them, but I want to make sure that everybody's clear. When you stand out, you are doing the not easy thing. You are doing the hard thing. So students always want examples of this, and let me give you what that may look like. So colleges are looking to know who you are, what matters to you, and can you lead others to create change. Are you starting to see this pattern of what colleges are looking for in a standout strategy? Affordability. Can your family afford college? Can your student afford not to go to college? This generation is doing a lot of questioning on should we go to college. My question is always, if you don't, what are you going to do? I often get, I want to be an influencer, I want to be an entrepreneur, and I am like, that's fantastic. Where's your business plan? And it gets real quiet. So I never tell a student no, but I help them to see they need to be prepared for what's ahead. Or they are going to be shocked when it comes to applying to college. Here are 8 ways to assure that your student gets an affordable college degree. Remember, GPA still number one. Have a testing plan, a strategy. How many times will they, they take it? When will they take it? Uh, SAT or ACT, what does that look like for your family? Encourage your student to take the PSAT October of their junior year. That could get them a free education. Number 4, if your student is taking AP, IB, honors, dual enrollment, make sure they take the test so they don't have to take it again and pay for college credit. Having a strategy and a plan of which colleges to apply and when you should apply. I had a student just today say, you know, um, I have no idea how I'm going to pick my colleges. Can you just do it for me? And as much as I would love to do it for them, that is not a good strategy because the student is the one who will need to live there, who will need to make friends there, who will need to study hard there. Planning your college search is critical that you use the proper tools. Do not Google it. Do not use U.S. News and World Report. Do the necessary research for your success. Encourage— let's see, sorry, look for colleges with strong financial packages and track record of graduating in 4 years. 4 years, 4 years, 4 years. You're going to hear it a lot because students are now taking 6 years and that's a whole nother year of tuition. That is not a good plan. Leverage financial awards. That is how we create a standout strategy. Most frequently asked questions: My student does not know what they want to do or what they want to major in. Is community college a better option? You know, for some students outside of California, it may be a good option for whatever reason— maturity, financial, it doesn't matter. In California, it is an awful strategy because our community colleges and our state schools and our UCs are so crowded that you have to be mindful that it's not a quicker, cheaper plan. It actually can cost you more in the long run. Are Ivy League schools the best option? Not for every student. When I took my daughter to visit her brother at Harvard, she could not wait to leave. She's like, these people are just— they're so smart. I just can't even stand being here, Mom. I want to leave. When we walked on the University of Alabama campus, I couldn't get her to leave. So they know, they know what's a good fit. They know when it feels right. We need to guide them because they don't know how to do this on their own. Is it more expensive? Is a more expensive college going to ensure that a student gets a better job when they graduate? Absolutely not. Does it help? Absolutely yes, because the, the expensive, the competitive, the Ivy-ish are hard to get into, and everybody knows that, so it puts them on a little higher pedestal when they graduate. And they put on their, you know, resume or CV where they went to school. If your student wants to go to school on the East Coast and come back to the West Coast and work, be careful. Will that alumni group help them? And vice versa. What if the career my student has chosen to pursue will not make enough money to cover college debt? This is why we have this conversation early and create a standout strategy. I had a student about 2 weeks ago whose parents were very upset because she wanted to be a botanist. Well, that's a wonderful hobby, but it was not going to cover the NYU of $80,000 a year that she wanted to pursue. I helped her to see if she did a business major and opened multiple nurseries, she could be profitable and still do what she loves to do. So sometimes it's helping students just get out of their own way and give them opportunity without any, you know, without any push one way or the other. You may even be asking yourself, why should I send my student to college if I've done fine without a college degree? Both of my parents did not go to college. I was the first to go. And back then it was, you know, 50/50 maybe. Now they will be at a serious deficit. Even if they want to be a plumber or they want to build cars, do they always just want to do the hands-on or do some someday do they want to own the business? There's a lot of things you can learn in college that will help them to do that. College is not the only option, but it is a really good option for most students. Decisions. What happens if your student does not pick the right college? Uh, this one always breaks my heart because if you don't know how to find a balanced college list— in other words, reach schools, comfort schools, safety schools, academic fit, social fit, financial fit— alumni fit, get out of, um, sorry, get a job once you graduate fit. This can be a game changer for the rest of their life. It's so important when you plan a standout strategy to pick the right schools. Here are some common parent questions about college. Um, where do you start when looking for the best match school for your student. The best person to start with is your student. They have an idea of their gifts and talents. They know what comes easy and what is difficult. So when you think about how do we even start, think about core values, gifts, talents, passions, advocacy. These are great places to start. Student will need to decide what he or she is looking for in a college. Are they looking for a big school, small school, East Coast, West Coast? Are they looking for Midwest? Are they looking to go to a, a large campus or a small campus, a private or a public? These are all things we help students do. It's now time to have your student build their college list. So they figure out who they are, they get clarity about what they're looking for, and this is where the whole thing usually falls apart. I have seen so many sad college lists, and I, I see them after a family tries to do this on their own. I usually get the second child, and they'll say, oh, this, this was an awful experience, um, not with College Ready but not using College Ready. And I'll look at the list and I, I can tell you that that was the number one reason that it was a really tough time, because there's no easy way to do this. There's no easy way to just press a button and it magically appears. We spend hours trying to navigate and present the best college list for our students. Campus visits are still very important. Remember, colleges want to know that your student likes them. It's a lot easier, right, to make an offer if you know somebody's going to say yes. So if they're following them on social media, if they're doing college tours, if they're showing interest, that will make a college stand up and recognize if they make an offer, they will probably say yes. That is how they keep their yield. Use what you have learned on your campus tours and through your research to create an essay that will Prove your student is the best candidate. This is when it all comes together. That standout strategy, the icing is the— I'm sorry, the essay is the icing on the cake. Because you could have the best application, you have done everything right, but if your essay doesn't wow them, they're going to be put in the wrong pile. The essay needs to be thought out. It needs to be, um, strategized about what you want colleges to learn about your student. This is a hard one to do, and I struggled with this one the most with my firstborn. The next one is hire a professional who can help you prepare a balanced college list. That is what we do with the student and parent input. We bring it all together. Now let's talk about the timeline for success. What should you do and your student should do and when should you do it? It depends on when you're starting the process. We start our students as young as 7th and 8th grade. Some people don't even know about us until 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, or 12th grade. So the timeline depends on when you come into the college-ready plan. The first thing we have to do is assess everything you've done, find the holes, make a plan to patch the holes, and create the strategy for a win. So doing that is a challenge because your student thinks they're doing everything correctly, and as a parent, it's not always easy being that person to tell them, actually, you need more community service hours, or you need more leadership opportunities, or these are not the best letters of recommendation. This essay topic is probably not the best idea to talk about. As a mom, this was a hard thing. My firstborn, he, he just went with it. It was super easy. My second, My third, my fourth, not the same. Just depends on the child and how strong they are. But here's an idea: the freshman year, what you can and should be doing. The sophomore year, what you can and should be doing. The junior year, we're starting to ramp it up. And then of course the senior year, putting it all together. So at this time, I'm going to go ahead and introduce our guest. Haley Thompson is going to share with you about some incredible leadership opportunities. I am so excited to have her on this webinar. I just met her last week and I could not wait to share her with you. So, Haley, I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing. I'm going to give you access if you would like to share. And please welcome to the web— webinar and introduce yourself.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Shellee Howard. I'm just gonna chat with everyone. I'm not gonna share my screen today, but I'm so excited to be here. As Shellee said, I met her last week at a college and career fair, and I am from an organization called Legacy Youth Leadership. So we are a nonprofit organization based here in Los Angeles, but we work with middle school, high school, and college students all around the world to help them develop the skills that they need from a leadership perspective to serve them in their college and career futures, but also to help make the world a better place. So I'm so excited to be here to share about what we do. Prior to working with LYL, I worked at the University of Missouri and Pepperdine University helping students in the athletic department who were getting recruited get into the college experience. So I know what it's like for students to be working through that process, and I think what we have is a really unique value-add to students, and I'm going to talk about how it ties into some of the things that Shellee has already talked about. But there are a few things that we hold to be really true when it comes to leadership and specifically students that are in high school trying to develop leadership skills. And those are that skill development is really the foundation to leadership. We often talk to students and we tell them you aren't born a leader, but those skills can be developed. And so within the program I'm going to talk about, we focus first on self and social awareness, goal setting, and strategic planning. Those are really 4 foundational skills that regardless of what a student cares about, what cause or issue they might want to tackle, what group they are a part of, those skills are super important across the board. And so everything that we do is kind of building off of that foundation. The next thing that we do is really track specific skills. Our leadership program is broken into 4 tracks that students can use to make impact on the world around them. So those tracks are TIME, which is all, all about volunteering. Volunteering, giving back to your community and giving of your time to do so. Money, which involves fundraising, because we know that some problems and issues going on in our world need funding for the solution. So we help students develop financial literacy skills and budgeting skills, teach them how to connect with donors so they can fundraise for a charity that they care about. The next is voice. I think voice is probably the most foundational skill that a student can develop when it comes to social impact, but also their career and college success, because speaking eloquently about a topic that you care about is really the one thing that helps move the needle for students. So whether they're trying to rally support for a group that they're a part of, whether they're trying to raise awareness about an issue, we help students understand media literacy, which is a really hot-button topic because students are consuming so much information right now. So we help them understand how to navigate that, how to research in a way that is really true and backed by science. We talk about storytelling and the effectiveness of being able to move people by telling a story. We help them develop public speaking skills so they can go out and share their message with the world. And then the last track is our vote track. We believe that students need to understand the power of their vote, not only after they've turned 18 and can vote in public elections, but there are school elections that are going on that they can be a part of so that these elections are no longer a popularity contest. So especially if you're a student wants to hold a position in their student council, their student government, we help them understand the power of voting at a really young age. So those are kind of the 4 tracks that we have built our leadership program around. But what we don't want students to do is just build these skills and then call it a day. We don't want them to write these skills down on their resume. We want them to actually go into the world and apply them. So we follow a model of know, be, and do. We want students to know about these skills, understand them and understand the value that they add to them. We want them to be the kind of person that aligns themselves with service and cares about the world around them. And then we want them to do— we want them to go out into the world and do meaningful service activities. And those service activities are based around any cause or issue that they care about. The really cool thing about what we do at Legacy is that we help students figure out the cause or the issue that they are most passionate about. We do activities with them where they can align their interests and their skills, the needs of their community, or what's going on in the world around them, so that the things that they're taking action around actually give them a feeling of purpose. We've worked with students who have tackled climate change. We have a student right now raising $300,000 for Leukemia Lymphoma Society because she had a cousin who was diagnosed with leukemia. We've had students who really care about enhancing their own community and have advocated for streetlights to be put in place in their own community because it's a safety issue. So we work with students and help them figure out what is the cause or issue that really matters to you, and then how do we expand upon that, which is a really unique thing that we get the opportunity to do. The other thing that we talk to students about is that you can't be a leader of no one. And so not only do students go out and do a lot of individual service activities for us, but they are challenged to mobilize their peers to join in on the action. I think that's a really cool thing that they can point back to in their essays or in college interviews to show how they have taken what they've learned, they've applied it, but they've been able to mobilize their peers. So one really good example of that is a student we worked with in Arizona. He was at a college preparatory high school, so he had all of the pieces in place to help him succeed. But he became really passionate about the global water crisis. He aligned himself with a charity called Thirst Project, and we helped him come in with our money track and our voice track so that he could do awareness campaigns at our school. He could launch school-wide fundraisers in Phoenix, and he was able to rally his entire school together. He got his principals involved, his classmates involved. They raised $12,000 and funded a well in Eswatini, Africa. And then he wrote his college essay about that experience, and he was able to point to the impact that it had on him, but also the impact that it had on the world and the people that he was serving through this. And he just got accepted into Yale, so he came back and celebrated with us. And I think we're just giving students a really unique opportunity to go beyond what's currently happening inside of their schools. They're challenged to step outside of their comfort zone. Often we interact with students who hate public speaking, and we can help them navigate that with a lot of mentorship and kind of building that process so they feel more comfortable with that. It's all about helping students understand that leadership is something they can develop as a skill. It's not something they're expected to have right now, but that we can walk with them through that process. So our free leadership program that I'm here to talk about today is really unique in that it is super short. It's not a 6-week, 8-week course that students have to go through. Each track literally takes 2 hours to complete. And it's a digital program. So students who are already on their phones all the time can complete this right from their phone, or they can do it on a laptop, but they can move through it completely independently, self-paced. Each track, the Time, Money, Voice, or Vote track, only takes about 2 hours total to move through the content of the program. And then it's gonna challenge them to go and do a service activity. So it's gonna challenge them to go and volunteer in their community. It's gonna challenge them to do a fundraiser. Or to do an awareness campaign or to pledge to use their vote. But they get to pick what the cause or issue is that they want to do that service activity around. So students are doing all of these unique service activities around the world right now. And by the time they complete the leadership program, they can do one track, two track, three tracks, or four tracks. But as soon as they complete one of those tracks, they earn a certificate of completion. So it has all of the skills listed that they've developed through this program. They can add that certificate of completion to their resumes, to their college applications. They can add those skills on their LinkedIn, and then we can endorse them from our organization to show that they've actually built those skills, which is really unique for us. We also unlock scholarships for students. So these aren't really massive scholarships. They tend to be smaller micro scholarships around $1,000 to $5,000. But just by completing our program, they have the option to apply for those scholarships each year. They also unlock mentorship opportunities, which is really unique. So we are partnering with professional organizations to bring in mentors for our students. A great example of this is we've partnered with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and they are giving students in our money track the opportunity to be mentored by a financial advisor. So they're getting free financial advice from someone at PwC, not only to help them plan their fundraiser, to help them budget, to help them understand donor relations and things more in-depth, but they're building those really unique professional relationships. And that mentor down the road can be a referral for them, can give a real testimony of the work that they've put in to do this service activity, make it happen. So building those professional relationships is another key component that we unlock. We also take service trips with our students. So one of the first ones we're going to be doing is taking a group to Africa in August. For a water charity that we work with. So students that participate with us can apply to be on those service trips. They can then come back and talk about that experience, how transformational it is. And then starting in the fall, we are going to be launching legacy clubs at all of the high schools that we work with around the country. So your student can build a legacy club from the ground up, and that's a really valuable, unique skill because it requires them to work with their administration, They have to recruit members to their club. They have to identify the roles that are available in their club and match their peers with who might best serve as a secretary or the treasurer or the social media manager. And so they understand how to almost run an organization from the ground up. They also learn how to lead meetings. They plan events and campaigns. And so that's a really cool encompassing experience for students that looks great when they are talking to someone during a college interview or when they're writing their essays, they can point to an experience that is so much deeper than just writing an acronym on their resume. And they're able to build relationships through that, that, as I said, can be referrals for them. Our staff can be referrals for them down the road. So we just are really excited to bring some students from College Ready into our network and give them this opportunity because it is completely free. So there is really no barrier to entry for students. They just have to be willing to commit a couple of hours online to move through this program. And then the last thing that I wanted to talk about was an event that we do each year. It is called Legacy Summit. It's where we bring together 300 or so of our top student leaders from all around the world. So we'll have students joining us from here in the US, we'll have students fly in from Portugal and Saudi Arabia that we've worked with this year. We bring them together for a 2-day intensive workshop, keynote, festival experience. So in years past, we've had people like Ziad Ahmed, who was a 24-year-old founder of Joov Consulting. He was on Forbes 30 Under 30 list. We've had Diana Nyad, who was the first woman to swim from Cuba to Florida at the age of 64 years old. She got to tell her story. We've had Wick Godfrey, who is the president of Paramount Motion Pictures and a producer, and T.S. Nolan, who's a screenwriter. So we bring in a lot of really incredible CEOs, entrepreneurs, founders. They give keynote speeches, and then we build workshops that the students participate in that are focused on topics like mental health, finding your passion. Shellee Howard is going to come and do a workshop on college and career readiness. We talk about entrepreneurship and social impact, how to start clubs and run organizations. But the other thing is that it is a space for students to come and build community with other leaders, to learn from the things that those students have done, in service or in college prep, and to build that relationship and expand their network nationwide so that they have friends around the country who care about the same things that they do, who are on the same leadership journey. And it's just a really beautiful space for students to come together and be with like-minded individuals who are striving to set themselves up for success. The last really cool aspect of this event is that we do a speed pitching workshop where we train students to give 30-second elevator elevator pitches about the cause or issue that they care about. We turn it into a competition, so we bring in hundreds of professional volunteers who listen to these speed pitches. They give the students feedback right there on the spot, and then students are awarded prize money at that event. So it's a really fun event. I'm going to give Shellee Howard all of the information about our leadership program and how students can register. We have some demo programs if you're a parent that wants to go through these see what your students might be learning in these programs. You can do a demo test. If you want to send your student to Legacy Summit, it's a free event. You just have to help get them to Southern California. So we would love to have some of your students there as well. But I'm so excited that we're joining forces because I think what we do at Legacy is really trying to set students up for success and also help them make a positive impact on the world. And all of that down the road is going to make them better leaders once they get to their respective colleges. Shellee Howard, that's all I have. If there are any questions or anything you want to touch on that I didn't, I'm happy to, but I know you'll send all the information after this.

So she's just amazing. Mind-blowing. I think that our paths crossed for a reason because we know that leadership is a very challenging thing for a lot of students. They just don't know how to get leadership. They think it is a popularity contest or they think they're too shy, or there's so many, so many different reasons. But Haley's program is an opportunity for any kind of student to step into and learn those skills that'll help them for the rest of their life. And that is part of the Stand Out Strategy. So if you have any interest, please, I put my cell phone, call or text me, and I will make sure to get you on Haley's list to reach out to. I'm going to just do a few more slides and open it up to questions, and, um, we'll go from there. So leadership being such a critical piece, um, it— there's really 7 critical pieces, and CollegeReady, we focus on all of them. We leave no stone unturned. We're the only college consulting firm that helps the student and the parents. We help the student create a standout strategy. We help the parent get their financial house in order. We put the two together with an amazing college list, and it is complete success. Millions of scholarships have been earned, merit scholarships, because of the standout strategy. It is something that will help them to be, um, noticed Keep in mind, the advantages of having a plan and a strategy is that your student is comfortable. They get rid of— they get out of the overwhelm. The parent stops having to nag— be— not that you're naggers, but maybe I was, um, that, you know, is your application done? Is your essay done? All of that we help alleviate. We also help the student if they're not sure to find the major or top 3 majors and careers. We can even tell them if a robot will be doing their job in 5 years. So at minimum, I want you all to get a copy of my free book— or it's not free, but I'm going to give it to you for free, and I'll give you the resource for that. So your student scholarships could be compromised if any of these pieces are not together. Can you afford to leave all this up to your student? Let's think about this for a moment. Would you allow your 17-year-old to buy you a house without being part of that conversation? That's a scary thought for me. Of course we wouldn't. We would guide them, coach them, at least get them with people who can help them. This is the same cost in many places. Don't leave this up to your student. They are not equipped to do this on their own. The admissions process is extremely complicated. 1 in 3 students are getting help. Parental support is important, but you can't do everything. And so we want you to remember that we're here for you. This is about your child, and we want them to be successful. So as promised, I'm going to send you leadership resources if you want to text her, um, or call me. If you're interested in a free copy of my book, you can scan the QR code, or if you'd like a 30-minute discovery call with myself to put together a progress report on how your student is coming along to be college ready, this is my gift to you. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to questions and, uh, appreciate Everybody showing up on a busy weekday. So I'm gonna hit recording off.