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## Intro—Why Spring Is Critical for Juniors [00:00] all right welcome everyone my name is coach David and it is April 2nd okay now normally we have a full kind of uh you know training that is dedicated to financial aid today but as I always tell families there's two parts to this college admissions game the first part is getting in the second part is making sure that you get enough money to pay for it so that you don't have to dip into your retirement you don't have to kind of you know uh you know dip into your investment so on and so forth Okay so uh we are going to talk about kind of two different areas today right one is going to be about uh the school side right what your what your kind of Junior current Junior should be doing right we'll also talk about financial aid what to expect and also what parents you should be doing right because there's some things that parents need to do during this process as well okay so just to give you a quick overview of what we will be talking about today right so we're going to talk about financial aid we're going to talk about academics and kind of school things right we're also going to talk about other important things that you need to kind of think about as we are kind of going into application season right now if you do want to get this replay because you think it was so critical and all the information I was giving you was so great right uh it will be on our private uh you know YouTube channel right for our coaching families uh if you are one of our families in from our Facebook go ahead and you know respond to the post that I will make in our Facebook groups okay now just a little bit about me right uh I am a former college and Law School admission reader right uh I have ## What Parents Need to Know About the FAFSA + CSS Profile [01:30] also you know worked in the legal space right and I have helped hundreds and thousands of families right uh with their financial aid right and so today I'm going to be kind of putting on both of my hats right that of kind of one of the kind of head strategists in our coaching program also as the kind of head of the financial aid program as well okay now just to kind of like give you guys a little bit of background about where I was today right so um a lot of people might uh have been looking for me in our coaching program but today I was gone right and I was gone because I was at a kind of work conference right uh I was at the Western Association of college ad missions counselors okay um it was held at St Mary's College in Moraga right some people might know that area some people might not uh but it is a quiet suburb in the East Bay Area about 25 30 minutes away from San Francisco okay now the reason why I went there was because I wanted to provide more for our kind of families right now when I when I got there right I was listening intently one of the things I realized was that a lot of people don't have basic information right even when I was walking in right uh the majority of people at that conference were high school guidance counselors right and while I do think that high school guidance counselors do a great job and they're you know they're definitely overwork they have huge you know um you know student to kind of employee ratios when it comes to kind of meeting with students and doing those things right the one area that I saw that they weren't able to help families is kind of like getting into the nitty-gritty and the specifics about each individual student right and so um that it was where I was earlier today right uh they did have a taco truck which I was really happy about so I got to eat some tacos um but uh I just wanted to kind of let you guys know uh if you guys are interested I will probably be kind of unveiling what I learned um later on in a training probably I believe it's on uh I believe it's on the 24th April 24th okay so that'll be uh a training that we have right I'll be taking over for Coach Victor that's usually on Thursdays right and so um I will kind of unveil what I learned there um kind of what uh and you know representatives from the uc's the CSUS various different colleges were there as well so I'll kind of try and unravel and kind of piece together everything that was said so that it is a little bit more coherent okay and so I will be kind of sharing that with you there now when it comes to financial aid we are having this kind of uh this meeting on a very auspicious day right because as I have been telling families over and over and over if you have a senior right now and you didn't apply for financial aid today is technically the deadline for the priority it's like the this is the kind of it right April second is the priority deadline deadline right um and so after this can you still get Aid yeah you can but again they always say like the money will run out right um or like they will they you know the allocated money will run out right they never really actually run out of money it's just that the money that they allocated for a certain year might run out right so if you are a senior right now and you have not done your financial aid right and you're here because you saw the price tag of of the schools that you got into and you didn't apply for any financial aid man I wasn't going to do this but if you ## How to Prepare Your Tax Return for Financial Aid [05:00] are a senior right and you're in California right and you haven't applied for financial aid and you're kind of come here as a latch ditch effort to kind of figure out what you can do I need you to email me right like right now right so the I'm going to put the email in h in the in the chat here okay I want you to email this email okay uh I will find a time to meet with you tonight whether it is you know 9:00 in the evening 10:00 in the evening 11:00 in the evening it is the kind of like it is the 12th hour now right so uh we should talk about it figure out if we are going to move forward and if we are right I'll tell you what I think I can save you guys how how we're going to move forward and all those different pieces okay but the priority deadline ends today okay now again I put it in I put the the email in the chat so go ahead again if you are a senior and you need to talk to me today right um I took the day off uh to make sure that I had enough time to go to the conference earlier today um and so I have meetings starting at 6:30 if that is something that you want okay now as far as financial aid news which I know is a big kind of like draw for a lot of our families like what the heck is going on a lot of this stuff was also kind of brought up at kind of The Wack at conference right and again I I will kind of uh un unpack that uh I need I need time to debrief on my own too I took a lot of notes so um but generally speaking everyone's kind of worried about but the colleges don't know what's going on right high schools don't know what's going on right I think I might have the the the kind of uh the the most interest in it so I I feel like I wanted to be a part of lot lot of conversations but I didn't want to step on any toes right but generally speaking right um these are the high Lev things that have been happening there's nothing new out there everything is just a repeat of the news that I've been kind of giving you guys for the last two three weeks right US Department of Education possibly being eliminated or divided into smaller chunks and given out to other department ments right colleges are losing Federal funding to do a variety of reasons right including not abiding abiding by Dei like or kind of the executive order getting rid of Dei initiatives right um now there are a lot more colleges that are looking to Gap The Divide between the losses that they're getting in funding and family costs right by increasing Aid budget that's always a good thing to hear right and then uh this is kind of like a not good thing right this is kind of like the maybe the new piece of news right but there's many colleges that are going above that 100 k Mark right I feel like everyone's racing to be like the the first 10 schools that are over $100,000 but Vanderbilt was the kind of like the the trend Setter and now another one is Welsley right uh in Massachusetts right that one has gone over the 100K Mark for total cost of attendance per year okay so again there's no new news it's just kind of like reiterations of what has been out there right um but I will try to kind of keep you guys up to date with any new information right a lot of it's still up in the air things are still kind of um you know getting settled right uh new Administration they're trying to make a lot of moves first 100 days right um things like that but once Things become more clear and more precise I will try to provide you with the most up-to-date information okay but with that let us ## Name + Social Security Matching Errors That Delay Aid [08:15] get into the training again my fair warning when it comes to financial aid right if you are here and this is something that you're going to say to me during your consultation you don't even need to bring it up right oh my family makes a little bit too much money right my family's not going to be eligible right we own our own home we have a rental property right um you know this that so on and so forth there's a lot of rumors out there and every single one of them has not been a deterrent to our families getting financial aid right so again I will have the kind of the QR code I will have a link that you can use to sign up for a financial aid call I will also have a QR link where you can sign up for a kind of breakthrough call right with our coaching team if that's something that you want as well right to learn more about kind of the College admissions process all right now again because it is split right and I always kind of you know like to kind of talk about eagal lock which is our parent company right uh I do want to make sure that families that do have Juniors right and I see a bunch of people that have marked juniors in the Q&A and in the chat right um we do have a college application intensive that starts this month right our first Kickstart right which is a one-day weekend event where we basically work with families and students right mostly students right families you guys are there for emotional support but again Mom and Dad you need to stay out of the conversations we are talking to students right but it is it is the kind of day where we have students come in so that we can formulate their ideas get them on track with a with a very solid rough draft right those will be happening in April May and June right and then the second part of our College app intensive is our accelerator okay the accelerator is going to be in a small group format right five to one right student to coach right um and those are going to be in July August and September if you are interested in this again you can also reach out uh to us via text we can provide you more information right um but you can also visit our website it is collegea intensive.com okay um but again getting into college is one piece the other piece getting money for college right so hopefully we can take care of both sides of the coin for you okay now class of 2026 right let us get into the training so what are the things that you need to be thinking about okay there's two sides of the puzzle right like I was I've been saying since the beginning of this training right Juniors listen up right if you are a junior family you need to be listening okay open those ears I know that a lot of people might be getting ready for dinner right kids just got home it it is kind of like crazy but this is something that you do need to hear okay there's two sides the first side is admissions right so the things are what types of things should you be focused on right and we'll talk about riger we'll talk about testing and we'll talk about ## Top Financial Aid Mistakes That Cost You Thousands [11:00] letters of recommendation okay and then on the financial aid side the question is what are we supposed to be doing this spring how to prepare for the fall and what are you doing in the fall okay so those are the things that we're going to go over today really quickly again I try to give the kind of large overview any small like specific things if you do have questions please make sure to ask them in the Q&A or in the chat I will try to answer them as they come up but if not I will make sure to address them at the end okay so let's first talk about the admission side of things right your student getting into the school right one of the first things that colleges look when they're looking at a student is their academic rigor right so for juniors right now you need to be pushing or maintaining your academics okay so you want your junior year to be your shining achievement okay now there's different students that come from different backgrounds we have students that have excelled their whole High School career we also have students that might have started off a little bit Rocky but they're getting a lot better right and then we have students that kind of yo-yo back and forth right uh some Sometimes some years are better than others some semesters are better than others right but whatever it is you need to remember that this last semester and last kind of SE like trimester is kind of like the last grouping of grades that your school or like the college that you apply to will see okay now I know that a lot of people will say no there's private schools that do look at your first semester grades of senior year that is true right but for the there are a there are a lot of schools that will never see your senior year grades until you are in one of those being like the uc's the CSUS will also not see it right and if you apply early action or early decision right to any any kind of other schools right you will not be able to show your first semester grades now having said that is your senior year not important no it is very important Okay the reason why it is important is because they take the strength of your senior year schedule into account so if there's a student that took six APS junior year and now they're taking none senior year they're going to see that as a problem right so again I understand burnout is real right and so that's one of the things that we talk about with our students right you need to make sure that you're kind of getting used to things right 10th grade year take a couple AP right push it the ## What Juniors Should Be Doing Right Now for Admissions [13:30] next year push it senior year that's what we want to see but if you have had obstacles this junior year kind of these ending Spring grades are going to be very important to show that you have made Improvement have made growth right now there might be Juniors out there and it's like well yeah sorry I didn't really push myself as hard as I could have right then this summer is a great opportunity to increase General rigor or show your interest right so whether that's Community College classes or online high School classes or summer camps or programs those are areas that you want to be pushing in to show colleges that you really mean business okay now for Community College classes I get it there are some Stu students at certain schools where their school will not approve them and that's the only way to do it but that's why it's great that there's multiple options online high school classes you don't need to get anyone's approval to take those right so there are different options for different students there's even kind of like extension courses at certain colleges where you don't need anyone's approval to take it right I do know that kind of like in the Bay Area Schools are very different some schools are like yeah Community College classes we love them yeah give me that form let me sign it right there's also schools where it's like no you can only take this class that's the only one you can take we're not going to sign off on any other thing right so keep that in mind I understand that there are restrictions for for you know different school districts but this is what the general Trend that we want to see okay so that's what I would have to say about rigger okay now when it comes to testing okay I'm talking about standardized testing right and I'm not talking about your school CAA SP testing right for English and math right those are just kind of tests you take to make sure that you've hit certain benchmarks that the state has outlined right for graduating high school right when I'm talking about testing I talking about SAT and ACT now for a lot of families out there you might not even be thinking about it right because it's like oh well everything was test optional you know a couple years ago right or test blind right that was during covid times right during the pandemic right unfortunately there are a lot of schools that are returning to test required now again qualifier right the uc's and the CSUS are test blind they will not take your test score into an account into account right there are people that say oh well there's a space to put it right uh on the application there is actually not right if you are an international student right coming from a different country right then you might be able to turn in your English kind of sat or act right the English section in order to show your English proficiency but if you are a domestic us student there is no way to turn in your sat your full SAT score to the uc's or CSUS they don't want it if you do try to turn it in they just see you as someone that doesn't follow the rules so I would not do it okay like but like I said there are a lot of out ofate Public Schools there's a lot of private schools that are returning to test required so you need to check what the policy of the schools you're applying to will be okay now when will the kind of like finalized results come out as far as if a school is requiring it or not unfortunately if we look at kind of the the past couple years the results as far as if a school is going to be test required or kind of test optional or um you know test blind the changes don't necessarily happen until the summer right now because of that right you don't want to ## Standardized Testing Strategy for the Class of 2026 [17:00] be in a position where it's like you're scrambling to sign up for a test in August you're scrambling to try to take the test before your early action early decisions are there right so I always tell students right if you have finished math 3 or Algebra 2 trig then you should find a place to take a fulllength diagnostic test under test conditions when I when I when I say under test conditions I want it to be timed I don't want you to just kind of like you know very you know you know just uh kind of in a relaxed State just like kind of oh I'll take a little bit I'm going to go eat lunch come back do this no you have to take it all in one sitting all at one time that's what we know that's when that's how we can figure out exactly what your score looks like okay now a lot of people like they might live in areas where there's not a lot of kind of test prep or tutoring available right that's okay there's a lot of stuff online right and the test is digital so that's fine right but what I tell students is I don't want you to take it at home right your bed room is very very comfortable for you right when you are comfortable you do better on tests right so if you are going to take it kind of on your own I do suggest you go somewhere a little bit foreign whether it's a library that has a quiet room right or maybe mom or dad's office that has like a like a little cubicle that you can take the test in whatever it is you do need to take it somewhere that is not familiar to you okay then we can figure out what the test strategy is to get you to your goal score right now just a little kind of tidbit or Pro tip of information is this okay so for every 100 Point increase right and a 100 Point increase is like a two-point increase on the the act just roughly speaking right um in that situation we usually suggest that a student study between 20 and 30 hours and do three practice tests okay so if you if you're starting at a 13300 and you're trying to get to a 1500 you multiply that by two right so 40 to 60 hours six practice tests right if you're trying to get a 300 Point increase so on and so forth okay so testing is something that you might need to be thinking about right now right now I know a lot of families just blindly sign up for a test it's like oh we might need the SAT so we're going to sign up that is not the way to do it what's the point of doing that right you're it's like walking into a math test you never studied for right hoping that it goes well usually it doesn't Okay so again take that practice test see what you need to do see how much time you need and then figure out your testing strategy the third piece that I want to talk about when it comes to admissions is letters of recommendation right starting early is great in this situation right so for our Rising seniors we suggest that students reach out to their teachers to ask them before the end of junior year now a lot of parents are going to be like oh well like some teachers are already asking right um or some teachers are already full so on and so forth right so it does have kind of you know there are variations depending on school and teacher and things like that but generally speaking if you ask before the end of junior year most most kind of teachers still have spaces left okay now in a perfect world right this is what we' love to see one stem teacher one Humanities teacher or social science teacher okay that's what we would love to have right but right there's always a but right but it is about who knows you best and who you have the best relationship with right now I always hear these stories oh my gosh you know what I'm not really that ## How to Ask for Letters of Recommendation the Right Way [20:30] close with my English teacher but I heard that she writes great letters of recommendation really how do the people know because you actually have to sign something on the Common App or whatever app you're using that says you wave your right to actually see your letter letter of recommendation and not many teachers actually say hey this is what I wrote on your recommendation letter and hand it to you right so everyone that says oh yeah you know Mrs B writes great letters of recommendation I don't know how they know okay so it's about who you have the strongest bond with who you've had the most interaction with that is kind of the key kind of piece here right now some colleges and Majors will have specific requirements that might be met right MIT Georgetown those are some schools that do have specific requirements if you have one stem teacher one Humanity social science teacher though that actually would work for those schools as well okay uh we have a question here and it says can we use the same two teachers for all the apps and the answer to this is yes you can right so it's not like they write a separate letter for each one right so your school might use something like navian right or Aries or you know or Squire or this or that whatever it is right but basically what happens is that the teacher will upload their letter one time right and then you tell them which schools you're applying to and then it gets sent to all of those schools right through that system right that's how it happens right so don't feel bad right that you're asking your teacher to write a letter of recommendation for 17 different colleges they're only writing one letter so you don't really need to worry about it okay uh the other kind of question that we always get asked about letters of recommendation is this right well uh Princeton allows five should I get five teachers no you shouldn't right um because if the teachers are going to be saying roughly the same thing they don't it doesn't need to be beaten into the admissions office officers um kind of Minds five different times right um so maybe you have two right teacher recommendations right and then some schools also do allow for additional recom recommenders right those additional recommenders might be kind of like a religious leader of the religion that you that you follow right it might be a coach or an arts teacher right um it might be a mentor or an employer right uh we want to see something different right the college application is about us trying to show as many different facets of who we are as a student to the admissions officers if we show them the same thing five times it doesn't really add to our score okay now we have another question in the Q&A and it says do 's accept letters of recommendation right and the answer surprisingly is yes but again there is a qualifier right the qualifier is that it's By Invitation Only and we've only seen it from Berkeley okay that's it Berkeley is the only school that's ever asked for additional kind of recommendation letters right so it's usually when students are kind of neck and neck right and they're having a hard time choose they want a little bit more information about the student to make their final decision okay so that's why we always tell students one of the things that we kind of tell them is you need to be checking your email because if Berkeley emails you and says hey we want this extra piece of information and you don't check your email and it's sitting there and then it never it goes unanswered they're kind of they're going ## College Application Intensive + Coaching Program Info [24:00] to be kind of like well I guess they don't really want to come here anymore right that's what's going to happen so make sure that you're checking your email okay uh we have a question that again along the same lines with the recommendation so I'll answer it here it says both of my son's Math teachers uh that he had are retiring this year could he ask them for letters of recommendation the answer is yes and no right so can he ask them for a letter yeah he definitely can right the problem is is if your school is on a system like Squire like Aries like navian this and that right because once they retire their email is gone they don't have access to navian anymore so it is something that you'll have to ask your kind of counselor about right um to see if they will still have access to do those things now generally speaking I will say this right um when teachers retire they kind of uh float off into the sunset they don't want to do anything thing related to school for a while right think about you know teaching students and writing recck letters for the past 35 years and then retiring oh man I don't know I might want to take a one season off right so um again it is something that you need to ask your school about if your school is using like just if they're just going through the Common App for recommendation letters which again not very many schools do right they do have some kind of system right some portal for students right um if they are then it's a little bit easier but if they are on a navon squire Aries type of system it's a little bit more difficult right you're going to have to talk to your counselor about the ins and outs of that okay but great questions I really appreciate them right so let's kind of continue on right and kind of talk about kind of the admissions todos right so here's the first thing you need to make sure that you're ending this year off strong right again last full transcript that many colleges will see right if you've had hiccups you want to make sure that you show great Improvement and Trends right for testing make sure you do don't just jump into testing right prepare and figure out what you need to do to get to your goal right um and kind of see what the different you know uh averages are at the schools that you're applying to right and then letters of wreck ask early make sure to check up right like we showed you on the previous slide right oh one thing I kind of got sidetracked on I'm going to go back real quick right so for letters of wreck this is the timeline of how we want you to do things you ask them in person before the end of the year right once you get home from asking them and then saying yes right obviously they could say no as well right but if they do say yes right then you go home write them an email have a great summer right Mr Mrs a right um you know I will be in touch you know kind of you know closer to the closer to the fall right then maybe about a week before school starts you send them another email saying I just wanted you to remind you of our conversation right most of our students apply early action early decision right you bring that up saying I'm most likely going to apply early action early decision somewhere right and so like this would probably be my first deadline what do you need from me okay now most I'm not expecting the teachers to respond like while Summer's still going on but you get in their inbox right then after you're in their inbox school starts and then you know maybe like the first two weeks of school you stop by that teachers like office hours right or during lunchtime just to say hi right show your face right and be like yeah so I sent you an email a couple weeks ago you know about this about that right uh what do you need me to do right you want to be proactive about this you don't want to kind of just sit back and wait until your your school senior night because for a lot of schools the school senior night like is at the end of September or early October right but sometimes that's a little bit too late in the cycle for teachers to be ready by by November 1st which is the early action early decision deadline for a lot of schools okay so keep that timeline in mind right so like like maybe May right and then August right and then first week of school that is that should be kind of the timeline that you're thinking about okay with that I do want to jump to financial aid make sure that we have stuff there oh I took a lot of time here right because I was answering questions but I'll try to speed through this as quickly as possible okay so I want to make sure that families understand the financial aid process okay so the first thing is what is financial aid right so financial aid is any money that is given to students in order to make College more affordable right whether that's grants scholarships work study institutional aid departmental aid or loans they call it a lot of different things but I kind of just break it up into two different kind of categories there's free money that you never need to pay back and there are loans right now I don't like loans right uh because well you have to pay interest on them right um but for some situations it is needed I get it right but the one thing I'll say about loans and we'll kind of go over this kind of later on in the fall as well but not all loans are created equal you might be able to find a better interest rate at your bank right for educational loans or student loans or at a different bank right or a different institution the government kind of interest rate for students is 6.53% that's for this year the interest rate for parent loans right if parents take the money out it is 9.08% right it is not a great interest rate right but I am trying to get you guys more free money so that you don't have to take loans okay that is the whole point of why I'm here okay now the first step in this process is FAFSA okay now I I hear this so much that it like kind of haunts me while I sleep right A lot of people said say we didn't get anything from FAFSA you're you're completely correct because most families don't get anything from FAFSA 90% of people that fill out the FAFSA are not getting their money from there right the FAFSA is a form that you fill out it's like a credit check you have to fill it out in order to get a credit card right so the FAFSA just think of it as a form you're not getting anything from here it's just a form that you have to fill out to move to step two of the process okay now the FAFSA right the open date for the class of 2025 was delayed by two months okay but for the class of 2026 I hope that it will remain at the normal date of October 1st but am I hopeful that that is going to happen probably not right um so whether you're applying to Public Schools private schools out of state colleges this is the first step of the process right I I I just met with like three families la like kind of like late last week and they're like yeah we didn't really fill anything out because we didn't think we're were going to get anything and then we saw your training and then realized that we probably should have filled things out and I was like great right um and so we had to have a couple emergency meetings in order to try to get things figured out okay um but again like I said said I I will be having emergency meetings tonight as well if people need them okay I already see one person in my inbox right now that's like can we meet tonight right so unfortunately I will be working later than I thought I was going to but that's okay right I want to make sure that you guys are taking care of okay and again for those that say we're not going to qualify right we're not going to get anything right well if you don't turn in this form that's going to be the case 100% of the time right but there are things that you can do to help your situation okay now let us kind of talk about what you would need to fill it out okay so a lot of this information is stuff you already know right so you'll need your appropriate year tax return the tax return that will be needed for the 2020 class of 2026 will be the kind of uh that will be the 2024 tax return it's from two years ago right you'll also need to know your social security number right an email that you regularly check right and that also doesn't just automatically spam stuff right uh you need a unique email right for the student and for the parent right so you need separate emails right you also need a phone number that can receive text messages right again distinct numbers one for the parent one for the student okay so again these are some of the things that you'll need in order to fill it out right and again this is a very brief summary right the next step if you are applying to some private schools right or even some out of state public schools do require this right is the CSS profile right now what is the CSS profile the CSS profile is is a acronym for the college scholarship search profile right it's used by almost 400 institutions in the United States and it's to find nuggets of money at the colleges right that you're applying to that can you know that you are kind of eligible for right so again right it is a form that is kind of like there to help you right but it's also Al a form that is there to kind of like try to block as many people as possible right it's another step in trying to disqualify you from getting Aid right now I put this in there right it's like I'll show you how deep they try to get into your life right and again they do really get deep into your life right again here's the website for it it is linked to your College Board college board is something that you might be a little bit more familiar with if your students taking an AP test or an SAT or the PSAT they have a c like a college board account already it is linked to your college board account okay now here are the different things they ask for personal information parental information those things are pretty normal right they also ask for your housing information they ask how much your mortgage is or your rent is right they also ask about people living in your house right they ask about academic information parent details right they'll ask if you're remarried you know separated kind of those are kind of basic but when it comes to parent income right they're going to ask about the the wages you make they're also going to ask about kind of other income you make from different Investments or kind of like rental properties things like that they're also going to ask about child support they're going to ask about housing information they're going to about ask about assets right they're going to ask about your retirement right and here's one of the things I always tell parents your retirement is for you right you are not paying into your retirement to pay for your kids's college right so I don't know why colleges are asking about it right in this in this world where it's like kind of like everyone for themselves right everyone kind of like you know um get your piece of you know the American pie I don't know why they're looking at parents' assets to pay for college right they're also going to ask about expenses they're going to ask about you know household summaries they're also going to ask about student income and student assets right one of the things I go over so many times throughout the year is that I understand that parents want to prepare students for the future right and they want to kind of you know utilize different Tax Strategies to bequeath things to their students right whether it be you know partial ownership of a house right or this that so on and so forth but student income and assets are seen at a they're seen as a kind of uh amount of money that can be pulled from more greedily by the colleges okay so it is something that you need to kind of keep in mind if you are planning on doing any of those things they'll also ask about special circumstances okay just to give you guys a rough estimate right the FAFSA has I believe 48 questions that need to be answered right the CSS profile has about 200 okay so it's about five times as large right so keep that in mind there okay so as far as financial aid for juniors these are the things that need to get done parents right now we are 133 days away from the normal tax filing deadline right I know families that are signed up with me already realistically about 20% of them have actually filed their taxes the other 80% are families that usually file by October right but as I'm having the meeting with you one of the things I'm going to ask you to do is get it done by Late July or early August right now I know parents it's tough right you don't want to pay more taxes you don't want to do this you don't want to do that but unfortunately for this particular year it is something that you want to get done early right especially if you're going to be part of our program we need to get it done early so that we can look at your tax return and create a strategy that makes sense for your family okay but again parents this year you need to get it done ASAP right now another piece of the puzzle that I am going to tell parents and students that you need to check on is before the start of the financial aid process right so before the summer is out right and the reason I say before the summer is out because I want to make sure that you can change anything if you do need to change it at school and everything else right before the start of the financial aid process make sure that everyone's information is correct okay now you might be thinking what do you mean everyone's like names and stuff are correct right the one the things I'm most concerned about are your names and your Social Security numbers okay now let's say that your name right especially like my parents too right uh they were immigrants right the first time they got their social security cards like this is wrong right and so obviously I wasn't I was was very young at that point but they told me the story later right um the first time they got their social security cards the names were wrong but that's all they had so that's what they had to make their driver's license with this and that so on and so forth right and then they finally changed it and then their whole life was turned upside down because things changed right their credit cards weren't under their own name their license didn't match this and that so on and so forth a lot of things were problems right so you want to make sure that the spellings are correct right now spaces spaces have plagued me with problems throughout the course of my financial a career right A lot of people think that oh my name is like I don't know let's just say it's like a space b space c right and they think for the longest time that their middle name is B right but on their actual like legal documents their first name is actually a space b right so if you have spaces in your first name please make sure that it is done the correct way that's actually what happened to my parents right their first names are actually a space b but it's not anymore right their first name is just a and then their middle name has now been designated for the last how long has it been 40 something years as B right that's how their IDs were made so again let's take care of that right now the second part is social security numbers right now parents your own you probably memorized by heart right right you have to use it here there you use it all the time so you you're fine right when you're signing up for that Home Depot kind of you know uh credit card when you're buying that new fridge right you use it right but students right how many parents can say that they memorize their students social security number by heart right do not right and also I will say this one more thing your tax return is not a kind of like indisputable piece of evidence that tells you what your student's social security number is right I had a family right they had sworn that this was their student social security number they had been filing taxes and you know the the student as a dependent for the last you know 16 17 years right only to find that when we tried to do the FAFSA the the social that they provided to me on their tax returns did not match and the the the the IRS was not able to match the students information to the Social Security number so I had them dig into that you know into that baby binder to find a social security card and they were on digigit off for 17 years they had been using someone else's social security number okay so please make sure to check actual documents from the government like your social security card to make sure that your social security number is correct okay now just to brag a little bit about our program why are we different well we're different because we take you as you are we don't ask you to try to lower your income by you know buying life insurance policies or tax deferred annuities right we don't say that your student needs to have a 4.5 or like a 1550 on their SATs right we also don't force you to apply to colleges right that you would never go to I know a lot of other companies do right and so right I tell families we have free consultations we never charge right we talk to you if we can help you I'll let you know if I can't help you I'll give you some tips and tricks and then hopefully that helps you out in some way or another right but if I have deemed that I cannot help you there's probably not a good chance for your family right um but I'd probably say for 85% of families that come to me there is something that we can do for you so please sign up for that consultation okay now again to brag a little bit more our recent results right this is a student that is headed to Chapman we were able to get them $30,000 there right again the the kind of like stats of the family the financial stats are there on the left right but they also got $35,000 from forom we are also able to get them $37,000 from University of San Diego right this student right family income was at 230,000 right we were able to basically get them about 25,000 to $28,000 uh at the uc's right across the board across all of them right Santa CLA they got $677,000 right LMU they got $70,000 right so again very great result for this family right they're going to school for you know Pennies on the dollar right this family went to Baylor right incomes at around 440 roughly speaking they own their own home they have other businesses and properties and the offer that we were able to get from Baylor was $42,000 a year right so even for higher income families we have been able to get great results okay so hopefully your family is the next right now I do want to make sure that we open it up for Q&A right so if you do have questions go ahead and you know put them in the Q&A put them in chat right and as you guys are doing that I do want to make sure that you guys have all these links right these QR codes are take you direct direct ly to the pages where you can book a financial aid consultation or kind of reach out to our our coaching uh program um so that they can answer questions about either the college application intensive or a more long-term coaching program for you right so if you are interested in financial aid you can use a QR code you can also text 94977 5865 you can text at money and then we'll provide you kind of information about our program we'll also help you sign up for a call right if you're interested in our coaching programs or the college application ensive again QR code or text College to 94977 5865 okay all right I did a lot of talking today I had a longer than normal one because I I you know we're kind of doing a combo thing here but I do want to open it up for kind of questions right so I will kind of let you guys kind of put those out there I will also go ahead and put the link for the financial aid consultation into the chat here okay uh so that you guys have three different ways of contacting us so you have no excuse okay so again if there are questions please put them in the Q&A or in the chat please okay okay so we have a question here it says what is the key to getting relatively larger financial aid packages uh for higher income families like your Baylor example so there's a lot of different pieces the puzzle right now I live in California right living in California definitely has its perks well I mean less perks nowadays the weather's a little funky right um but uh with living in California one of the things that happens is that you have a higher cost of living right now if you know a family that makes $400,000 and lives in Wisconsin right or Montana or Texas right versus a family that makes $400,000 in California there's a lot of differences income tax differences right uh California has one of the highest income tax rates right uh cost of living differences right so those are all things that we we take into account to try to explain to the school that hey Baylor costs 90 $93,000 a year we cannot afford that right even if we make $400,000 right so there's different pieces that we work on on the FAFSA on the CSS profile right on different additional forums that are turned into Bor to give them that picture and help them understand that $93,000 is not a a financial possibility for our family okay but everyone's situation is very different right um and so that's why we we always tell families to sign up for that consultation so that we can understand your situation and give you a better idea of what your family can get just because the income is the same so let's say you make 400 you know you you have a nextdoor neighbor they work at the same company in the same position and been there for exactly the same amount of time right and they also make 400 yeah your income on paper is you know the same but your tax returns could look very different so that is something that we definitely want to take a look at to understand your situation a little bit better okay okay I have a second person that just emailed about can we meet with you tonight so again thank you I will email you right after this so that we can go ahead and figure out a time I'll also send you a zoom link so that we can talk about that as well all right I'm not seeing any more questions today right so hopefully you guys enjoyed kind of the the training we had today uh I might think about doing a little bit more combo trainings right but I will be kind of jumping on again like I said on April 24th we'll be having a little kind of talk about kind of what what we should be kind of working on at this current moment I'll also kind of debrief about what I learned at the Western Association um of college admissions counselors right so that you guys have that information as well right we aren't Gatekeepers to information we try to share everything that we can with you guys okay all right so everyone have a great night right um the sun is still out so go enjoy uh you know some vitamin D there right uh and if you have any questions for us reach out in the Discord if you're a coaching family or in Facebook right via messenger email whatever you guys can get a hold of us through go ahead and do that so we can answer your questions okay so I'll leave this up just so that people can kind of you know scan those QR codes and I hope to see you guys all again next week okay all right everyone have a good night bye-bye for