## Intro....Why Summer Strategy Is the Key to Senior Year Success [00:00] What's up everyone? Coach Tony here. This training is a monster 90inute plus training. We're calling it your final training for class of 2026 family. So if you're watching this training, you're either one of our rising seniors or a senior family. Class of 2026 and applications is literally right around the corner. This session we're going to focus on a few things uh for you guys, right? We're going to one focus on do a quick college admissions 101. Making sure before we even talk about the applications. Do you have everything you need as of today to prepare for the admissions process? Then we're going to talk about the next 365 days, what that should look like. A lot of our families, this is your very first time going through the the the admissions applications process. So, kind of knowing this kind of give you guys a little heads up on what to expect next. Then we're going to teach you guys how to pick the right colleges. Right? This is a probably a hot topic that's probably coming up a lot in dinner conversations right now. So, we'll kind of recommend our strategy when it comes to college uh your college list. Then, I'm going to walk through all or most of the college applications so you know what to expect, what to see for each section there. And we're going to wrap up today with how to write every major college essay. So with this, it's a lot of things. Each of this is could be an hourlong training in itself. My goal is to hit all five things in less than 90 minutes. So our goal is to go really, really quick. So again, hopefully you guys are paying attention, listening to us on this session here. Take notes on your own. And at the end of the 90 minutes, we have this little quick invitation for anyone who is interested in working with our team. Uh we have 10 spots left, but the goal is to teach you enough stuff today that if you wanted to do it on your own, you can. So that's kind of our promise number one, teach you enough so you can do it on your own. Promise number and number two for those who are interested. We are down to 10 spots left and I'll explain why 10 spots left at the end of this session. if you are interested in working with us to help you guys do all this as well too. Okay, that being said, really quick, I am going live uh on Zoom. So, for those who are here live, can you guys see my screen? I just making sure so I I don't have to I don't I'm not sh showing the wrong screen and all. So, let me know if the screen looks good on your side. ## The College List Framework....Fit Reach Safety Explained [02:30] Um quick, beautiful. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Awesome. Cool. So, let's go ahead and dive straight in then. So, if it's a very first time meeting, my name is Coach Tony. Uh, I'm actually a former UC Berkeley admissions read. So, a lot of the context that you'll hear today is literally coming from my experience as a former admissions reader where I was behind the scenes. I read apps recommended yes to a few, recommended no to a lot more. And doing so, you start to understand what is really important in the admissions process or not. Right? So, that's kind of what a lot of this context is today. So everything I'll be sharing you is from the context of an admissions reader cuz they are the ones who read your apps as well too. Right? Then I became a director at UCLA. I actually opened my own high school. Uh it's called Unity Middle College High School. There's a reason why I'm really really big on dual enrollment and we'll talk about that if you have no clue what that is. Dual enrollment courses and things. Uni Middle College is a dual enrollment high school and early college middle college program where we dual enroll kids there. I I lived I talk talk walk the walk as well too. I was actually a former Tik Tok college admissions partner and currently I am one of the advisers here at Eagle Lock. Eagle lock if you flip it backwards is the word college right and then so our our goal is to help you guys work backwards to get you guys to where you guys want to go. And if you still don't like hey I don't know I still don't trust this guy as well too. uh our stats. 98% of our students who worked with us has gone into one of their top 10 colleges. 93% of our students have gone into one of their top five schools. Working with our team here, here's some of the colleges our students have gone into. And here's some of the screenshots for some of our current graduating seniors 2025 who's worked with us this past year. So, you see our students going to go everywhere. MIT, USC, Purdue, UPUPEN, Chapman with a $90,000 scholarship. uh Cornell, Caltech, Boston, Colombia, Emory, SEU, UC Berkeley, LMU, UC San Diego, UCLA, UC Irvine, Cal States, Carnegie, Melon, Leverne, Northeastern Engineering. So, tons and tons of stories and if you want to check out more, there's hundreds more on eagleock.com/success stories as well, too. But the goal for this training, bring us back here. This goal is going to be your one stop and final stop to help you guys with the admissions process. If there is any training from now until the end of this cycle, if any 2026 families tell me, hey, if there's one video to watch, what would it be? I'm making this one the one video for you to to watch, the one train to watch to get as much value for your family as possible. So, we're going to teach you everything we teach our coaching students, right? So you have the same information because everyone thinks they just want information and then I kind of argue you probably don't need information. Our YouTube we have over 700 hours of information. So it's not information you're looking for. The biggest thing you need is implementation. So not only went teach you what to do, you got to go and do the work for it as well too. So pretty much at the end of this 90 minutes, three options you have, right? One, you can have your child help themselves. Number two, you with this knowledge can help your own child. Or number three, we can work with your child to help them out as well, too. And either way, either one, two, or three. Either works. The biggest thing is do something, right? I've done this 16 years. I've doing this longer than a lot of high school kids been alive as well too, right? I've seen so many families watch our stuff, said it was great, but they started when it was so late. So my one ask in the chat we have how many people do we have live with us right now? We haveund ## Brainstorming Essays with Identity Impact and Clarity [06:15] and we have 116 people live right now. Right one asked in the chat before we get started. If by the end of this session, can you take action on at least one thing I teach you guys today? Drop a yes in the chat if that's something we can promise to you that after this 90 minutes you can do one thing. One thing I teach you guys to just to help you guys out with this journey. One thing, one ask uh as well to uh it's free. No cost of there. Do something. Uh there you go. A few few of the yeses, right? People have a lot more who are shy, right? Again, that's my one ask for today. I promise to give you everything I can in the next 90 minutes, actually now the next like 80 minutes uh to help you guys out with this as well too. And all I ask in return and this is honor system. I can't I can't check you guys but honor system if you can do something as a result right do something as a result we have now 130 with only a handful of yes so hopefully by by the end everyone will do something right go ahead and get started again I am going to go fast for those who are joining me again I talk really really fast and because I'm doing five subjects I'm going to talk even faster so listen up really tight really tight really closely as well too right so college admissions 101 when it comes to the admissions process there's three things that are the most important to get right in your app which is the academics, the activities and the application. We'll focus on the application in a little bit right in a little bit today as well too. So first let's talk about the academics and activities right and activities. These are the first two things you need to think about when it comes to the academics. Right? This is the academics, right? Let's talk about here too. One of the things I don't care about, right? One of the numbers, one of the numbers that I do not care about, I do not care about is GPA. This is the magical number you hear everyone talk about the most. You hear this as well too. GPA this, GPA that. If GPA was that important, right, only the 4.8 4.9 students uh would get in. Yes, I think that's fair. If only if GPA was the only factor that was the most important thing, right? That would be the case. That is not the case, right? Because that's not the case. GPA is not the biggest factor. Instead, right, we want to focus on two other things. one is going to be grade trends and number two is going to be academic rigor. So when it comes to grade trends, right, what we're looking for is strong grades, right? So if you guys if your kids all four years had like all A's, right? Love it. That's strong grades. If they had A's and B's, still very strong, good grades as well, too. What if, right, their grades started not so hot? Nth grade wasn't the greatest, but as they went on, it got better. We call that the upward trend. That's good as well too, right? Showing perseverance, right? Overcoming that as well too. These are the trends that I'm looking for from admissions point of view. Looking at your grades over 9, 10, 11, 12. What story? I'm thinking what story can I put together based on your grades. That's the key over here. Okay. Now, the next thing is academic rigor. This, I would argue, is more important than the grade trends, right? this is more important than the gray trends itself because again if gray trends was only important then you get A's right and this is this is the magical question you hear a lot of like coach Tony uh should my child should my child be taking regular classes and getting an A right ## How to Write a Strong Activities List with the SWI Method [10:00] an A or should they be taking the hardest classes and getting uh a B or C right that's the question you hear all the time the answer to question is you should be taking the rigorous courses and get an A as well too. Stop giving your kids the choice of hey do this and this bad. No, teach them they can make it work. Let's figure it out to make it work as well too. So the big thing though at the end rigor is important, right? I do argue between these two the rigor is more important than the grades itself there. Why why is the rigor more important? Think about this way. Right? A lot of you guys want to go to schools like UCLA, UC Berkeley, um NYU, uh Princeton, right? Talked to students this morning. They want to go to MIT. These schools are here. So, too, these are hard schools, right? These are hard schools as well, too. They're not only hard to get in, they're hard to stay in, right? If you want to be a little traumatized, right, stay in as well, too. Look up their graduation rates. Graduction rates as well too. Not everyone's going to graduate in four years. That missing number is the kids who dropped out and the kids who got kicked out as well too. So keep in mind not everyone's going to make it. It's why is because these schools are hard, right? They're very hard schools. So what a reader is looking for. So from a reader's point of view, I want to know if I say yes to you, I want you to graduate is the key, right? If I say yes to you, I want you to graduate. So how do I give you confidence? So how do we how do we give the readers confidence, right? That we're going to be fine once we get to that school. Look at your schedule. I look at your schedule and saw if you challenged yourself, right? Because if you challenged yourself in in high school, right, what you do what you did in high school is a reflection of reflection of who you'll be once you get to college is the key as well too. So if you took the basic classes, do I have a faith and trust you'll be fine? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you can't handle the workload of the university and you got kicked out versus if you took the hardest you can and did well, that's a good thing as well, too. Keep in mind also like pro tip, right? Admissions is regional, right? Cuz some of you go like, "Coach Tony, my school doesn't offer any APs. My school doesn't have any IBS. My school doesn't have any honors." It's cool. Don't worry. Chill. It's regional. It's they're going to compare you against your high school and against local schools around you. So, the key is you want to beat the the tip here. The the pro pro tip here. The pro pro tip here is you want to beat your high school is usually how it is, right? I tell students, you got to beat your high school. Whatever your high school is doing, you want to beat that is the key. So that's going to be the that's going to be uh the big thing to keep in mind over here, right? That being said, right, that being said, something else to keep in mind when it comes to the rigor uh as well too is that this is I don't know everyone has different summer schedule as well too. This upcoming summer, right? So for you guys, summer 2025, right, is the last set of grades the colleges will see, right? Colleges will see senior year classes, but they ## Letters of Recommendation....Who to Ask and When [13:30] won't see their their grades. So if you have time, if you can squeeze it in, I usually recommend students taking a summer classes to increase that rigor uh is the thing there. All right, that being said, that's pretty much the academics. Two more things before we move on to activities. Let's talk about test scores for a little bit. Let's talk about overlays for a little bit as well too. So, first off, test scores, right? When it comes to test scores, keep in mind is your school test uh what is the college looking for? Right? Is it test required? If it's test required, you have to take it, right? The score they're looking and they may be looking for a certain score too, but they're that's is test required. Number two, test optional. Test optional means that it's optional. You can do it. You don't have to do it, right? Either one as well, too. And last one is test blind means they don't care about it at all. the most famous schools for each of these right uh test required like the I mostly I say Harvard right they are test required MIT right they are required as well too some famous uh optional schools USC is a pretty I think UT Austin I think is the other big one that's uh that's optional as well too blind uh UCLA UC Berkeley right these schools are optional they don't that they're blind they're blind they don't care at all so I think that's the thing again fact check me it changes all the time but these are like the big ones as well too so if you're if you're this you want to do well, right? So, test test required. You should do well the best you can and submit the best score. Test optional only helps, right? Test optional only helps if it's good, right? If not, it's neutral value, right? It's not bad. Nothing bad about it. Just neutral. Meaning, if you have a chance, you have you're weighing out should I do this? Should I do that? if you're not going to get a very competitive score and the the score we're aiming for aim for 50th to 75th percentile of the colleg's average. If you look at the school Google, right? Google uh USC test score average percentile. It'll give you a ballpark number. That's what you want to aim for is the key. Again, if you are cramming, by the way, if you're cramming, you're going to increase uh 100 points. 100 points per month is if you cram. So, basically, if you're going to do cramming for exam, see where you're at. Let's say you I'm making up numbers now. Let's say USC's average 50th is like 1450 and you're at a 1350 and you have a month to study. Beautiful. You probably get to the 1450 plus range and you're fine. Study, take the exam, you do good. If let's say cut off is 1450, you're at a,000. It's a big difference, right? A lot of months of studying. I don't think it's worth it for you to do that. So, I'd recommend not to do it. That's kind of strategy when it comes to test scores. Okay? So, that's that. Again, for law students, you should be done. You shouldn't take more after this. and then spend the next few months focusing on your essays and your prompts. We'll talk about a little bit. But if you are going to do it again, try to take it the earlier the better, especially doing early action schools. They're cut off October, right? So, you want to get it done early as best you can there. So, ## Setting Up a Clean Email and Folder System [16:30] that's test scores. And last thing is overlays, right? This is something I look for as a reader. Overlays are classes that demonstrates interest in your major. So, if you are a certain type of major, I'd be looking for certain things, right? There's going to be a few. There's not a lot out there. There's a lot of majors, but when you reclassify them under pathways, right, reconsider majors under pathways. There's only like a few out there. The first pathway, right, is engineering. If your child's interested in mechanical engineering, civil, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, engineering in general, it's engineering, right? Another pathway is going to be computer science, data science. Another pathway is going to be like bio or uh STEM. I'm call STEM or sciences, right? Sciences, right? Another one pathway is going to be business. Another pathway is going to be humanities. Keep in mind there's no such thing as a law like a pre-law field. That's a grad school thing, right? So most likely what major would that other interest fall? It might be human like polyai. Cool. Humanities. That's kind of how I think of it, right? So the overlays, what are the overlays here? These can keep in mind this is not what you need to have. However, as a reader, I'd be looking for this so I can if you can alter your schedule a little bit. I would recommend that for senior year. Engineering, I'm looking for two things. One, strong math. If you can get past calc 3 or higher is what you usually see. Cal 3. What's that, Chris Tony? My school doesn't offer that exactly. Most schools offer calc BC. That's the equivalent of calc 2. Can you get to calc 3? I would recommend that as well too. That's option one. And then the other one is going to be strong physics, right? So physics one, physics C, physics E, AP physics. Taking that as well too. What if, Coach Tony, what if my school doesn't offer it? Be resourceful. Keep in mind, here's a little pro tip for everyone, right? Pro tip, admissions tip right here, right? Colleges don't care about resources, right? They want to see how resourceful you are, right? We have students in middle who go literally in school in middle nowhere. They want to figure out how resourceful you can be. Computer science is strong math same thing. I would recommend the calc 3 or higher uh for this one. Biological calc 2 or ## Application Tracking Tools That Keep You Focused [18:45] higher for this one. And then strong biological sciences like bi AP bio AP chem AP apes AP environmental science as well too. This is strong math uh calc 2 or higher as well too for this one. Uh calc 2 or higher for this one. And humanities is uh strong rigor, right? This this is a fun one. Strong anything else non non- stem, right? Strong rigor as well too. Doesn't mean you can't take the ones. It mean this is what we've been looking for is the key here, right? So this is the different pathways you guys want to consider. If you're missing anything that you have summer, you have 12th grade. Put it into your schedule. Moving on to activities now, right? Activities. This is the core. This is what makes you stand out because academics, everyone's smart now because everyone is smart now as well too. It's hard to stand out when it comes to academics, right? So, you stand out when it comes to activities. What I'm looking for, again, don't feel like I have to do this, but these are numbers that we like to have our students aim for. If you're aiming for a top 100 college, right, top 100, we want our students to aim for around 20 hours of activities per week, right? If you're aiming for like top 25, top 25 are students 30 hours of activities per week as well too. And keep in mind some weeks es and flows. You have some crazy weeks, you have some lighter weeks as well too. But it's the students who leverage their time. Again, when I say IV kids are not accidental. If you look at their like and we interviewed a bunch of our students, it's all on YouTube. Check it out as well too if you're bored after the session of course, right? Check it out. They have nothing in common. Like their activities, nothing. And keep in mind there's no activity no activity that a reader is specifically is specifically looking for. Right? People talk about research or internship summer. No, no, you can you can do that. Our kids do that. But do you have to do specific things? No. Right? What they do have in common, however, is going to be the uh 20 30 hours, right? That we're looking for. Like how do you spend your time outside of this? So keep in mind that's kind of what I'm looking for. So again, if you're short, what do you do now this summer? Let's get busy with activities is is the kind of goal here. There's two buckets. There's two buckets you want to use to fill up your ## August To-Do List Before the Portals Open [21:00] activities here. The first bucket, I call it tasting your major, right? Tasting your major. Tasting your major. Tasting your major meaning doing things, right? Doing things doing things to show me that you're interested in a certain major. And the second one is doing things that makes you you right basically things not related to your major as well too. For example, let's give example real fast, right? Let's say example computer science. I'm a computer science student as well too. If you told me you were a computer science student, right? If I looked if I looked at your activities alone, can I conclude that you are a computer science student? Right? Some students tell me, "I want to be uh an architect, architecture, architecture major, right?" And I look at their activities and I see nothing, absolutely nothing that shows me that you're interested in that. I'm like, "Huh, why are you that?" Then I call it, it's a big wish, right? Then this becomes a wish. Then this becomes a wish. you want to be this major, right? Why do we have students do this? Platting ahead, I'm skipping ahead to like part three, part four, part five, part five of this training, which is going to be all right, how do you write your essays? One of the essay questions is going to be why do you uh skipping ahead, skipping ahead, right? One of the questions for colleges is why do you want to be this major, right? And most students do not have really good answers to this one, right? Uh I want to be an architect to build things. I want to be an engineer to fix things. I want to be a computer science to uh to play with AI. I want to be a doctor to save the world and stuff like that. Right? These are all wishes in the world. But what people can't like what people like but again you can change your wish. You can change things. What you what factual though is your past. So the best way to answer this question is I want to be X because in ninth grade I did A. Then in 10th I continued and did B. Then I uh continued to do C. And you keep leaving a history a track record of wow, right? This student is clearly leading towards being a computer science student or leading to be a history student, whatever the major is. That's how you do this question. Correct. Little spoilers over the head, right? So, that's a good tactical tip for you guys. But that's kind of why I tell students half of your activities should be taste your major. Spoilers, right? If your child's missing that this summer is a good good summer to do stuff, right? The thing doesn't matter. Let me write that one more time on here. The thing doesn't matter. You don't need the research. You don't need the summer program, the internship. Can you? You can. So, keep in mind you can. You don't have but you don't have to, right? can but you don't have to. That's the key as well too. You don't have to. You can do it as well too, right? And so for some students it's good. And keep in ## Final Checklist and Free Resources [24:00] mind I on that note as well too, right? These things are good for different student. Not every student is going to love an internship. Internship is hands-on. So whatever hands-on is going to be, internship is good for you. If you're a learner, if your child just loves to learn and absorb things, maybe a program or a class might be better for them to kind of get them immersed in that thing. So again, it's a little different for every single student there, right? So that's that. That's the first part. Doing things. Second one is what makes you you. Basically, everything that you do that's not related. I love it. Basically, the question I ask students, right, the question, the filter, I call the filter question for activities is if coach Tony didn't let me put this on my college apps, would I still want to do this? Right. As well, too. We have some athletes. I'm sure out of how many people we have now, we haveund 164 people here now, right? So if I bet you at least a few of you guys have kids who are athletes, right? Play play soccer, basketball, martial arts, um all these different sports, right? If I told them, hey, you can't you can keep doing it, but you won't be able to put it on your college app. Would you still want to play soccer, football, baseball, softball, anything? I bet you your kids will say, "Yes, of course. I I I don't care. I still want to do it for me cuz I want to do it. That's the best reason why. That is what makes them them, right? Makes me me. That might not be be related to computer science, but that's good because keep in mind as well too with the second half, right? Second half, right, of the me, right? This is what makes you different from all the other major applicants, right? So, let's say you say, I want to do computer science. I bet you if you if that's your child, they probably have programmed something. They have probably done like a hackathon. They probably built an app or something, but so has everyone else. So you do that to show the major, but if you only do that, you look like everyone else. There's nothing special about you. What makes you different is everything else that you've done. Like I always tell people like I do college admissions. You guys see it. I think I'm pretty good at it as well, too. But on my outside college missions, I'm a huge pro wrestling fan. I I watch pro wrestling all the time. Collect I'm also a big Pokemon card fan collecting Pokemon cards as well too. That's what I do outside. Does me liking Pokemon cards or wrestling make me any worse of a uh college missions? No. But it's makes me unique, right? That makes me oneonone. Again, how many other college people do you know who like pro wrestling, who like Pokemon cards, who has a really cool mohawk uh as well too in conjunction? Nothing. That's that's why I I'm pretty sure I'll stand out in your life. You probably won't forget me at least for a few months as well. A few weeks at least, right? Uh here. And that's the key that we want our students to demonstrate is to show that uniqueness of them over here. All right. So, that's going to be the big thing when it comes to activity section. Again, it's not too late. You have the summer, maximize that as well, too. So, that's pretty much the big takeaway of the college admissions kind of one-on-one thus far, right? The last step is going to be application, but we're going to talk about that in a future section. So that is the first section for you guys. Hopefully really quick in the chat. Was that useful so far? Drop a quick yes in the chat. Make me feel good. Make me feel good. If you guys are liking it so far, uh or no. If you have you're like, "Oh, this is terrible. This is terrible." Drop a no. Uh as well, too. But if you guys are liking it, it's good. All right. Few few yeses. Few capital yeses. Love it. All caps. Love it. Moving on. Again, we don't have time. I'm going on. I'm 30 minutes out. I got only an hour to go. your next 365 day timeline as well too like I mentioned some of you guys this might be your first child going through the process for some of you this is your second third sometimes may luckily for me some of you lucky ones the fourth uh as well too right the big thing here right is going to be your uh the next year so for especially those who are this is your first time navigating a journey you know it's hard because you don't know what to expect when you know what to again keep Anyone who watches TV, right? You've watched TV. When you watch a new show, you don't know is it good? Is it bad? I don't know. But if you know like this show is really good and you keep going back to watch it, it's easy. You know what to predict. You might you might forget the exact details, right? Like I'm I'm re-watching uh Blacklist on Netflix. Love it. I love that show. I've rewatched it three times. I keep like, "Wow, I don't remember to see at all." That's the beauty of it. You know kind of what happens, but you don't remember the exact details. So for a lot of the families, right, if you know what's coming up next is a lot less scary and stressful. So let's go ahead and talk about that uh today on this session uh first for you guys. Okay. So I'm going to kind of break down I'm going to ramble a little bit as well to what you guys should be doing at times again. What are we doing with our students? So the first one is summer, right? So right now if you're watching this live, we are beginning middle June right now as well too. This will take us from June uh June July to August I would say. Right. So what should you be doing now? Right? So a few things. First thing you should be doing, you should be finaliz finalizing finalizing your college list. Right? We'll talk about college list in a bit in the next section. So hang on tight there. But this is basically trying to figure out your reach schools, your uh your match schools, your safety schools. Reach schools are like your stats and how you think of it that is your stats. Basically stats, right? Is your stats under the the average of the school? Then there school. If it matches, it's a match. If your stats are above the average, then it's a safety. That's what I would do as well too. I would also have, again, this is us. I would have you start and get to almost done with the college essays, right? As well, too. The I guess the main ones with the main college essays as well too. This is the if you're applying to UC's, this is the personal insight questions. If it's you're applying to private schools, this is the personal statements as well too. You should get start to almost done there. Right. And again today I should hopefully teach you guys how to write that whole process as well too. Right. Next you should have your activity list activity list completed uh as well too right of like listing things out. Just a heads up. The UC's are going to ask for 20 slots. The private schools the common app I'm call it common app right ask for 10 slots as well. We'll talk about that in a little bit as well too. Right. So that's that over here. I got to figure this part out as well too. Now, by the way, like this month, I would ask for letters of recommend recommenders. Recommenders. Ask for not letters, ask for recommenders right now. Right? So, the trick here, by the way, the trick is you ask them, "Hey, Mr. Mrs. So ando. Can you I'm applying to college in the fall, right? In a few months. Would you be able to help me write a strong letter of recommendation for me in a few months?" They're going to say yes or no. Your goal is to get a yes, right? Awesome. We got a yes. Perfect. Awesome. in a few months I'll get back to you and ask you for give you more information. You don't ask for anything yet. Way too early. They're not going to write anything anyways during summer, right? But that's you want to ask now. So you have that here. Okay. So that's the big thing. And again for anyone's doing SAT now might be a good time to think about that as well too. If you want to visit schools, you can you can do virtual tour um is the key. But that's kind of summer. That's kind of the big goal for us this upcoming summer is get most of the essays done and most of the other pieces done as well too. also summer if you're doing classes, right? Do well in classes, do well in your classes because this is like the last set of grades that you're going to have um as well too. Okay, next next thing after summer is going to be fall. This is the juicy one. This is the big one because again for a lot of you guys, this is when you're applying. Keep in mind, right, deadlines are all in fall. Let's break it down. We can give you a month. June, uh uh July, August, right? Let's call uh let's call fall let's call it um September October September October November that's fair right so this is where most like half not I say most half your deadlines are going to be right there's going to be early action early decision colleges this is around the month of October right so in the month of October you you'll be submitting your first set of apps which is this set of schools the next set of apps some schools do regular in November mber. One one example of that is the UC system. The UC's is November 30th, right? Is there some other schools do in November as well. The rest is in December, January and February. So that's the one thing the deadlines are really really big to keep in mind uh for you guys here, right? You should also finish you should finish all of your essays uh including the supplements, right? And so how college works is when you're applying to schools, they have the main essay like the personal statement and a few each school has their own supplements, a set of questions that they'll ask you in addition. That's what the supplements are. We'll talk about that as well too. You get all that done as well too. Um that's pretty much it, right? Is is the is the biggest thing um here. And again, letters of recommendations official now. So now you go back to now to finish the trick. The trick is, right? Remember we asked in June, we asked, "Hey teacher, hey Mr. coach, Mr. whatever was miss whatever can you be like they told us yes when you go back to them in the fall time right and they say you hey and you ask them hey I asked you in June le you told me yes can you still do it for me they say yes here's my little pro tip for you guys right pro tip letters of recommendation should add new value to your profile most letters of wreck suck the reason why they suck is because most people say the same things. Oh my god, Johnny was so smart. He he did great in my class. Uh and I know he was like as he was great in ASB. And I was like, okay, I saw his grades. He Johnny got O A's. I see ASB. That told me nothing new. I want to learn new information, right? Want new information. So how do we do this? How is you? You need to finish your apps first. at least the rough draft of your app because once you finish your app, you'll see like, hm, I didn't get a chance, right? I didn't get a chance to talk about topic one, uh, two and three, right? Cuz that was extra, but I didn't get a chance to fill in my abs. There's no room for it or they didn't fit anywhere. Guess who's going to talk about topic one, two, and three, right? Your recommenders. Your recommenders. You can tell, hey, recommend number one. Uh, thank you for my app. Here's my resume. Here's my application. Tell them not to repeat anything that you already have in your app. And hey, here's something you can use to help you with the prompt as well, too. The recommenders going to love you for helping them. And it sounds counterintuitive like wait, yeah, they're going to love you for helping them write it as well, too. So, again, give them that extra ammo there. Right. So, I think that's the big tip here. And so, that's pretty much fall follows a lot of the application. We'll talk about that again in a little bit there too. Right. Then, oh, also in fall, something that happens October 1st, right? FASA opens, right? FASA is the free application for federal student aid. You need to apply. I do not care if you make $1 a year or a million dollars a year. Everyone fills out FASA. How fast works is that it's a form you fill out. It gets sent form gets sent gets sent to every college, right? It gets sent to every college as well too. And each college will be creating you the profile as well. The the the aid the aid breakdown. And when it comes to the aid breakdown, there's a few types. There's grants, there's schol there's school scholarships, there's uh work study, work study, and there's loans, right? So when it comes to grants, grants is completely free money. You don't have to pay them back. School scholarships rare. School scholarship is money that the school might give you to help you out a little bit as well too. Nothing significant anymore. It's like tiny little bit, right? Work study is a loan that you can work off, but you get an onampus job and you can work and they give you the money directly to you. If you choose not to work, they convert that to a loan if you want to take the loan. And for loans, money you borrow, you pay back as well too. There's two types of loans. I little little financial class for you guys. There's two types. There's subsidized and subsidized and unsubsidized loans as well too. Subsidized loan because once you borrow money, you owe interest, right? Oh, extra money on top of it. Subsidized loans means the government, someone is going to pay off that interest for you until 6 months uh in uh interest free uh until 6 months after graduation. So you graduate from college 6 months after then interest kicks in. For unsubsidized interest kicks in, interest starts right away. Repayment starts 6 months after graduation, right? So uh with unsubsidized, it kicks you right away. You borrow money. Boom. You sign the own money right away and then you don't start paying it off until six months after you graduate. Right? A lot more complicated stuff. Uh we have a sister company called Financial Aid Edge. They help our families more with that. So if anyone's interested, let me know. I'll connect you with coach David. He runs that. But going back going back now, that's going to be the fall semester, the fall area. Next thing is going to be winter, right? So when it comes to winter, we want to finish the rest of our uh finish the rest of our regular decisions, right? Apps as well, too. So a lot of the apps are due in December or January as well, too. You can submit in. Keep in mind, one of the tips I'll tell you guys later, we do encourage you to apply early. Where's the early ones again? Apply early because if you apply early, you don't get in. They defer you. It's not a rejection. They just defer you to the regular. So, you get two chances of admissions. Kind of fun things about uh applying early as well too, right? You apply early, you submit it. Keep in mind uh submit your FASA. Um one more thing I forgot also FASA and CSS. That's the other form um that you have, right? CSS is private, right? So CSS FASA is free. CSS cost money per school. So keep keep that in mind as well too. Very similar financial numbers to to determine how much aid you can get uh as well too, right? And again, no matter what how much you make, you'll get a combination, meaning unless you're paying everything out of pocket without anything, then don't do it. But again, I'm sure you want to have options, right? So submit it. They'll give you so if you're more of a low lower income side, you get more grants, less loans. If you're more on the higher income bracket, you get less grants, more loans. That's kind of that's basically how it works like looks like. And again, you're not obligated. You can say no. You can they'll offer to you. You tell them, "Nope, I'm good." But at least you can open that door for them there. Okay. So, that's that winner. You're submitting apps. You're saying everything. You will also start to get acceptances, right? Uh especially early action, early decision acceptances as well too. So, if you get an early action, you're done. And if it was one of the schools you want to get into, you can relax the rest of the school year and you are good to go. Early decision is even more cool. Early decision, you're locked into one, right? So, you only ed to one school. You're telling that school, hey, I'm only eding to you and no one else. Meaning, if you get in, you're legally obligated to go to that school the following year. Early action, you have a choice. You can still say tell them no. You just got to find out early, but you can still tell them no. Decision, you're locked. That's why you only pick one school to go to as well, right? So, that's that's the the king here. Again, you don't have to let them know. You just got to just keep on you will start to see acceptances uh coming in as well too. That's be the big thing here. Last one is going to be spring, right? Uh spring is you'll find out all find out all acceptances as well too. April you get to decide right in the month of April. By April 1, you know every school you got into uh and you get to decide what school you want to. I would recommend recommend uh visiting now, right? I say visit because when you visit once you get in it's a different feeling than visiting without getting in as well too. So visit the school and then see pick like two or three top schools. Visit I recommend visiting during the school like when school's in session. Don't visit on a random Sunday. No one's there. You can't get a feel for the school. Uh go there. A lot of these schools have like a lot of these schools have their overnight host programs uh or like shadow days. Shadow days as well too. I recommend or like open houses. Open houses. Come to those right. That's why you get the whole school spirit and it's pretty cool as well too. do that. You need to decide by May 1st. May 1st is the submit uh your intent to register intent to register deadline. Okay? So that that day you have to decide one school I'm committing by May 2nd. If the school does not hear back from you, they assume you told them no. So you can be nice, tell them no. By the way, I would courtesy let people know a no because that's how weight lists work, right? So I keep my little little side note side note here, right? If you tell a school no, they can move someone up the weight list. Keep in mind, so again, uh, and always it always happens like you're on the witness for one school and you try to figure out like, hey, free up your spots, too. So, it's like karma, right? So, you free up your spots. Hopefully, someone free up their spot, you can help find them faster as well, too. That's how weight list work. Weight list is you did get a yes, but you didn't make it into that first pool. So, if enough people say no, uh, you get it. And that's kind of how admission works. So, a little fun like lesson for you guys here is that let's say a school has 10,000 spots, they will accept 12,000 knowing, right? Knowing that 2,000 will not say yes to them, right? The one famous example where this backfired really hard was a few years a more than a few years now, a while back at Berkeley, right? they completely miscalculated that less people said no to them. So that's the year they turn all their quads into rooms to like all their sorry they they change all their study halls to to quads as well too. So it's crazy. So but usually schools are very good about good about this. They accept higher than and then people drop then let's say let's say uh 9,000 said yes, right? Then the 1,000 comes from the weight list, right? the the the missing 1,000 cuz they want to max out their capacity as well too is the thing, right? Is that a little fun fact for you guys, fun fact, right? Colleges can only enroll based on availability of housing. So later on when you guys see like a school is really proud to build a dorm, it's because they can recruit like a hundred more kids, 200 what how big the dorm is. That's kind of why building dorms is really big in colleges is the more houses you can build, the more people can register. So, a fun little fact for you guys as well, too. So, that's that, right? So, that's pretty much the timeline. And by May 1st, you guys are good and you fill out all the rest of your forms and you guys submit uh and you guys are good to go for college. So, that is phase number two, the timeline as well too. Is that is that is that good? But quick little quick check real fast. Is that good? You guys enjoy that session too? Drop a quick yes in the chat. Make me feel good. Uh boost my little ego as well too if you guys like that session as well. People are asking, "Hey, uh we're recording." This call is recorded. Uh, I'll give you guys the access of the record at the very end if you guys want to replay as lot lot more yeses. You you guys like this more than the first section as well too. Next one. How to pick colleges. Man, I am speeding through. I know. I don't know if I'm on track on on time or not. Next one is um how to pick the right colleges, right? And here's the thing. Let's talk about this first. My number one kind of tip for all families, right? As well too. Ranking is only good for three reasons, right? Number one, right? Uh um number two, it's just a tip, right? Number one, right? Students get to put this on their resume and it matters and it matters matters uh can type matters for like five years, right? Number two, parents can brag to their friends, their neighbors, their their nail ladies and and everyone else for a few years as well too. Number three, right? It most likely will assist you uh with your first job as well too because then colleges have connections and all that stuff as well too, right? So that's pretty much what ranking is good for in today's world cuz back in the day, right, you want to go to Harvard because the Harvard network, the people you meet, right, to get the network, right, by go uh of going to uh of going to a top tier college, right? Add them on LinkedIn. as well too. You create the same network of people, right? Going there, not going there as well too. That's going to be the big thing uh over here. So again, that's why the network's growing less of a fact. We're moving more into a meritocracy world, especially by the way, I don't know you guys are following news or not, but AI is growing really, really quick, right? So again, as these skills get more and more kind of replaced as well too, the ranking may not matter as much as much as your skills of what you can do to leverage the opportunity. That's going to be the big thing, right? So that's my kind of big tip for people when people say we when people tell me, "I want to go to Harvard, UCLA, blah blah." I'm like, "Huh, cool. Why?" Right? But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, we're all human. And because we're human, uh we all have egos. as well too. We have egos and we all love to we all love to brag, right? Parents, you want to brag about your kids. I want to brag how good you guys get in a few months as well too because I get to brag about all our 2025 seniors and then in a year I get to if you guys do well, I get to brag about you guys as well too. So, it's a win-win-win situation there. That being said, right, I always recommend the recommendation here, keep ranking top 10, not top five. I think this will help a lot of this your students out uh is keep it top 10. One of the top 10 factors you look at in a school, but it might not be your top five uh in a school that you would decide on um as well too, right? So the biggest thing is you want to go ahead and do that. So what factors do we look at? Right? So if not ranking, what factor matters? And then the answer this one is look at the student, right? And so I think a lot of times we talk a lot about a lot parents like oh I want my child to go here here here and I'm like that's nice but uh you're not going to college parent your kid is going to college at the end of the day your kid is the one going to be going through the work of all the stuff as well too we could want anything for them but they need to be the ones who want it and go there and succeed in that environment as well too right so when I when I throw this answer it means let me give you a bunch of things to think about and then the students are the ones who tell us, "Hey, I care about number three, five, and seven. The rest are whatever, right?" I think that's going to be how you want to kind of view this section of this training is like, "Here's just a bunch of random things that again, there's probably more. I'm not going to list every single factor out there, but if you have nowhere where to start, right, start with these and this will help you kind of start thinking about what can or can I do, right? Is number one. Next one. Let's go and talk about it. Next one. First one, let's talk about location." That's probably one of the bigger ones, right? Location as well, too. Do you want to and and I I should add proximity. Proximity as well too. Do you want to stay close to home? Do you want to go far from home? Right? Do you want to stay east coast? Do you want to go west coast? Any any of the any of the areas, right? So again, do you want to stay in the US? Do you want to go internationally as well? There's tons and tons of different options for you guys here. But location may play a big role, right? Uh I would say opportunities, right? There's a reason why a lot of students study computer science at Berkeley and Stanford and San Jose State cuz they're right next to Silicon Valley. The opportunity just by osmosis of being in the area is a lot greater than middle of nowhere, right? As well too. That's the big thing here. Uh size, class sizes is a huge factor as well too. Uh if you're thinking about going to public school, right? A university, a public college, right? These are huge. They're big on purpose as well too. When I took classes at uh UC Berkeley, my class was like 100 200 one class I think was like 4 500 people being big. It's like a theater talking and lecturing as well too. I loved it. I loved the fact that no one know knew who I was. I got to sit in the back. Got to do my own thing. Some people didn't like that. Well, again, one of the examples I had coach David, he went to the Claremont Colleges. If you guys are thinking about that, the Claremont colleges uh private school in California near the Pomona area. Uh it is um super private liberal arts school. His one of his classes there was two students in the class him and someone else. So when he didn't show up the professor give literally gave him a phone call say hey David come to class as well too. Right? So class size might be a big thing. Some of you want smaller smaller class sizes. Some of you want bigger one as well too. I'm going to write off a bunch I have on my list over here. Right. Majors opportunity. I've also put pathways here because they might not have the exact major but they might have the pathway you lean down as well too. Learning styles is another big one as well too. Some schools again some schools lecture some schools discuss do more discussion uh as well too. Uh uh in terms of like I'm going take job opportunities here but I will also say college opportunities meaning sometimes some schools offer research some schools offer study abroad. by the way study abroad I recommend everyone that's my one regret in college I did not do that but everyone I've seen that they loved it so definitely recommend that as well too uh speed all right of college right some schools do semester system some schools do the quarter system semester is 16 weeks long quarter is 10 weeks they just speed up quarter a lot faster as well too right campus vibe right how how is the environment is it competitive is it uh intense as well too fun And not to tell people not to go to Berkeley, but but my roommate, right, you guys know Berkeley has a really really competitive business program as well, too. He went my roommate uh in college today. Today, he's doing really well. He's the VP at Ring if you guys know the the the door company. So, he's doing really well in the world. But when he went to college, he was a business major at the high school. Uh he went to one and only one study group. The reason why is that um he went and the his his study mates gave each other the wrong answers because if they got the wrong answers you you scored low on the exam you missed the breakoff for the things that's low intense right I picked the easy majors at Berkeley where no one felt that way so again it depends on the area the group as well too right student body same thing the size of the school uh diversity opportunities as well too uh culture well the culture culture, the school, the vibe, the traditions as well too. Support systems, right? That's a big one for a lot of our students as well too that might need the extra support, the extra like test taking times that these services that can help you with that. That's a big one as well too. Net price, right? That's still a factor of like the money. I always tell families though, like again, my two cents on this is that apply, get in, then figure out the cost afterwards, right? Again, figure cost as you go, but like let that be a factor after you get in. There's no point figure out can you can you not if you don't you didn't even get into school first. So get in and then just figure out the math after that um as well too, right? There's a lot of other factors as well too that you care about. One of our students cared about food. So for her list, food was top top five for her of like how good was the dorm food at each of the areas as well too. So again it's figure out what factors matter the most to your student then ranking it. Then you filter based on this. Right? Right. So again, the takeaway here, the takeaway is start with the student, not the college. That's the big thing here. Start with the student and figure out them first, then go back to the college to uh map out the rest of the thing, right? At excuse me, at the end of the day, you're going to try to match your schools up in three groups, right? There's the reach schools, there's the match schools, and the safety schools as well, too, right? Three type the the college list, right? The how do you figure this out is you want to look at your average stats, right? So if you are uh below if you are below the average profile of the school that is a reach school for you uh the if you uh you match the admitted profile right you are a match school and then you are uh above right the average profile that has a safety school as well too typically we see students of us apply 10 10 five 10 to 15 colleges uh when they apply I had student this year. Uh our our current record right now, this past year, she applied to 47 colleges. Uh we actually interviewed her, but if you want to try find her as well, she applied to 47 colleges. She got into 42 uh of them as well, too. By the way, I do not recommend applying to 47 colleges. But in theory, if any of our coaching students do, that's the record. And we do they do provide support with all the apps there, right? So that's kind of be the college. Again, the big takeaway here is go back to the student, figure out what that is. So, we can go back to um uh the list, right? And once you have the list, once you have the list itself, right? And one question is how do you find the information about the stuff, right? How do we find the information about colleges? Right? Uh you guys ready? You go to g o g l e.com Google right Google it everything you need and want to find out about any school is online right if you want to be a little more hightech with it leverage AI to help you find this data a lot faster uh as well too which again I I I would recommend that in today's world as well too so that's that's that's that uh or AI right as well too so that's kind of what I would say and that's the college list moving on college applications as well too. Really quick, just so I make sure no one's asleep still is number one. Number two, uh what schools are you guys applying to? This will help me give me a list of the apps to walk through really quick. So, in the chat really quick for me, uh leave on everyone mode or if you if you're shy, you can leave it on host mode so I can see it. Uh what schools just drop one or two. Don't have to make a big list right now, but one or two schools that your child is applying to in the fall. I'm assuming if you're in this call you're a 2026 student uh right uh 2026 family as well too right so which apps uh I so so far I see uh a lot of UC so UC application be one of them uh as well too I see private schools uh USC USC uses a common application uh NYU uses the common application of Hawaii uses a common application uh all these schools LSU Auburn use the common application um Georgetown does not use the common app they use their own right uh and MIT these are the two private school that use their own app as well too uh Calpali the Cal states right apps as well too there a lot of the state school a lot of the non-cal California state schools they all use the common app so these are the big ones I want to focus on these two today right um this one is a very similar to the common apps why I'm going to focus on that Cal states mimic the UC app and just a heads up heads up for you Cal states only ask for academics. Do not ask for activities. Do not ask for or does not it's not do not does not ask for this and does not ask for essays. Keep that in mind as well too if you're applying to Cal States means Kpali uh Cal Cal Long Beach Fullerton San Diego State uh slow Pomona they only do academics at those schools. Okay. So now we're going to focus on these two apps because again Georgetown MIT their app mimics, right? It's very similar to the common app, but they're just special. They actually have their own app like the UC's do. So we're talking about both of these real fast, right? So let's go ahead and start first. I'm going to do a live demo if that's okay with you guys. Hopefully it it doesn't break for me. University of California actually apply. University of California.edu. Can you guys still see my screen? I'm going to a different tab. That's why. So let me know real quick in the chat. you guys can see the screen um as well. Yes. No. Awesome. By the way, you can you can do it with me with me. Don't do it right now with me. Follow up. You can do it right after this call and try to try to do with the apps. You're going to go ahead and sign in. Um I think I have a account. I do. Right. You're going to go through once you open an account in a few months. It'll have a new check mark. Um here it'll have a check mark for I'm a first year. Right. As a first year, you've transferred you first year, right? And then um oh it won't let me because the term's over going back I'm g back real fast. So um you'll be able to let's let's go back to this one fast once you go in. Right. So then for you guys once October August 1st August 1st August 1st right all the new 2026 apps will be released right keep in mind FYI the apps do not change significantly over time right so uh so that's the one that's why if you want to start now you can right like last year for context for you guys I think they changed they changed the lived name to prefer name to preferred name. preferred name, right? Uh they're chang I think you you saw it they they're right 2026 they're changing uh freshman year to first year uh as well too. uh and I think uh was a common app changes something else but like very insignificant things right so that's the one thing you can start now so once you open the app this is the the sections that will ask you for the about campus ac academic activities sorry academic test scores activities scholarship and personal insight so going through the first part is all the about you information right it's going to ask you about your personal information I'll click fast you'll see like personal information as well too your contact how they can contact you guys uh your citiz citizenship and residency. Keep in mind, FYI, it sounds like a lot of you guys are in California. I see based on the the number of UC schools you guys are applying to. Keep in mind, FY California residency has residency has two parts. There's an academic residency and a tuition residency. Academic residency means, right, uh are you going to be 3.0 UC GPA minimum versus 3.4 UC GPA minimum? uh which is for California non-residents for California non-residents is a 3.4 for to be to qualify for the academics, you got to be in the in California for one plus year. So if you're in California for over a year, you qualify for the instate UC GPA minimum, right? Tuition though is different. So keep in mind, I talked to I had to talk to her family. Really sad. Tuition, right? This is either paying California tuition or paying the out uh the nonresident. I call it the tax. It's not a tax, but it's like the the fee. It's like an extra 20,000 30,000 per year as well too for the California non-residents as well too. To qualify for this, you need to be in California for 3 plus years. So, you can't just move to California your last year and claim the tuition. That's not how it works. This is a heads up for those who are thinking about moving to California for that reason. Don't do that. Or call people first to make sure it's good before you do that. That's the big thing, right? So this residency is about the uh academics right. So as that and then demographics uh this is optional. This is purely optional by the way. As a reader I did not see any any information here. You share your background again that gives me context about who you are. You share your household information uh parents income as well. Shows me kind of information about to give context. But keep in mind that just because on your app you make 99999.99 means we think you're like the wealthiest student ever. That's not how it works either because context right one of the examples that we as a reader I went to uh antibbias training uh is what what it's called because let's say example right here's the example there example right if you saw a student income and you and you saw uh 99999999 which capped out right you're like oh man money it's probably because of money they had lots of resources as well too but what if later on you read that this student right they're they had to claim that cuz That's dad's money. This is dad's money, right? This is dad's money. And student lives with mom on section 8 in section 8. Section section 8 is housing, right? The the low affordability housing, right? Housing as well too. They don't make a lot as well too. But again, this number will kind of skew your brain. So as a reader, we are trained not to use our the natural biases. This is context. Cool. What this what is what content is telling me? Cool. Let me go ahead and keep reading more to understand, right? As well too. That's that parent information legal res. This is the question about the uh the the the residency for living there. And that's that. That's the first piece. Next part is campuses and majors, right? So when it comes to campus and major, this you sign the agreement term your first year as well too. You pick the schools you're applying to, right? Each school, I believe, is $80 to apply to as well. You apply to all nine. There there's 10 UC's, but 10th one is UC San Francisco. You can't apply that yet, right? Apply to all the schools here. Once you select the school I I me but you select the schools next page it'll let you select the majors for each school it will say uh UC Berkeley major 1 major 2 blah blah blah as well too. Keep in mind in today's world your major 2 probably does not matter, right? So major 2 states if you finish major one and there's still room, they will look at major two. You guys have seen data of the last few years. Nobody has made it to round two at all. You're easily able to fill up the whole pool with just round one. So again, round two is kind of useless. Uh, but for the most part, again, your first choice major is going to be a huge component of what you end up picking. Right? Here's a little FYI tip for you guys. Little another FYI tip, right? FYI tip. Most UC's admit by college. Same with a lot of private school as well too. They admit by college. So, if your majors in a certain college is being read the same, right? The only school that admits by only UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara admits by major. Meaning, if you don't have a if you are applying to one of the top 10 ma requested majors and your profile isn't the strongest, you may want to consider not applying to one of the top 10 majors. That I think the math like 50 60% of the pool that everyone applies to 10 majors and the rest apply to like hundreds of others. So again, you have a much higher likelihood of getting in if your app wasn't strong. If your app is strong, by the way, like a lot of our our students were like, "Yeah, go apply. It's you. Don't worry about it as well too, right? That's the thing to keep in mind here." Okay, so that's that. Excuse me. So that's the major section, right? Then when it comes to the academics, right, they're going to ask you for a lot of information. First, they're going to ask you for seventh, eighth grade. Did you take a math class? Take a link because those things count uh these count uh towards the towards um your requirements. Next one, high schools. What high school did you attend? Did you apply to? If you went to one school, you put one school. If you went to multiple schools, by the way, if some of you guys did like UC Scout and online high school, or like BYU, those are all high schools, too. You can add that in the section. Then in ninth grade, what classes did I take? You put the classes there. What did I do? 10th grade and my grades, 11th grade and my grades. And what am I planning to do for 12th grade? That's why 12th grade still matters. And then right, those of you who did dual enrollment in high school, this is where you add your college. This is also why when people tell me, "Coach Tony, my high school says they won't put it on my transcripts." And I tell you, it's okay. I don't care. It's because of this. I do not care if it goes through your high school transcript or not. I care that we can add it here to the colleges who can see your stuff. That's why we're doing we're using this to show the rigor. And then you add the college courses that you took in this section here and then there's a section for academic comments in the UC app. There's two sections. There's academic comments. They give you 550 characters to give me context or anything else. If there was a weird F out of nowhere, you probably want to explain that so I know. And then there's also additional comment, additional additional comments. This one is 550 words. Keep that in mind as well too, right? So that's going to be the academics here. Test scores, right? You can see AP you share the AP exams and anything you plan to take as well too. uh AP, IB exams, TOEFL, Eiffel if you're not a California or US resident, international exam, if you went to like I don't know the the you took any GCSE classes or anything else as well too you can share that's it keep in mind you see test blind there's no section for SAT do not pro tip for for UC's for UC's right do not do not sneak in your your SAT ACT right they they tell you don't do it if they tell you don't do it and you do it What do you think they'll trust you? Right. Or do they do you think you'll be a good student if uh if they say don't do it? See, I'm all for bending the rules. If they don't tell me not to do it, I'm going to do it. But if they tell me not to do it, I don't want to get in trouble. We don't do it there. Okay. So, that's the that's the test scores. Then activities. I mentioned this earlier. You have 20 slots to add. And when you add it, there's six categories, right? There's awards, educational prep program, extracurricular activities, uh other coursework, volunteer and work experience. You use one of these six, right? You select one of these six and then you get to talk about what it is that you did, right? Pro tips on this section, right? When it comes to activities, you do not do not use full sentences, right? Do not use I or uh you don't don't start no I, right? Let's go straight in the the the structure you want to use is verb, context, metrics. Those are the three key things, right? Start with a verb, right? Tell me the context of it. And the most important thing, give me context. For example, if I told you guys I won a race. Can you guys visualize me see ring a race? Is that impressive or not? Right? I can't tell. Is that good? I I don't know. Good or bad? Let's let's find out. Let's say and that's a bad I use the word all eye. Right? Let's say I say 1 second place uh in a race. I have metrics, right? Ooh, that's nice. But again, I don't know the context of this. Is that is that good? Is that bad? If there's only two people and you got second place, you got last place, right? Versus won second place in an international uh race with over 10,000 competitors. Oo, there's the verb. There's the metrics. There's the context of each one. Every single blurb you would need to write needs to have this context so I can put you like oh some form of comparison. I get it now. Cool. That's impressive. Right? So I think that's the goal you want to keep in mind. The tip here you want to fill up as many of the 20 slots as much as you can. Right? The reason why is that the more bigger it tricks the readers a little bit. Makes you look like you're really really busy. It's a thing as well too. Keep in mind also everything right for the UC apps everything everything is either added value or neutral value right I tell students share everything right let the readers decide is not good enough not not whatever let them not you okay so that's the activity section do that for all them as there uh and the reason why I keep asking students how many hours you do per week they ask you that how many weeks a year how many hours per week, right? Once you that scholarship, this is a fun optional section. Again, I was reading, I don't see it too much as well, too, but it's like if you want to apply to programs, EOP, anything else, you apply to it here. Again, they're not the one give it to you. They send it off to their partners and they do that. And the most important thing here is going to be personal insight, the UC essays as well, too. We're going to talk about how to write this in a little bit, but right, the UC's have eight prompts, right? They have eight prompts on what to do. And then what we're going to do is we're you got to pick four. Pick four of the eight is the key. Okay. So that's going to be the UC's again. Additional comments 550 words of anything additional you want to add. This is the UC application. Right. Moving on to the common application um as well too. Uh sign in. Do I have an account? I hope I have an account. Hoping I have an account. Oh, I don't have an account. Oh no. Uh let me try to guess a few things. Uh so this is the for those of you applied to private schools, out of state schools. Please work. Please work. Ah, look at that. It worked as well too, right? So, how common app works, it's very similar to the UC app. You see here, it asks for profile. It asks for family, right? Family information as well too, but ask for like siblings. That's new for here, right? Education, right? What schools you went to and everything here. Future plans, testing, same thing. Test scores there. You can add test scores as well too. Uh, activities here is different. Keep in mind for the activities section the activities is going to be 10. You have 10 activities you share only and order matters. When it comes to the UC's order does not matter for the common app. Order does matter. You want to put it in order from best to least. Right? That's that's the key over here there. Right? And then with the writing this is the personal statement. There's seven prompts. Seven prompts to pick from. You pick one. Pick one for 650 words. That's the difference, right? The UCPQ's going to be four of them and it's 350 words each. The personal statement is one 650 words. That's the difference of the two um as well. Okay, so that's going to be the basic and here's the additional information as well too, right? Is it and then your courses and grades you share all that. And like I mentioned, each school you add on is going to have their own questions. So when you go to my colleges, you can add a schools. Like right now I see in the chat um Stanford, right? Stanford I know uses Comap. If I look for Stanford here, right? Boom. Stanford here. I click add. And then when I go to my colleges, uh Stanford's right here and I open all these questions up, you'll see that Stanford has a bunch of questions, right? Where's where's the questions? Short questions, right? They have a bunch of these supplemental questions that they ask you. There's short essays. I think Stanford, this school has one the most out of everyone, right? As well. And they each have a different word count to it as well. So, this is where you would fill in the rest of the information. The letters of wreck, by the way, is furpa. The key thing about furpa here, when you click click uh go, you want to make sure you wave your right. You Yes, you want to wave your right. Meaning, as a student, you don't see what the recommenders write for you. That's what it is. You do want to wave your right. Don't do the other one, right? you want to wave your right to see that is the key. So that's going to be the the common application. That's pretty much it. Everything's pretty straight straightforward. You keep adding all your schools and then you input all the information over here. Okay. So that is going to be the common application walkthrough. I have uh 15 minutes left. I'm going speed run through how to write every call. But real quick chat as well too. You guys are you guys finding value? You guys learning something? Are you guys learning something uh as well too on this session? Let me know if you guys are quick yes in the chat. If you guys are enjoying this session, you're learning one or two things. You're like, "Oo, I learned that one thing, maybe two thing." Uh as well, why wave your right again? Why would you as a student need to know what your recommener wrote for you is a thing? Again, put yourself in the eyes of a read. Do you want someone to see what the recommener wrote about them before it gets sent off? That's what you that's why that's what not waving your right will be as well too. So, keep that in mind. live. And again, this I call it your final training. The goal is I'm giving you everything you need to know that you can bookmark it, come back to it, and leverage it for this upcoming season. Right? Last one. How to write every college essay. So, let's go ahead. I'm going to speedrun this. This is a lot of content, right? So, how do you rewrite this for step number one? Right? Do not look at any of the college props. Hopefully, I you guys didn't didn't look too hard into the other things, right? So, do not look. why you're going to go about this process wrong or you're going to make you're going to pigeon hole the student into picking a wrong topic, wrong prompt, wrong something. So number one, do not look at the college prompts. Instead, step number two, actually this is real step number one. This is like step number zero, right? This is ah step number zero, right? Step number zero. Step number one is going to be um write down a list of activities, experiences and identities that the student belongs to. Right? The the the the the condition do this in less than five minutes. Right? So I tell students five minutes go and they just start writing like boom boom boom. What activities did I do during high school? What life experiences did I kind of go through in high school? Is there any identities I strongly believe in I I value for myself? And you do it in five minutes. The reason why is at the end. And by the way, parents, the one time I'll I'll say this, do not interfere at all in anything. Do not give them any tips, hints, or anything that you you think is good because this is their point of view. Maybe as a parent you think them playing this one sport is the best thing ever. But if they didn't even mention that in the five minutes, it's not that important to them. And again, it's their essay, not your essay. Okay? So keep that in mind. Let them do it. Five minutes. Focus on their list here. They should have a list of a big list. Then once they have that step number two, right? We want to narrow down narrow down to top four to five. What this means, I ask them go through the entire list, right? Everything you have done have has made you who you are today, right? So example those of you again the analogy of the athletes or those who were athletes you picking up a soccer ball a basketball a volleyball made you into the person you are imagine you never touch the valley ball basketball soccer ball your life could be a little different as well too and some people that is their life right the soccer ball if it if they didn't touch the soccer ball they would not be the same person they are for some people it's just a fun activity for them to do so it it'll be a little different but not a big thing We want to identify, we want to identify the top four and or five things that make the made the student the student who they are today. That's the key, right? So you go through everything. You tell them what's one thing this one thing. Awesome. Now you have topic one, right? Topic one. Then I tell students once you have topic number one, get rid of that. Let's say you talk about you love you love math. Awesome. So any other math related thing, you can't talk about math either. Now, what's outside of math? What's the next thing you've done? Oh, ASB. That's topic two. Awesome. Now, take out Oh, ASB related things. Now, what else is topic three? Oh, you did martial arts. Very cool. Take that out. What's the next thing you did that made you hard? Oh, you did explorers program. Nice. By the way, that those are my four from high school, right? So, boom. Perfect. Right. So, those are your four topics. There are four different these should be. And then if you need five, that's five, too. There should be these should be four different topics, right? People talk about theming. Do not theme. That's silly. Don't don't don't theme any of this stuff, right? Everything should be four different topics. It should read it should sound like four different students. That's kind if you do it correctly. It should be sound like four different students. So that's that four different topic. None of them are inter interweaved interwined. Right? After that, step number three, I tell students after step number uh one and two, once you have the topics, once you pick the top four, I call it story time, right? Story time. Really quick, each topic, you get two minutes to tell me why uh what is the story behind it? Because again, as humans, we see everything in stories. Parents, if you're watching this, if I told you dinner, you're thinking of a dish, right? you're thinking of or a memory at dinner. Maybe something happened during dinner last week that like stuck in your head. Oh, what if I told you uh happiest memory, right? And you think, ah, some of you might think of like something recent. Some of you might think of something in the past as well, too. If I think of like sad memory, boom, stories. Our brain is full of stories. As humans, we see everything in stories. So, same thing here. There's a reason why I said math, right? There's a reason I said martial arts. There's a reason I said ASB. There's probably a story that stuck to it. It's either a highlight or a low light, a low point in your life as well too. Maybe it's a significant event event or traumatic event. Traumatic events as well too. Whatever it ends up being, tell me the story in two minutes. Why two minutes? Right? I don't care about the story. I need just to get to the point as fast as you can and so I know what's going on. I I just want to know what's going on. I don't care about the details. I don't care the sky was blue that day. I don't care that the rocks were shining that day. I just want to know really quick what happened. Two myths forces you to do it really fast. Right. Once you have all four story times, step four is something we call dig deep. Dig deep as well too. Dig deep is one of our our our terms that coach Art, by the way, if you haven't seen his trainings, he has a really really good in detail train about the writing process. He's one of our top editors as well too. Dig deep. What that is is that everything you've done, there's a reason why. What's the reason why behind your what is the key the the story is your what there's a reason why you picked that story. Right? Tell me more about that. So I want to know why did you do why did you do what you did? Right? How has it made you who you are? Who have you become as a result? Right? as a result, right? What insight do I learn about the person you are? Right? These are the questions that you try to learn to see about the person. And the trick here and the the the the tip here is that this is usually nothing related to your story. And if it is, you didn't go deep enough, right? If it is, you go deep as well too. For example, for me, my story, right? I mention u I mentioned math. Why I mentioned math was I was a math tutor. So I I remember the story for me was I actually applied to a lot of different places. No one took me and and you'd ask me a question. Why did you work though? Oh, I worked because growing up uh I didn't know that but I learned really early on teenage years that I grew up in a really poor family, right? Low income family as well too. My dad's income took care of a family of eight, right? And he was low income as well too. So it's crazy that that exact numbers by the way this will shock a lot of people especially in California or for a family of eight. My dad took home only 27,000 total the whole year. Not a per month, per year. You're like, how do you live with that in California? I know, craziness, right? So, that's that. And I realized cuz again, my parents didn't speak a lot of English. I helped them with like taxes and all that stuff as well, too. I realized, wow, everything my dad made went straight to the house, went straight to food. Anything that messed up that month broke. Our family, my family was always struggling really bad. Again, I didn't see it. My parents did a really good job of kind of hiding a lot of things from me until they couldn't hide it anymore from me as well too. So for me as the oldest in the family, I felt responsible. Hey, let me do something about it. Let me not ask for money. Let me figure it out. No one accepted me though. I applied everywhere. I was like 13. No one said anything to me. Until I was like, let me figure it out. I went and became a tutor. I became a math t. I was really good at math. I actually finished calc 3 as a as a junior in high school, right? For those who know the math series. I did a lot really fast because of that, right? I was able to tutor math. I actually much early age and I got paid people gave me money. I was like oo this is cool as well too. So because of that right so my story is about what tutoring find tutoring what's the deeper inside for me it's perseverance I did not give up the entire time how many people told me no about the whole thing a lot but I did not I and then for me is I'm also innovative I'm a problem solver I figured out all the solutions to get to all this wall too so my prompt about tutoring ends up being me talking about my resourcefulness is the key you see how like that That's me. Because how many other kids would tutor? Many kids tutor. I bet you some of you, you guys, your kids tutor, right? Because if I talked only about tutoring, I'd match your story. But what makes me different and all they these tutoring kids is who I am. And who I am is only me, right? No one can be me. So that's that's the key here. That's the trick. That's been that if you can forget everything I taught you today, this is the one magical thing that literally is the answer. dig deep. It's not the story that's important. It's the learning of who you are. That's the big key here, right? Once you have that tip, step number four, five, what what's number five, match to a prompt. Match to a prompt. Uh if you're applying to all the UC schools, there's eight options. I do not recommend number eight. Number eight says, "What makes you stand out?" Twi, super raw, real. None of your kids are very special, right? You're we're not that unless you are and you let me know. But I've only recommended in the last 16 years as a reader, I've only recommended less than five people use number eight. So unless you have a truly one-of-a-kind situation that I would never read again, that's that's my context of that, right? I would never read this story ever again. I do not recommend number eight. Use one of the other seven PIQ's. Same thing with the personal statement. There's seven options. do not recommend number seven. Number seven is pick an essay. That's too hard. That's too hard to get right. So, pick one of the other six. You will find one guaranteed, right, as well too. So, you want to match your two prompts as well too. Match it, match it, match it. Keep in mind the UC you use one per prompt. You can't double dip prompts. So, one per prompt there. And then you freewrite. Right. Step number six for us is the messy draft as well too. The best way to do the messy draft is take what what was the story? story was uh three. Take number three, add it to number four, right? And that becomes and and answer five. That that's a trick. Take number three, that's your beginning. Take number four, that's the middle. Answer number five throughout the whole thing. Expand it. That becomes your messy draft as well too. And the reason why we do it this way is this allows you to one focus on the topics that are the most important. When students look at the questions first, they're like, hm, this question is about leadership. When have I become a leader? What if, again, not saying that not being leader is bad, but what if that wasn't one of the strongest things? Well, if there are some strong some strong in the other area that's why going with the end first and working backwards, working backwards to make sure that we share the best parts of who we are guaranteed. That's this uh prompt right there too, right? So, here a few tips before we wrap up today as well because we're almost untie, right? Last few tips. number one these uh and by the way the messy draft here uh for the UC's for draft one I recommend aiming you you need to get to 350 but start at like 500 plus words for the personal statement uh you you need to get to 650 I start soon at 800 start there then you condense it's much easier first tip is much easier to cut than it is to expand right so get them to add everything then we start cutting it down next thing I'm looking for tip next tip is these are not essays, meaning no hooks, no intro paragraph, no conclusion paragraph. This tells me how good of a writer your student is. I do not care how good of a writer you are. I care about learning who you are. Right? Focus straight into the body right away. Right? Next tip. Right? These are personal, right? Personal insight, right? Personal insight or personal statement. The word personal. Who is personal? Personal is your student is the student as well too. So you want them to focus only on themselves. Right? Law students are humble. Talk about mom, dad, coach, friends. As a reader, respectfully, I do not care about mom. I do not care about dad. Do not care about your coach. Do not care about your friends. I only care about you. So that a trick, a tactical tip, tactical tip on how to do this is you want to use the words I, me or my in every single sentence you write. If you do that, you force yourself to talk about them the entire time, right? Is there? And then if you want to talk about someone else, I'm like, should I take take someone else to college? Not you as well too. So focus it only on yourself. Again, this is hard. Why is it hard for students? Number one, this is hard because students nowadays are taught to be humble. To be humble as well, too. Don't brag about yourself. Not jumble. Humble as well, too. So, it's hard, right? Young parents, you guys are part to blame. You're telling your kids to be too humble, right? They're not being proud of who they are. Number two, in school, they are trained never to use these words in any essay as well too, which is so they're trained not to do this, right? But the again the other big thing at the end of the day if you can remember this one thing you should be excited we call it the 3070 rule right the 3070 rule states that when you're writing these things and you see 30% of 350 words 100 words 100 words for the 30% 150 for the 70% right personal statement 200 words for the 30% six 450 words for the other part 30% is the what or the story and 70% is the why, the how, and the who, and the insight. This is the breakdown. What most students do, they focus a lot, right, on the story. Again, is your kid that special? We might, you parents, you might think your kids are special, right? I think some kids are special. For the most part, though, yes. But I bet you someone else has something similar or someone has something identical as them. So, that story is not that special. What makes it special is the student, right? Because a story can be replicable replicable over a lot of people, but why they did affects only them. How it made them who they are is only them. Who they are is only them. Their insight is also only them. This is the key. Most people spend most their drafts on the what part and they expect, oh no, why I got rejected, right? And this is like a little thing. If you see any who get rejected, right, ask for their essays. This is pretty much the big reason why they don't get in. They focus too much on the story, not enough on the learning about the student. And that's the key of how to write a good essay. Woo! That has been 90 minutes of non-stop backtoback really quick. Was that helpful? Was that useful? You guys like that? It was It was like a fire hose. It was like a fire hose for 90 minutes straight. I went through everything. Uh we recap recap for those who 30 pages. We went through 30 pages. We typed out loud 30 pages. I went through first part, right? We went through the college admissions 101 with you guys. Then I went over uh what's next? This a big section big section. Hey, we went through the next year of what to focus on and what to expect on this journey. Then taugh you how to pick the right college was a good next good thing for you guys to do. After that, we talked about how what the college app looked like. gave you guys a little live preview exactly beh what it looks like behind the scenes and taught you how to write every single step there. If you just took all this again, am I one ass today? Can you guys promise me in the chat to do one thing today? Do one thing out of everything I taught you guys. Can you promise me quick little yes in the chat? If you can promise to do one thing, not just watch it and be like, "Wow, that was a good training. Thank you, Coach Tony." and never watch it again or never do anything again. All I ask is all you do is watch it. If you watch it, that's all I'm here. I'm grateful. I'm helpful as well, too. All right. So, again, we have a few I have a few I can stay like 10 minutes. If you guys have any questions, let's drop in the Q&A. And as you guys are dropping questions, Q&A, is it okay really quick? Permission. I went 90 minutes. Is it okay if I do a quick twominut pitch? Two-minute pitch before I do Q&A. Is that okay? Permission in the chat. Can I do a quick two-minute pitch before I go Q&A? I hope that I earned the two minutes after going 90 minutes straight for you guys. Uh, as well too. The three people who left, shame on you guys. Just kidding. Just kidding. No shame. It's late. It's dinner time. You're probably watching me on dinner table as well, too. Right. Quick little pitch before we dive into the Q&A again. If you have questions, start dropping the Q&A box as well, too. So, like I mentioned at the very beginning of today, right? I I went through all this, which I did, right? And if you're interested, some of you guys are like, "Wow, that's a lot of information. Can you help us?" Right? And after all that, like, man, can you help us? So, I'm going to go ahead and do the final invitation. This will be quick. So, you guys can like jump to Q&A mode after, right? I'm going to invite 10 families who want to join us for this upcoming year. Why is it 10? Why do we pick the magical number 10? It's actually less than 10, but it's like that. The reason why is that part of our journey, what we do is we help you with every single step of the way. We help you create your college list. We help you figure out your majors for each of the schools. We help you write all your first drafts for your first drafts. Your first drafts. We help you edit nons. Unlimited edits. Unlimited edits. Like I mentioned, the other girl had 47 as well too. Unlimited edits uh for all your essays. edits for uh for the UC essays, for the activity lists for you guys, for the personal statement stuff, for the supplements, for the additional comments, additional comments, additional comments. There's uh uh uh we also help you with uh finishing all your essays, finishing all your essays uh as well too. and we help you do a sendoff call where we go ahead and share screen and we make sure everything you do is good to go to submit as well too for each of the application cycles. Right? So again, and more and more as well too, right? This is pretty much part of the things that we do to help you guys out with our upcoming seniors. The reason why it's less than 10 is this first draft and this finishing your essays is actually part of a live event. We throw an event every year called the college application intensive event, right? Application intensive event as well too. uh it is a 3day live event both in person and virtual right day one is April, May and June right and what we do is we help students go from nothing to first draft then day two and three is going to happen in July, August, uh September and we go from almost done to final draft. So over those three days we help you get started and finish. So, why is there only less than 10 families left? Because after we're sold out, we're done. That's all too. So, uh if you want to go to college applicationintensive.com or collegeappointensive.com, right, you guys, I'm not I'm not lying. I'm not faking it as well too, right? We have the 3 days live event. We've been promoting it since November uh to now as well too. You can see how many sold out weekends we've had. We've done this every single weekend. Our team is literally working with students every single weekend, right? Individual support to help them with their essays here. The Kickstarter event, we did it in April, sold out. 12th, sold out. 26 sold out. May 3rd, sold out. May 31st, I was in person in the Bay Area. Now, June 7th, sold out. June 14th, the one this weekend, by the way, those who are coming this weekend, you're I'm hosting it. So, I'll see you guys there as well, too. We have two more weekends available. 21st and 28th as well, too. Those are two weekends left. We have less than 10 spots in those two weekends. Then part two of the event is our get you from almost done to finish draft. That is the accelerator as well too. First weekend virtual sold out. We're doing in person. San Ramon sold out. Anaheim sold out. Caramel Valley sold out. Virtual sold out. Virtual again sold out. Berkeley sold out. Westwood one spot left. La Hoya has a few spots. Virtual has a few spots on August 13th. But the 23rd in Bay Area Inerson San Jose sold out. The six we're going to Sacramento, sold out. We got Long Beach, a few spots there. Uh Carlsbad, a few spots there. Virtual, uh a few spots. San Jose, again, sold out. Uh Irvine, three spots left there. Berkeley, one spot left. Mission Valley sold out. In total, all these spots that we have locations for. It is 10 students. So, literally, we are just basically selling out once the accelerators are all gone. We close the doors down for 2026. And that is our class that we're working with this upcoming year here. Okay. So that's that's the reason why. So if you guys are interested, if you guys are are interested, we'll keep it very simple. Text the word coach me to 949-775865. Again, just text the word coach me to 949-7750865 as well too. Uh what we do is we'll do a 15minute coaching session uh assessment for you guys. You can't buy that call yet either, by the way. We just want to see where you guys are at, give you some tips just to make sure you guys are on the right track and then you can let our team know, hey, I would like to claim 10 spots and we'll let you know what that looks like. Uh, as well as a next step as well, too. Okay, so that's going to be the thing there. So, if you guys are interested in that, text, don't message and zoom to people in Zoom already. Text message us coach me 949775865 um as well too. Okay, so that's that. Cool. Cool. Alrighty, perfect. Let's go ahead and do some Q&A. There's some Q&A as well here for you guys if you guys are interested. Let me do um coach me and if you want my notes notes all right to let's do 2026 notes as well too just to keep it uh 2026 notes uh to same number uh 9497750865. Our team will grab for you guys as well too. Just a heads up. A lot of you guys ask for notes, you guys never open it. is all calling you guys out uh as well too there. Okay, so that's that. Uh feel free to again coach me if you guys want to book a 15 minutes call to get started on there and 20 26 notes for uh to grab my notes for today as well too. Okay, so that's that. Let's do some Q&A. Um where's the webinar end? It's supposed to end 10 minutes ago, but I'll stick on our final minutes to answer any questions if any anyone has any questions specifically. Um what do you mean if you are above or average the profile of admitted student particular college as well too? How do I know the GPA perspective to a region blah blah blah? So that's why again I don't like the GPA numbers but again this is how you kind of easily tell uh the question here I'll drop I'll drop the question here that the the question real quick is basically from the context of like reach safety targets right how do we know as well too right keep in mind right reach safety targets is not an exact science right uh but a good indicator as well too so you just got to look it up look up the uh look up the numbers why just Google average stats of the school and it'll help you kind of and match your numbers based off of those as well. Right? Keep in mind your school does some some some fun business with it to make a little different of it as well. And then um but it's that there right so again not exact number but again you get close to it as well too uh to kind of determine there. Keep in mind there are there are crazy stories of students who are really really good who thought it was a target and they didn't get in. So keep keep that in mind as well too there. Okay. I don't understand admitted student stats. I'm assuming it's part of the same question as well too. Again, keep in mind it's the average, right? So, colleges tend to colleges tend to share the average profile. The average profile as well too, but right this is not a correct indicator indicator as well too. Students uh there are students who again higher lower that do don't get in as well too. So, a lot of different things as well. We always tell families, again, a little pro tip again for those who stuck around. Uh the pro tip is you want to compare yourself to your local high school, right? And then that's kind of better indicator of how well or whatever you need to do because that's who you really competing against. Um is your classmates is the key there. Okay. Uh someone's asking for the recording of it. If you guys want to type uh 2026 replay, uh same number 949775065. Our team will grab it for you guys. Uh give us like two days. Give us two two days and we'll go ahead and uh uh get it done for you guys there. Okay. Um is the same strategy applied for other schools as well too? Great question. Um do it so you guys can see both. All right. Uh same strategy. Yes. Right. Yes. For the most part. Right. The reason why is there's nuances. Right. Keep in mind UC's don't have test scores. So if you're applying to a private school like an elite school, they probably have more. When it comes to the elite schools, they're looking for different factors. Like example, right? Example UC's. Uh I'd say aim for like 20 25 hours per week of activities, right? Versus if you aim for an IV or top 25 college, right? I'd say aim for 30 plus hours per week of activ. So So it's same metric, different same framework, different metrics. That that's the difference between the two as well too. But we like to keep things simple for us or else it get too complicated. Right? So we keep the framework the same. The metrics we keep a little different there. Okay. Um next one. Do the UC scout uh grade report do they get weighed in and GPA overall? Uh did you hear uh you may you must have come late. Uh this person who joined us late this call. Um, going back one of the first thing on page really early, I mentioned I mentioned I do not care about GPA. Do not care what the number is as well too. So you if I don't care, you should not care as well too. It's much easier to say that than do it because you probably hear it all the time from everyone else. Again, keep in mind if GPA was that important, right? Then wouldn't all the 4.9s get in only and we all wouldn't get in? Think about it. Think about it. Right? So GPA is only a number. Doesn't tell me too much about you as well too. So again, do the stats have to report it? I highly recommend it. I highly recommend it because it'll add rigor. That being said, here's a little loophole answer for you as well, too. Here's a loophole answer as well, too. If you only took one UC Scout class um and you did not do well do well as well too, you could skip reporting it as well too because it wouldn't help you in any way, right? It wouldn't help you in training in any way as well too, right? Because that but if you did really well and some classes were not when you share it, they are going to ask for your transcript at the end of the year. Keep in mind little little tip here, right? little knowledge here is that colleges do not ask for transcripts when you apply. I lied. Some do. Some do, right? But most don't, right? Some don't. Most colleges will ask for transcripts after you get accepted. The reason why it costs money except cost money to send. So, not every school is going to make you pay money to send to all the schools, right? They just want to know enough to go there is the key. Okay. So, uh, do they have you reported? Do they get weigh in GPA? That's up to your school as well, too. I like the U scout for the rigor that as a reader, I will see that it's a rigorous level course that you took on your schedule there. Okay, so that again, if you guys want to claim that 15-minute chat, go ahead and click coach me to text coach me to 9497750865. If you want my notes, text 2026 notes 949-7750865. you want to replay this one. Give us a little time uh like two days for it. Uh but replay 9497750865 as well. All right. Next, uh I have time for like four questions. If you guys want to drop in your questions real quick, uh we'll we'll do that as well too. Can you go over how to highlight a student who loves basketball? Uh spend a lot of time watching basketball. So, comment in this NBA stats as well too. Again, this could either fit either be in the act uh in the activity. Oh, no. It should be it should be in the activities section, right? And it could be in the in the prompts, the essay, I'll put in quotes. Essay or prompts. Essay or prompts as well too, right? So, I'm assuming if I ask the student, hey, what thing made you who you are? They say basketball. I'm like, awesome. Cool. So, that might be a topic for an essay. That's kind of why, right? But everything you do, you want to share in the activities itself is the key. And think of it as like a resume, right? What accomplishments, right? Activities is uh activities, think of it as or what accomplishments, what accomplishments uh accomplishments did I contribute is the thing, right? And when it comes to the essay, I'll put in quotes again, essay, right? Is uh what do I want? Do I want the reader the reader to learn about who I am? Because I bet you for this student, by the way, they love basketball, but there's a bigger reason why they love basketball. It's not basketball. So, that's a little sports everyone. It's not that. Dig a little deeper. If you dig a little deeper, you'll figure out why they like it. I'm going to give you a random example. Might be true, maybe not be true. Right? I don't know this this family, but they just wrote their name in. What if you what if the student was an only child, right? Growing up, the student was an only child. The reason they love they love basketball so much is basketball allowed them to have friends. Well, maybe growing up they were always kind of introverted or anything. What if a student passed the ball for them for the very first time and someone trusted them for the very first time as well too? So basketball for them isn't about basketball. Basketball gives them the feeling of belongingness. That's so good. So good. So good. Right. Boom. Drop the ball. Drop the mic for you guys right there. Right. Next one. Next one as well too. Uh, how do we compare if your school does not rank as well too? They they say don't rank. Everyone ranks as well too. Big thing is compare yourself to the top kid in your school. Your kid should know who they are. Especially if you're aiming for top schools. They usually know they are usually taking the same classes and they usually talk to each other anyway. So I always tell them again it's not an official number. Uh, as well too. Most students don't have access to that data. Counselors do but not not families do. So again, I would say compare yourself to your top kid in your class. Who's taking the most rigorous courses? How many? And then compare yourself of that. If the top kid is taking five APs, you're doing only three. They're doing more rigor than you. That's kind of the the the easy easy uh answer uh there. Okay. Uh what is the good balance uh list? You apply score. How many say for you can do a mix of each each of them. Um um mix it mix it as well too, right? There's no exact science to how many it is. Uh it's how comfortable. Uh I think it depends on your comfort level. Your comfort level as well too. I would say 30 40 30 right to be to make it fun. 30 uh 30 safety. No, 30 safety 40 match 30 reach. If you want to be a bit more ambitious, right? Go for like uh what is it? Uh 25. I don't know. I can't do math anymore. 30 wait 30 uh 35 35. Sorry that right. So basically more on the side or place more safe you can go more on the other side. So whatever the ratio is for you uh I wouldn't I wouldn't do like zero safety zero match 10 reach. That's a little that's a little wild. That's a little wild for you. But as well too but then I would not would would highly re not highly not recommend as well too. Right. Some mix of either one as well too there. Okay. Um, if my school offered the course but I didn't take it at the school. Um, what if I took you scout as view it negatively? No. Right. It all adds rigor. So, you should be fine. So, I I think we're good here, right? Um, how can I help my daughter get scholarship for dance? Not just uh not to pursue d um how could help scholarship. So, schol scholarship is hard. Scholarship is hard to get, right? I would look into scholarship databases. Databases. Keep in mind, right? It's a numbers game, right? We had a student, she applied to she she got she's heading off to Emory with $46,000 of scholarship, but she applied to three to five scholarships every single week since 9th grade. Do the math. That's like what? Four years. Four years times four 16 times 52 weeks. A lot. Big number. Big number as well. So apply a lot. Apply a lot as well too there. Okay. So, um I'll do that. Cool. Uh give example on how to explain a bad grade uh as well too. Easy. Just explain what happened, right? Just explain what happened. Explain the context of what happened or what happened, right? No need no need uh no need to give excuses or anything. Give excuses, right? Just explain the context. That's the key, right? Because keep in mind, right? Here's the best analogy for you guys that that'll probably be the the wrap for this call is that keep in mind a reader is a stranger, right? They do not that does not know who you are. They are determining who you are. Who you are in the uh in the 15 20 pages that they have on you is the key. So if they are not sure they can assume readers also cannot assume anything. So we can't be like oh I think they meant this. No no no no. If the student didn't say that we can't assume anything. So that's why for me as a reader I tell them overshare everything. If you overshare let the reader say oh that's not useful that's not useful but this is good. Let me use this as well too. Keep in mind also readers want to say yes to you right? Ideally, we want to give everyone a yes, right? Matt, from a business point of view, a college wants to take everyone's money, right? So, in theory, schools want to say take say yes as many people as possible. The issue is capacity. They don't have the room to say yes to every single person uh officially. So, the idea is you need to help the reader justify you as one of the yeses from that pool of people is the key there. Okay, that is pretty much it on this training. I went uh 90 almost almost over 200 minutes a long time as well too. So hopefully this session was helpful for you guys. Again, you're probably watching this if you're watching this your class 2026. So um if you're watching this now during summer or even toward closer towards apps, hopefully this session is helpful and useful to helping you with the entire application process. Again, my only ask today if you don't like me, the only ask I have is to do something, right? As I gave you guys a lot of information on this session, the only asset that do is do something because again a lot of families who don't get the results they do, they just do nothing. They learn learn information overload nothing happens. So the biggest asset I have is again I gave you a lot gave you a lot of tactical things do it not a lot of not a lot of theory a lot of tactical things go ahead and and apply it right apply it to your family as well too give you chance the best uh best uh chance of admissions and those who are working with us are looking to work looking forward to working with us this upcoming year super super pumped to uh add you to our massive list of success stories as well. So that's it for me. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day. Have a great session and I'll see you guys in your next call.