## Welcome and Today's Topic [00:01] All right, welcome everyone. We are here today to talk about juniors. Okay. Uh now I know that there are probably other families here too, which is totally fine, right? But uh this is going to be a little bit of a preview about what juniors should be doing, what they should be thinking about. It's going to be a little bit of a combo about kind of what we should be doing academically on the college admissions front and also on financial aid because unfortunately they are very closely linked together. Okay, but as far as today, right, if you guys can help me out by putting your students grade in the chat. I know a bunch of you guys have already done that. It is May 6th, right? We're almost halfway through the year. I feel like it was just New Year's yesterday. Uh I was just celebrating it. Uh but we're already almost halfway through the year, right? But today we're going to be talking about class of 2027, right? How to prepare, how to be ready, any last things to do uh for 2025. And you might ## Class of 2027 Overview and What We're Covering [00:48] be thinking, Coach David, you're you're kind of living it way in the past. But the reason why I talk about 2025 is because there's people that are still working on their 2025 taxes. Okay? So, we'll talk a little bit about that. Now, we had a exciting moment uh a couple weeks ago, right? We had our master class, right? Um and I I I talked about it a lot with with in in our kind of uh in our in our trainings that led up to it. Uh we had over 160 people there, right, in person, right? They got to see me. Um, for those of you guys that have seen me on my trainings, maybe you have seen me without a hat on, but those people that were at the master class got to see me without a hat on, right? I did my hair, right? Um, it's not that I don't care about you guys out there in the training world, right? Um, it is that, um, you know, uh, I had to, you know, the hat is my signature, so I feel like I need to have it on for you guys to know that it's me. Um, but, uh, I did my hair that day because I wanted to trick people, right? Uh but um we are planning to have another master class right we had our master class at UC Berkeley uh this last time uh we will be having our next master class in Southern California. We are thinking that we are going to have it at UCLA. We are not sure yet. We are planning it. It's going to be sometime in September. We're hoping right uh probably in late September. Uh we're still working out the dates, the location. So as soon as it is ready, we will be making sure to let everyone know. I will have more information on it as it comes up. But just a little bit about me if this is the first time that you're coming, right? Uh my name is Coach David. I'm ## About Coach David [02:17] one of the head coaches in our coaching program. I am also the director of our financial aid program, Eagle Lock financial aid. Okay. I'm a former law school and college admissions reader, right? And I've been working on college admissions and financial aid for the last 16 years. Okay. Now, before we get into our training, right, because I always like to shout out the our counterpart, right? I always like to shout out the other side of going to college. I talk about paying for college here, but the other side is getting into college. So, if you want to talk to one of our kind of adviserss about kind of like our college coaching programs, all you have to do is scan that QR code or text us at 949-7750865 and we will see what programs make sense for your family and what your student needs to make it to their goal colleges. Okay. Now the one thing I want to talk about is that college apps and the end of college apps are realistically only six months away right now. Right now you ## College App Deadlines Are 6 Months Away [03:12] might be thinking well what do you mean? Well literally end of November is when UC's are due when a lot of you know um like early action early decision applications are already done by that time and our internal deadline at Eagle is actually December 1st. Okay. So 6 months that's when everything kind of closes down for us. That's when everything is supposed to be done. Okay. So, the question now becomes what are juniors supposed to be doing? So, we're going to be talking about kind of like what should be happening for summer. Right now, these are things that should have been happening early on kind of in the fall, in the winter, right? But these are the things that should either be be that you should be doing right now or should already be done. Okay. Um now, um let's take a look here, right? Um the ## Summer Academic Planning for Juniors [04:01] first is right you should be following interests for juniors right you should be bolstering your academics pushing the rigor right maybe you're part of a research or internship program or you're part of a program or a camp right now if you're thinking about oh let's take a you know two-month vacation we're going to go travel Europe go look at the sites you can do that after you get into college next year this is not the year to be doing that this is the last summer that your student has before they have a chance to move on Okay. Uh to kind of like to show colleges that they have that they're pushing that they are invested in their education. So vacation like kind of like you know resting on the beach we can do that the next year after they have gotten into the college that they want to get into. Okay. Other things about academics remediation. If your student did not pass a certain class we need to do that before we turn in college applications. Pushing forward. If your student is behind in a certain subject area like math or sciences or they haven't been able to push in a certain area, this is where we need to do it. And also, we need to be showing colleges that you that you have an interest in a certain area. If you tell the college that, oh, I'm really interested in business, but you've never taken an economics class or a business class or you've never done any extracurriculars related to those areas. How do they know that you're interested in business? They have no idea. And when you tell them that you're interested in business, it has no weight, right? So you need to show them that you are interested by either taking additional classes, going to a certain camp, doing something to show them that you're pushing your interest further than just what just classes at high school. Okay, ## Senior Year Course Planning [05:34] so that is another area that we need to be pushing in in the academics area. Now, as far as kind of like prepping for the next year, right? Um course planning is key. One of the things that I hear all the time is like, oh well 12th grade year it's just coast, right? And so we see so many students that are like planning for their courses. They come to us and they and they and you know they they bring us their course plan for the next year and it's like oh well I'm going to take like weight training. I'm going to take yoga. I'm going to take piano and then I'm going to take uh English and my first thing is to them is like are you kidding me? No. Right. 12th grade courses do matter. Right now, I get this question all the time, and I'm pretty sure that there's going to be some people that ask in in the chat later, so I'm going to talk about it. There's a lot of people that ## Myth: UCs Don't Care About 9th or 12th Grade [06:19] are like, "Well, we're in California. I'm just going to apply to the UC's." They don't care about 9th grade, and they don't care about 12th grade, really. So, if you're so sure about that, go fail all your nth grade classes and go fail all your 12th grade classes. See if you get into any UC's if you're that confident about it. I don't think anyone is right now. While they might while they might base their UC GPA on 10th and 11th grade, right? Because your 12th grade grades, they never see them, right? What they do look at is the rigor of your courses across the board, right? Now, you might be thinking, well, Coach David, well, they they told us it's only 10th and 11th grade. No, it is not because they ask you what classes you're taking in nth grade. They ask you for the grades, and they also ask you what classes you're taking in 12th grade. If they weren't ## What Senior Year Courses Actually Matter [07:04] going to take it into account, then why are they asking you for it? So my key point here is you cannot coast in senior year. Colleges are going to ding you for that. Literally on the UC website where they say these are the 13 things that we look at. One of the things is the strength of your senior year schedule. So TA, library aid, non-academic classes don't help you at all. Okay? Being a TA for the person that is writing your college letter recommendation does not help you. Does not score you brownie points. If your teacher likes you, they like you anyway. It doesn't matter that you're helping file paperwork for them. Okay? So, your core classes are not optional. Math, English, science, and social studies are not optional. You should have four years of each. I understand if you have three years of history because some schools don't have four years of history built into their schedule, but you should have four years of math, English, science, and social studies just kind of as a baseline across high school for everybody. Right? If you're taking them outside of high school or your school doesn't have like a ninth grade history class built in, I understand. But it should be three or four of history or and four of everything else or more across the board. Okay. Now, the other part I want ## How and When to Ask for Recommendations [08:17] to talk about is recommendations. Recommendations are very important. Okay. When should you ask? You should ask kind of like around now. As APs are kind of winding down, right? Because they're they're this week and next week. You should go to your teachers and ask them, "Hey teacher, right? I loved your class, right? I really enjoyed my time with you. I'm applying to college in the fall. I'd really like to get a recommendation from you." Now, who should you be asking? This is where I get a lot of push back from people. Oh my god, I heard that Mr. A or Mrs. B or Mr. C is like the best recommendation writer. Who did you hear that from? Because you never see it. So, how do the kids that told you that know that they wrote a great letter of recommendation? They don't. Okay, don't listen to any of those rumors. Those letters, the ## How to Choose the Right Recommenders [09:01] students are never supposed to see them. So, you don't know if the teacher wrote a good letter or not. They could have wrote three words. They could have wrote 3,000 words. You never know. Okay. But how should you choose your recommenders? You you should choose your recommenders in this way. In a perfect world, you'd want to choose one STEM teacher, one humanity science and social science teacher. So, you have two. Okay. But who should you choose? You should choose the teacher that likes you. That's who should you that's who you should choose. And it's because they are invested in your success. Okay? And they also are going to remember your name. If you go to the teacher that is the cool teacher on campus, they're not going to know who you are. They might not even remember your name. They might not even remember what period they had you. Right? So remember it is in a perfect world one STEM teacher, one humanity science teacher, right? Or humanities and social science teacher. Okay. The other thing that I want to implore you is that if a college says that you could turn in five, it doesn't mean that you should have five. You should have one STEM sc one STEM teacher, one humanities, social science teacher, and then maybe ask one person as a backup. And if they write it for you and you have space to add it on, then add it on. Okay? But just because they they say that you could have five teachers and five optional doesn't mean that you should have 10 letters of recommendation. Okay? Now, if all 10 of those letters of recommendation are showing 10 different sides of you, right? Then great. But if they're going to say the same thing over and over and over again, you have to remember that they have a limited amount of time to read over everything in your application. Okay? So, if you're if they're spending so much time on your recommendations and they don't get to read anything else like your essays or they have to spend a shorter time on those other parts that you're writing, right? then that's not a good thing either. Okay. Another thing that is a ## College List and College Search [10:47] very important now if you're part of our Eagle Lock program you don't need to worry about it. Your you and your coach will be going over this right but college list and college search. The one thing that I want you guys to really really hear from this is this. Okay. Now parents when you are going to college was easy. Okay. Now there's a bunch of parents right now that are super angry right now. Right? They're like, "Oh my god, no. College wasn't easy. Like, I went to a super tough college to get into." No, I need you to understand parents, when you went to college, it was easy to get into college. Okay? Because there was less kids applying. Okay? So, just straight from the numbers, I don't care if you went to Stanford, I don't care if you went to Harvard, I don't care if you went to Princeton, Berkeley, LA, wherever you went, right? Parents, ## Why Parent College Stats Don't Apply Today [11:35] objectively, by the numbers, when you went to college, it was easier. Okay? So you cannot use your statistics to say that this is the right stu school for my student. Okay? The reason I say this is that there are a lot of families that walk in with a list that is not realistic, right? Based on what the criteria of that college looks like today, right? I'll just give you an example to make it real. I have a parent. They're a Berkeley family. Parents went to Berkeley. Grandparents went to Berkeley. They're a Berkeley family through and through. right? Parents when they went, right? Uh you know, they they took like again they were very standard student didn't take any AP classes or honors classes, right? Uh didn't take calculus in college, right? Um they got into econ at Berkeley, right? They graduated, lived a great life, had two kids, and now their kids are going to college, right? And then they expect that their kids are going to follow the same path, right? Um they came to us in junior year, right? kids. They they came to us late. They came to us in like May, right? When we had with a college list call, they're like, "Yeah, so like we want our kids to follow our path. We're Berkeley family." We're like, "Great. Take a look at your classes. Where's the rigger?" They're like, "What rigor?" Right? And we're like, "Berkeley is a reach for your family." Like reach for your student, right? And they're like, "No, well, we we got into Berkeley." And I'm like, "Yeah, but that was 30 years ago, right?" And they're like, "Yeah, but we got in." And I'm like, "Did you not just hear me? That was 30 years ago, right? Um times have changed, right? Icebergs have melted, right? Uh climate has changed. Uh you know, pres there's been, you know, eight presidents in between. Like what else do you want me to say? Right? So the reason I say this is because we need to look at today's criteria. Like the students getting into ## What a Competitive Applicant Looks Like Now [13:27] Berkeley taking 10, 12, 13, 15 APs, right? um they have, you know, anywhere between 15 to 20 to 25 30 hours of activities, you know, a week, right? Um there there's more things than they can ever imagine that students are doing to get into that level of college, right? And Berkeley is what's known as a public ivy, right? And so we need to make sure that we're staying realistic, right? You only have a limited amount of time on applications, right? So again, I'm not saying that you shouldn't go for your reach schools or your dream schools. You should, right? because you only apply once, right? But right, the question becomes, right, does it make sense for like a student that has, you know, a like a straight B student to apply to just Ivy League schools, right? Maybe not, right? But we need to figure out what is the best grouping of schools to apply to to make sure that we have, you know, dream schools, target schools, safety schools on our list so that we have enough options when we get to kind of acceptance time. Okay? So when it ## Financial Aid Overview for Juniors [14:29] comes to college list, don't be too stubborn to listen to kind of like advice, to listen to reason, to listen to kind of like what are the different options that my student might have. Okay? So when it comes to the college list, don't look at it from parents your perspective. Look at it from the current criteria. Okay? So, that's a little bit of a background about what junior students kind of like what you should be doing when it comes to kind of academics, getting ready for the college admission side of things. Okay. Now, let's talk about financial aid a little bit for juniors. Okay. Now, first off, I've been doing this every week, but what is financial aid? Financial aid is money given to you by your the college that you're going to, by the federal government, by the state government to help you pay for college. Now, what types of things do they give you? They can give you free money. They can also ## FAFSA Explained [15:20] give you loans. Those are the two buckets of money that they can give you, right? But again, they might call it a lot of different things, but literally it's free money that you never need to pay back or they can give you loans. Those are the two things that they can give you. Okay? Don't try to differentiate what the free money is called. It call, it could be called an elephant. It could be called uh ABCD. Whatever it's called, it's just free money that never needs to be paid back or loans. Just remember those two types of things. Now, in order to get these things, there's certain things that need to get filled out. First is the FAFSA. It's very, very simple, right? So, as far as what the FAFSA is, it's the free application for student aid. A lot of families will know about this, right? As ## FAFSA Timeline for Class of 2027 [15:59] far as when it's going to open this year for the class of 2027, I am not sure. Right? It's supposed to be October 1st every year, but the last three years it's opened at very different times. Right? The website is studentaid.gov. That is the only website. There's a lot of trickster websites out there that try to get your personal information. So, be careful in order to fill out this website. What do you need? You need to have your social. You need to have your, you know, obviously you need to under know your birth date. Now, again, I say this because there's a lot of times where we've actually s seen situations where people's birthdays and social security numbers, legal names, and how it's spelled don't match up. So, just make sure all those things match up, right? You need an email. And I I actually tell students when they're getting ready for college admissions, they should create a new email, right? A more professional one that they're going to use just for college admissions and beyond, right? Um so that they can and also it makes it easier for them to share the password with their parents, right? So that the parents can also be checking in on things, right? So a parent distinct email, right? That you check often, student distinct email that they can check often and share, right? And then phone numbers. You need a phone number to set up the student account and the parent account. They need to be distinct. And I suggest that you use your student's phone number for your student account and your parent phone number for the parent account. The reason is because if you use dad's phone number for one side, like the student account and mom's phone number for the parent side, then it gets a little bit weird later when you're trying to like figure out how to reset the password because you don't know whose phone number it is and it gets all like wonky. Okay, so whoever's account it is, use their phone number, right? So that it can be attached to that person later. Okay, ## CSS Profile Explained [17:34] the second piece is CSS profile. and I put if required. The reason is that not every school requires the CSS profile. Now, I talked about this at the master class and I've talked about it in in past trainings and we'll get more in depth later on as well, but the CSS profile is basically the FAFSA on steroids. Okay, it a it has five times as many questions and it asks about thing like things that are as detailed as like what car you drive, right? what year it is, if there's any debt owed on it. It asks about the equity in your home, about your mortgage payment, about how much revolving credit you have available. It asks about kind of like what you do in the summer. It asks about what like how long you've worked for your employer. It asks about like what kind of pension plan you have. It asks about how much you have in retirement. Like I can go on and on and on, right? Literally, right? And so it has so many questions, right? Literally every question that it asks you is designed to try to disqualify you, right? The reason why they ask you about your home equity is to try to disqualify you. The reason why they ask about your revolving credit lines is to try to disqualify you, right? Every question is designed to try to disqualify you. But let me kind of tell you something, right? The way that they kind of like state it online is that, oh, we have this CSS profile to see if we as a college can provide you any scholarship opportunities. That's how that's that's how they frame it. Bunch of BS. Okay. But because it's a required form, you have to do it, right? But I'm going to give you the biggest pro tip that I can ever give you about this form, right? There's only about five questions that are required on this form, right? I always liken this to like, okay, you get pulled over by the police. This is what I do, okay? And ## The CSS Profile Traffic Stop Strategy [19:17] this comes from a lawyer. When I get pulled over by the police, I give them the silent treatment. They pull me over. I roll down my window. I look up. He says, "Oh, I'm so and so with the whatever whatever police department, right?" I look up. I don't say a word, right? He says, "Can I see your driver's license?" I give him my driver's license. Registration. I give him my registration. You know how fast you're going? I just look at him. Right? He comes back, gives me a ticket, I drive off. That's literally how you should think about this form, right? There's only five questions that are required. Those are the only five questions that you should answer. Do not volunteer any information, right? As soon as you do, you're screwed, right? So, pardon my bad language here, right? Hopefully, there's no minors on this call, right? But telling them how much you made in interest, telling them where you work, how long you've been there, right? How much your pension is going to be, how does how do you think that helps you? It doesn't. So, just do what is required, just like what you need to do at a traffic stop. If you if you get to a traffic stop and then you're like, "Oh my god, police officer, I'm so sorry. I was running late, so like I was I was going fast and like I had to pick up my kids and like oh my god like I think I was going like 67. How does that help you? It doesn't. So just zip it and give them what they need. You can go fight them in court. Okay, that's it. Okay. ## Every College Has Its Own Financial Aid Process [20:40] Now, another thing I want to tell you guys about is that every college has their own process. So don't be fooled and think that this is just a one step or two-step process with the FAFSA and the CSS. I'm just going to give you some examples, right? So an example is USC. USC has their own FAFSA. Basically it's called fast. Okay. So even after you do the FAFSA, the CSS, they also have fast. Okay. So that's one system be like Baylor, right? They have FAFSA, they have CSS, and then they have one-stop student financial services, right? So there's another system that you have to do, right? Princeton has their own. Princeton has FAFSA, CSS, and then it has this thing, right? It's basically FAFSA all over again, right? So it's like why do you make us do three separate things, right? So remember it's a long elongated process. That's why I tell families, you think it's simple, ## Outside Scholarships Overview [21:29] it's not. Every school is very specific in what they want, very specific in how they go about their process. Okay. The other thing I want to talk about for juniors is like if you haven't started looking, outside scholarships are definitely there for you, right? There are families where I cannot help you unfortunately, right? So outside scholarships might be your only bet. Okay? So if that's the case, right, this is what you need to kind of start thinking about. Well, first off, where do you find them? Right? And when to start, right? Well, scholarship search can happen as early as like first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, right? Normally, right? Basically, what will happen if you do win it that early is that the organization will hold the scholarship for the awardee until they reach college age, right? But again, there's no like best time to search for it, but kind of like during the school year is like the best time when it's available because well, everyone's searching in the summer, right? Now, obviously, working with the financial aid edge program and with ELA financial aid is great, but if you're not working with us and we can't work with you, well, then this is the next best thing, right? Now, I always tell people that scholarships are a numbers game because for smaller scholarships, right, like $500,000, $2,000 scholarships. Well, it's all about like how many can you win? How many can you stack on top of each other, right? Generally, for those smaller level scholarships, I tell people it's about a 10% win rate, right? But if you're if you're going for $2,000 scholarships and you're trying to get $20,000 together, that means that you have to win 10 of them. But at a 10% win rate, that means that you have to apply to a hundred of them to get $20,000 together. So it's not like an easy task. So you have to stay persistent, right? It's a numbers game. Again, if you're ## The Scholarship Numbers Game [22:54] trying to get $40,000 together, that means you need to apply to 200. If you're trying to get $60,000 together, that means you have to apply to 300, right? So again, it it gets pretty exponential, right? And then for those higher level ones like 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 or higher, it's a less than 1%. So even if you count it at 1%. To even get like one at $10,000, you have to apply to 100, right? So if you're trying to get like a $10,000 scholarship and you're trying to get like $50,000 together, it starts to get astronomical. That means you have to apply to 500 scholarships to maybe get $50,000, right? So it gets really crazy. Okay. Now, parents of juniors, what should you be you what should you be doing, right? Because I know that your students in the middle of AP exams and finals right now. Well, the tax year is ending. Well, it ended, right? And you're kind of either have filed your taxes or you're getting ready to file your taxes. I know a lot ## Tax Strategies for Parents of Juniors [23:43] of people are have like extended, right? So, maximize retirement contributions, contribute to health savings accounts, maximize deductions, avoid any last minute capital gains. I know that's already too late, right? Defer any bonuses, discretionary income. I know that's too late, too, but again, for future years, right? U minimize any studentowned assets, right? You might still be able to do some of those things. Use any cash reserves, right? Again, as far as cash reserves, those are more for when we fill out the FAFSA. So, you still have time to do that, right? Also, for student owned assets, you can still do that as well, right? Um, but for some families, there are other kind of strategies that may work, but for a lot of families, they don't, right? I've had families be like, "Oh, are there things I can do?" I'm like, "Yeah, there are, but does it really work for your family?" I'll just give you some examples, right? Like for instance, I have a family like that came in. They're like, "Yeah, our family's like our family's income's like 250. Is there any way to bring it down to zero?" I'm like, "Yeah, there is. Do you have $250,000 in cash lying around, right?" And they're like, "No." And I'm like, "Okay, well, if you did, you could put $250,000 into a cash deferred annuity, right? Stow it away as an annuity and then your income would drop to zero for this year." And they're like, "Oh, well, we don't have that cash." And I'm like, "Yeah, I know." And a lot of people don't have that cash and that's why it's a problem, right? So there's always a cash flow issue and that's why a lot of those things don't work sometimes, right? Or some people say, "Oh, well, like you can uh you can buy an investment property and then bring down your income, right?" Yeah, you can and you can take the take the kind of like depreciation in in in an asset. But let's take that same example, right? So $250,000, right? If you wanted to bring your income down from $250,000 to zero or like close to zero, um you would need to buy a property that brought your brought your income down $250,000, right? In ## What Students Need to Prepare [25:24] order to do that, the average depreciation on a property is about $30,000 for every million, right? Um, so if you wanted to bring your income down to $250,000, then you would have to buy a property that was worth $8 million to bring it down $240,000, which would bring your income down to $10,000 for the year. But then the question is, how can you make a payment on an $8 million property, right? So again, it's all cash flow issues, right? So a lot of the kind of like strategies that people have out there that like seem so like magical, they don't work for the the the average family. Okay? Now for students, what do you need to be preparing for? The biggest thing that students need to be thinking about is your college list. You need to understand why you want to go to each college. What what colleges require the CSS profile, the FAFSA, like what do you need? What other kind of like systems are there? Portals are there, right? And ## Final Takeaways for Families [26:14] again, the student might also have taxes. So if you need to file taxes, right, that might be something that the student needs to do as well. Right? Now, takeaways from here, right? Families, there are still chances there, right? But we need to prepare early. parents, there's still some things that you can do to like kind of like change your situation, but for juniors, there's not a lot of time left, right? We do need to talk, right? Um, now the one thing that I want to make very clear here because I don't think people believe me when I talk to them in a consultation is that our sibling discounts are disappearing, right? Um, our pricing team actually priced them wrong and so they are disappearing. They're only going to be here for another week, right? Um, and the discount and the reason why they're going to be disappearing is because our pricing team priced them wrong, right? They gave too big of a discount on the sibling discount. So, there will no longer be any sibling discounts anymore. Uh, so if I did offer it to you in the past, unfortunately, after realistically the 15th, they will be gone, right? And everyone will just be full price. There will be no sibling discounts anymore. So, if you are interested in learning about our sibling discounts and what the pricing looks like and all those different things, you need to sign up for a consultation, right? And I'll have the link later on. I'll put it in the chat. And we'll also have a QR code later, too. Okay? But all we do is that you all we ask is that you ask for help, right? Our consultations are always free. All you do is sign up. I'll have a talk with you. If it makes sense for your family, we'll talk about the numbers and we'll talk about our program. If it doesn't, I'll send you on your way. I'll give you some tips and tricks, right? But that's all we ever ask, right? Um, but if our program doesn't work for you because we have a money back guarantee, I don't want to sign you up, right? But if I can help your family, I will tell you about our program because well, why would I ever sign someone up that I feel like I'm going to give a refund to? Okay. Now, as far as our results, they kind of speak for themselves, right? I have families that make over $300,000, right? This family, I got them $30,000 at LMU, right? Um or this is Chapman, actually, right? This next family, uh they make over $400,000. I got them $42,000 a year at Baylor, right? And then this family, right, they make over $230,000. I got them over $30,000 at uh at I believe this was UC Berkeley. Okay. Um so again, the results are real, right? They're real families. We just had a we just had one of our families come on live uh at our master class and talk about their results, right? Um they're a family that's also going to Berkeley. Their student got into the ME program at Berkeley. Um and um I think I saved them basically like 65% off, right? uh their family makes over $230,000 a year as well. Um and so they're going to Berkeley for basically I believe it was like $13,000 a year, right? That's their out-of- pocket cost per year. Okay. But if you do have questions, I'm ready to answer them. I do see one in the chat right now. Uh but you can put it in the Q&A in the chat. That is the QR code to sign up for a consultation, right? So pick a spot that works for you guys. You can also text us at 650-8605201 if you have any questions or if you want to kind of like talk to us to figure out a time that works for you. Okay. You can also email us as well if you're more comfortable with email, right? It's just fine.com and you can also set up a consultation that way. But again, if you have multiple kids, the first one's a junior and you have other ones coming up, I would hop on this very quickly because our sibling discounts are disappearing. Our sibling discount is 65% off our original price, but again, they priced it wrong, so we're getting rid of it soon. Okay, but let's go over the questions that we have. And it says, "How can we lower the CSS profile if we make over $300,000? On the surface, it looks like we can really afford out of pocket, but we really can't." So, the CSS profile doesn't spit out a number like the FAFSA, right? So, you just enter the information and then the college reviews it, right? So, it doesn't really actually spit out like an SAI or EFC or like a number like the FAFSA does. Um, but again, we have to understand what what the numbers are so I can kind of see where we're going wrong or like where the colleges are seeing that you can afford things, right? So, but I I talk about it all the time, right? And I didn't put the slide in here, but even at our master class and even at our other trainings, like I I've done a breakdown of like a $300,000 family in the Bay Area. At the end of everything, after you pay your mortgage, after you pay your car note, after you pay for insurance, transportation costs, uh you save a little for retirement, this, that, so on and so forth, like just regular like necessities of life, and like just like maybe like again saving a little for retirement. The average $300,000 family in the Bay Area, like living in the greater Bay Area, has about $15,000 in disposable income left, right? I live in the Bay Area, right? And so that's why I use the Bay Area because it's so bad here, right? But that's what an average family has left in disposable income after everything is said and done in a year, right? So $15,000, well that doesn't cover uh the cost to go to a CSU or a UC, which is even more expensive, or a private school, which is even more expensive. So the question becomes, how is the college determining that I have enough money to go to any of these schools, right? Well, that's where I come in, right? That's where we can talk about, okay, well, this is how the college sees it. this is what I can make it for you. Right? So that's why I have people sign up for consultations because that's where we can get into the nitty-gritty of everything. Okay. ## Q&A: How 529 Plans Impact Financial Aid [31:37] Uh we have another question here and it says, "How does a large balance in a 529 plan impact potential aid?" Uh that's a good question. Right? 529s are something that I've talked about like consistently in like a lot of my trainings. 529s suck. Right? Now again, there is probably a lot of angry parents out there. Right? Now you have to understand what the history of a 529 was, right? Or the history of the 529 plan was. The 529 plan was a plan that was initiated by the like by state government to provide like a vehicle for low-income families to save enough money for their children to go to the local state college and for them to save up enough tuition money to send their student to the local state college. That was the whole intent of the 529. So the whole intent of the 529 like again just like in California's case like I live in the East Bay, right? Um in like in the Bay Area in San Francisco Bay area. So just like let's say that it was my kid, right? I don't have kids yet, right? But let's say that it was my kid. The whole purpose of a 529 was for me to save up $30,000 so that I could send my kid to California CSU East Bay, right, while they lived at home. That's the whole point of what a 529 was meant to do, right? But but right, what did it turn into? Middle income, middle upper income families started using it as like a place to store money and like let it grow so that now they have like hundreds of thousands of dollars in there, right? I talked to a family, he had like $600,000 in there. I'm like, what the heck what the heck are you going to use it for? You can only buy so many laptops, right? Um so I was like like why' you throw so much money into this? Right? And it's like your kid's not going to grad school cuz like we like we we've been working through that for a long time. It's like you knew your kid wasn't going to go to grad school. They're not in in a field that's going to grad school, right? Maybe like way down the line, but like all you have to think about was college right now. Like why why throw it in there? And like oh, I don't know. I just I just kind of like did it without thinking and now it's grew to this monster, right? And so again, we had to figure out like other methods. But generally speaking, when money is in a 529, how the college thinks about it is they ask you a question about it. How much money is in your 529? If you say or like first the question is do you have a 529 and if you answer yes the next question is how much is in it and once you answer that question basically they say if let's say you say $100,000 then basically they see $100,000 m yummy they cut it into four sections and they say they think I can take $25,000 a year that's how they think about it now is that fair no it's not right but if a college was going to give you $30,000 a year but they saw that you had $25,000 a year in your 529 they're not going to give you $30,000 anymore anymore. They're going to give you five because that is the that is the kind of like gap that is created by your 529 just $5,000. They're not going to give you 25 and then also have your 30 or like give give you the sorry give you the 25 and also or give you the 30 and then also use your 25 like as well to give you 55 for college. It's not going to work that way, right? So your 529 is going to shoot you in the foot. That's what's going to happen. Okay. Do they ask how much is in it or how much you've contributed? They ask how much is in it? So, they're going to ask for your contribution plus your growth. Right now, the 529s originally had such bad growth because they were tied to like crappy stocks, right? But now that they're tied to like, you know, S&P and better kind of like stock groups and things like that, uh they're growing pretty good, right? Uh so the growth is pretty significant as well. Okay. But I'm also going to put the link, which is basically the QR code, into the chat as well, so you guys can grab that as well. Okay? But again, our consultations are always free. I don't bite anyone's head off, right? I'm not going to say that you are doing things wrong, right? Families, you guys are doing the best that you can because well, you have limited information, right? But I want to steer everyone on the right track. So even if you have a ninth grader or eighth grader or, you know, a sophomore, right? This is the time to talk to me because, well, then we can plan a little bit for the future, right? And if you have a junior, which I have, we have a lot of them here today, and you haven't talked to me yet, my question is, well, if you've been in our program for long enough, why the heck not, right? And if you just joined our program, well, get on it now. Okay. All right. We'll do last call for questions and then if we don't, we'll kind of close down for the day. Okay. ## Q&A: Should You Save in a 529? [36:02] So, we have question, but is it not a good thing to save enough money in a 5 to9 to pay for school? Sure, if you want to pay for it, but again, it's a question we have to think about, right? If you're at an income level where no one else is going to help you, sure, go ahead. Yeah, of course, you have to save it on your own, right? But 85% of the families that I talked to don't need to pay it on their own, right? So, if you make a 100, 200, 300, 400, $500,000 a year, you're not in a situation where you have to pay it on your own, right? Now, if you make over a million a year, sure, go ahead and save it up on your own cuz you're out of luck, right? But if you make under a million dollars a year, there's chances for your family, right? That's what I always tell people. People are like, "Oh, well, like I'm going to have to pay it on my own." I'm like, "How much do you make?" Like 180. I'm like, "Do you feel rich? Do you feel like you can go on vacation every year? Do you feel like you can switch your car whenever you want to?" Like, if those are questions that you're saying no to, then you're probably a family that I can help. Okay. So, again, I think it's admirable that it's like, "Hey, I want to pay for my kids's college. I want to pay for my kids education." But if that's going to make you cash strapped and that's going to make you not be able to save for your retirement and that's going to delay you in uh paying off your house and that's going to delay you in um that's going to make you have to work an extra seven years instead of retiring. Like why are we even thinking about it? Just sit down with me and let's talk. So if you already filed your taxes, what else can you help us do if we have a junior? Well, that's why we need to sit down and talk. I need to understand your situation. So, as far as like already filing your taxes, there's usually not much I can do on your taxes. It's about what I can do on the actual forms for you, right? So, it's not about how your taxes are filed. I think that's the big misunderstanding that people have, right? Your taxes are your taxes, right? Um, so most people are on W TWS, right? There's nothing that we can do to change what your taxes look like. It's about how we fill out the forms. Okay. Uh, do you have high success with ## Q&A: Where to Save for College [38:02] lowering UC or public schools cost or more for private schools? Uh, across the board really, right? So, it really depends across the boards, but but that's what we'll talk about during your call, right? We'll talk about the different types of schools that there are and we'll also see like where your students thinking about applying specific schools and then we'll talk about what I can do at those specific schools. And then we have another question is says, "Where should you save for college to avoid it being seen during the application process?" I mean the best place is like under your mattress because they'll never see that, right? But just joking aside, right? There's no place that you could save it so that it is being hidden. Realistically, the only real place where it can be hidden is in a business, right? Like in a C corp, right? But um or like in retirement, but the problem with retirement is that it once you pull it out, there's a 10% penalty, right? So it doesn't really make sense to save it in there, right? Um, so I tell parents like the most efficient way to do it is just in your money market account or in your brokerage account, right? That's the best place to do it, right? While the growth is taxed, it's probably a better return on your investment. Um, and even though it's seen as an asset, they don't take 100% of that asset. It's just the 5% of it, right? They look at 529s a little bit differently when it comes to college admissions and college financial aid. Okay, these are all really deep level questions today, which I'm very impressed at actually, right? Um, but again, uh, Roth IRA and use the contributions. Uh, so again, if you have money left over in your 529, you can transition that to a Roth IRA. But if you pull money out of a Roth IRA and you're not at the age level yet, well, there's penalties there, too, right? So again, we have to kind of understand the situation that you're in. If you're already at the age and you can pull from your Roth IRA, that's fine, right? But again, it all depends on your situation, right? Um, but again, that's why I need ## Final Remarks [40:01] to sit down with everyone because I can't like I can't bring people up here and be like, "Hey, like tell me about your income." It's it's a little weird to talk about in front of Well, we had a lot of people here today about like 45 people, right? Um, so sign up for that consultation. I'll leave I'll leave the screen up real quickly. Again, I'll put the link to the uh consultation again right here in the chat. Um, but if you guys do have any questions, feel free to reach out at any time so that we can uh talk to you and kind of give you some more information, okay? But I'm here every week, uh, minus any major holidays or if I'm super sick, but even if I'm sick, I'm usually here, okay? But I'm here to help, save you guys money, right? Um, so if there's anything, please reach out and we'll talk again next week. Okay? All right, everyone. Have a great night. Bye-bye.