Episode 26: Preparing your Child for the Journey from High school to College with Wendy Mollo

This podcast episode features Wendy Mollo from Florida College Coach discussing the significance of early college preparation for middle to high school students. She addresses challenges faced by students in getting proper guidance due to counselor caseloads and graduation focus over career planning. Wendy emphasizes the importance of customized planning, understanding college requirements, filling out FAFSA, and strategies for college selection and application. The episode also provides valuable advice on scholarship applications and alternative pathways to college, highlighting the role of scholarships in maximizing post-secondary education opportunities.


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Transcript

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And welcome back to the 26th episode of retire early retire now i'm your host hunter kelly Owner of Palm Valley Wealth Management. I do this podcast each week to help people reach their financial freedom to either retire early or retire now. And so I'm excited about this episode.

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We have Wendy Mollo. She is owner of Florida College Coach. She is an educational, I would say consultant, if you will, She helps students in the middle school to high school age work through graduating. Through high school, but also transitioning into college or whatever they're going to do in that life after high school. And so we talk about her educational background, the challenges facing guidance counselors, especially here in Florida, what led her to start for a college coach business. How she helps students and parents through the process of assessing the child Making sure that they're on the right track and applying for the correct schools based off what they want to do And what that process looks like so again, I found this very educational. So go ahead give it a listen I will link all of her information in the description of the show notes And if you like this podcast, please subscribe If you want to hear more of these type interviews, let me know, leave a five star review on your favorite podcasting app. And remember that, I release these episodes every Tuesday morning. So be on the lookout for that as well.

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And welcome Wendy Mollo to the retire early, retire now podcast. I'm excited to have you, Wendy. I like we talked about before the podcast, I feel like advisors or the financial industry really focuses on how to prepare kids for, Funding college or parents for funding college, like five to nine plans, four to prepaid, different type of accounts like that. But, they often don't talk about the different things that you can do to prepare children. So if they have a course or a career that they want to enter into, whether that be in doctor, engineer, teacher, whatever that case may be. there's just not a lot of help there outside of guidance counselors. And as we'll talk about today, you and I both know. That guidance counselors are overworked and there's not enough time in the day to really sit down with a kid and understand their, their wants and needs. And so you come in and help with that problem here. why don't you just go ahead and introduce, yourself to the listeners and, and your background and education and all of that

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-7: 2:41

Hi, Hunter. Thank you so much for having me here. you're right. You know, guidance counselors are very well intentioned. They're called school counselors these days, but they're very well intentioned and they have students best interests in mind, but they just have too many tasks on their plate, of which often college I learned that quickly when I moved about five I'm originally from New Jersey, and I was in education since 1999. I started out as a high school linguist teacher, and then I transitioned to a school counselor role about five years after that, and during that time I accrued a handful of administration educational licenses that I was planning on using when my kids were out of high school. But COVID kind of changed the plans for me in New Jersey, and we wound up moving to Florida, where I continued working as a school counselor, and what I learned very quickly that was unique to Florida, compared to the North, is the caseloads that counselors have around, down here, are between four and eight hundred, whereas the caseloads in the North are around 90 to 250. So we were, I was immediately dealing with quadruple the caseload of students and then also additional tasks. And what I learned from that is school counselors, at least in the public school system in Florida, are really geared to getting kids And very little time is spent on career planning or So, there was a gap there that needed to be filled and so I was working, you know, 8 4 in the public school system as a school counselor and then working at night helping kids supplement that college advising component and the need grew and I wound up leaving public education full time of 2022 to where kids exclusively 1.

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Yeah, that, that's, I don't know if my listeners know this, but I have an educational background. I taught for two or three years over in Orange Park, Florida, for those that aren't local to Jacksonville area. But, I found it very interesting. as we talked a few weeks ago, we, we met, kind of on a one to one meeting, just networking and things of that nature. but when I taught, I taught, ace kids, which are kind of the higher learning for the Those don't know. and then I taught regular just ninth grade biology and I could tell there was a difference because not only were the kids a little bit different, but we had a specific guidance counselor for those ace kids. So they had a very good understanding of okay, I need to take these classes. I'm going to apply to this college and this is what that's going to look like. Now, do they have an idea of scholarships and things of that nature? No, I think that's where the yeah. The parents would come in, but within when I was, teaching the ninth graders that were just standard ninth grade kids, great kids worked really hard, but still didn't have that understanding. And I think now talking with you, it makes a lot more sense because they didn't have that, that person that was looking at their entire situation where, where me, the biology teacher, I was just worried about, hey, let's learn, these topics in biology for the EOC and, and what's important about biology. I wasn't. about, we need to take this class and this class and that class to make sure that you get the proper grade and graduate and go to the college or whatever next thing is for that child. So, I, especially in Florida, obviously I don't have that background in New Jersey, but, but in Florida, I think. What you do can, can add a ginormous value, not only to the student, but to the parents as well, because there's just not a lot of education around it. what was your time like, I guess, specifically in New Jersey and then comparing it to Florida, being a guidance counselor? what, I guess, what specific differences did you notice when you made that change to Florida?

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-7: 6:31

I think the primary difference is the, series of tasks expected of school counselors in Florida. And of those tasks, I mean, they're all very well intended around getting kids to meet graduation requirements and then graduate. So it's very, you know, if you are an English as a Second Language Learner. They have a very strong program to help with that. They have a lot of program to help with testing and, you know, filling gaps in knowledge to help meet testing goals. Whether it be the EOC or, you know, the ACT, the SAT. Now we have the CLT that just came out in December or, you know, the ever changing state requirement of the FAST. There's a lot of testing requirements that need to be met and as a result the high schools are prepared and focused on meeting those. But like I said, they're not thinking about the kid's plan for college and as a result they're often missing courses that the kid needs for particular school goals that wouldn't matter in terms of graduation. I'll give you two quick examples. I had a student, who she wanted to go to college. To a particular college up north Princeton. And they required at the time that all of their students have certain courses. Not just like three lab sciences. Of those three lab sciences, they wanted them to be particular sciences. And this is back in 19, no, I'm sorry, 2004. So, the student was an English major and she was very good with writing, loved reading. And when it came to senior year, her counselor said listen, you have three sciences, you don't need another science, you can just take another interest of choice. So she took a journalism class. Long story short, she applied to Princeton. She was, she wasn't accepted, not because of her qualifications, but because she didn't take physics, which at the time was admittance. And she didn't know it, her school counselor didn't know it, but her school counselor wasn't, again, worried so much about courses for particular schools, just courses for graduation. So that's one example, and there's another example of a student I had here in Florida who was a very bright student, he wanted to go into the Air Force Academy, and I met him when he was a junior. And he came up to me second semester of his junior year and he said, you know what, I'm registered for Air Force 4, which is American Sign Language, a foreign language requirement for next year, but I need to switch it because I just found out that the Air Force Academy doesn't accept ASL as a foreign language. I need to get two years of a foreign language in right now to still make me a viable candidate. And again, had I known the student prior to that year, prior to that registration, I could have advised him on that. So not only is it knowing all the minutia of different schools, which unfortunately is ever changing. Like, So I charge an hourly rate. And so as much as you need me to do whatever you need, that is how. You'll be billed. I used to have packages, but I got rid of the packages because so many students are motivated in different levels of self engagement that whereas, you know, if we have 10 tasks to complete, I can do that in two weeks with one student. And 10 weeks with another. So I just went straight to hourly so I can customize each package to the individual students needs and part of that is, you know, starting with kids as early as 7th grade and 8th grade to make sure you're taking the right courses in the right sequence that get you to where you want to be. Even if you don't know where you want to be, it will expand all your options. So, I only need, you know, my 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th graders for about three hours a year. It's not until their sophomore year that I need to start meeting with them more regularly. So, get your kids to me 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, just so we can talk about what activities you should be doing, what courses you should be taking, what test preparation you should be engaged in. Again, just a few hours of advice a year and then we start really getting into the nitty gritty of it your sophomore year.

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Awesome. that's very helpful. I want to go back to the examples that you gave me, as far as, the kids just not knowing what, what courses to take and the things of that nature. I think that's where someone. With the outside view Unlike a guidance counselor where they're very specific to that school or the state requirements. They're not going to know princeton or harvard or georgia tech or whoever as well as someone like you or or just have the time to go research it So maybe you're not familiar with georgia tech But but you you don't have the workload that maybe another guidance counselor will have so you can say, okay Well, if you want to do engineering at georgia tech You need these math courses and maybe you're doing dual enrollment. So making sure that they have proper science classes if that's involved in things of that nature. So I think hiring someone out could could benefit them not only from just accountability standpoint, but the knowledge of the specific college that they want to get into. outside of just the courses, I think what would be valuable to this conversation as well is just the process for applying not only, to just, just in general to the school, but what type of government assistance that they can apply for and things of that nature and how you help in that process. Maybe not going into the minutia of what the process is, but just how you help and things of that nature. Okay.

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-7: 12:02

I got it. And you know, you, you bring up a really good point about knowing the specifics of each school. And unfortunately, not only do you need to know the specifics for each school, but you Almost every year, the schools change

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completely.

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want, so it's staying abreast of all the different changes. Like I had mentioned with the new testing, in short, like What I, what I had initially done like years ago is I put together this video saying all right These are the 14 things you need to do to get into it and I would just kind of checklist and I thought I'm Just gonna sell this video and make it an economical way for people to get that information In a more affordable way rather than hiring me hourly Well, it turns out that that wasn't a great idea because while that was true at the time that I made the video Six months later, much of that information had already changed, so it really is important to stay, on top of those changing trends. So to speak to what you were talking about in regard to money. Every student I require of all of my students, every student should fill out the FAFSA. And I have a lot of parents who say to me, I make too much money, I know I'm not going to get any aid. Um, first of all, those requirements change every year. Second of all, colleges base their merit age on information from the FAFSA. So you should fill out the FAFSA regardless. Thankfully, Um, the government has changed the program this past December of 2023 to be a lot quicker than it used to be. So now, you know, it used to take hours. Now it takes, you can do the whole thing in under an hour because it links to your irs. gov website. So a lot of that information is done and every single person should do it for every single student because like I said, it links to not only what age you could get, but what merit package the school will offer you as well. In regards, uh, to the other steps, that's FAFSA. As I mentioned previously, there's about 14 different things you need to do just to apply to college. So that's what I'm working with my juniors throughout, you know, January to November. But prior to those 14 things, you need to be thinking about what they are. You need to be thinking about what your activities are. You need to be thinking about your, uh, work hours, your community service, your courses, because we have to fill out the SSAR. We need to start building your resume. We need to not only begin the bones of your initial essay, but sometimes there's four or five, six supplemental essays we need to write. I start with the common application, um, with 10th grade, because a lot of that information doesn't change and what changes we can change later on. So. Of the 14 things that we need to do just to get into college, we can begin many of them as soon as 9th and 10th grade.

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Wow. so two things I want to touch on. I did not mention this in my last podcast. We talked about 529s a little bit, but, one of the, one of the changes that Wendy was mentioning in the FASFA, application, generally, one of the strategies that you can do to plan for college funding to help get some of that, government assistance is putting 529, ownership in the grandparent's name and for the benefit, obviously, of your child and, that would generally help in that first year of college and then the income, from the 529 would be counted toward the child in the following year. But, with those changes that income will not be counted any longer. So you could theoretically use that grandparents five to nine plan, for the life of, of your college career. and then not count as income. So you would be up for more assistance. And so those are some of the things that, that Wendy's talking about there.

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-7: 15:44

Well, I think what you were, where you were going is that the 529 is an awesome supplement, but we also have other programs like Bright Futures and Florida Prepaid, and sometimes people get concerned that they're putting too much money in, but you shouldn't, because if you save more than you need, you get all that money back. And so that's a really good point. Safe component to over preparing because you're not gonna lose, you'll, you'll get money back if you

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yeah. yeah. to touch on that, we talked, or I talked about that in my last episode. so if you have not listened to that, go to, to episode 25, you would get that money back. And then also if you have money left in that five to nine, you can always roll a portion of that up to 35, 000 into your child's Roth IRA. So that's something new that just happened in the last year or so. so there's a lot of flexibility, whereas like when he was saying, Parents were worried about over contributing to some of these accounts or over funding them And the government has helped a lot in the way of coming up with ways to say, okay Well, your son did a really good job of getting bright futures and these other scholarships and he has a full ride Well now you can roll some of that to his roth ira Or you can pull it out with 529 plans if it's not used for education so there's there's a lot of nuances I don't want to say loophole, but a lot of ways that you can get that money out without having to pay penalties and such. And so

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other concern, speaking of bright futures, is, you know, a lot of parents think, well, my kids are gonna get bright futures because I got bright futures or my older son got bright futures. What they don't realize, too, is bright futures is not a give me the bright futures. Scholarship requirements are changing almost

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Mm hmm.

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and they're continually changing. going up. And for a student to get 100 percent Bright Futures scholarship, they need, on the SAT, a 1340. To put that in perspective, the highest score, a perfect score, which is nearly impossible to get, is a 1600. So the Bright Futures full scholarship SAT requirement is only 260 points short. Of a perfect score. I mean, it's a very challenging component, and they I think they did that with intention. And yet the 75 percent scholarship requirements scored of 1210 hasn't changed for years. So I think they're kind of in what bright futures paid for. It used to pay for room and board. It used to pay for your books used to pay for your tuition. Now it just pays tuition. So, um, It's really the bright future scholarship that used to be an amazing plan and a great resource for parents is getting chipped away at year after year by increasing the requirements and decreasing what is actually offered with that program.

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planning is becoming more and more important, not only from the investing standpoint, but potentially hiring someone like you so that, they're filling out those government assistant programs correctly or, or finding scholarships. And I can remember just being in, being in high school and we'd always joke about, I was left handed. Everybody would be like, Oh, you're getting a left handed scholarship. And so there's always tons of scholarships out there, that you can apply for. It's just a matter of how do you research them and things of that nature. I think that kind of leads well into my next question. Wendy, obviously you're not the only college prep coach, that there is. how do parents determine the proper or know if they're hiring the proper person? Because like in my industry, how do they know they're, they're getting a good advisor and so they need to know what to look for. so what, what would someone look for in a, in a professional like yours?

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Uh, it's a good question. So I work with a lot of very knowledgeable colleagues whom I respect tremendously and often refer out when my caseload gets too high. You had mentioned caseloads before. I limit my students per class to 25. And I've learned 25 is the max that I can handle to offer the services that I want. So, if I get more than that 25 marker, I need to refer. So, I vet other independent education consultants. to know that my referrals are being trusted, that they are being put in good hands. So, some of the questions you might want to ask is, um, How long have you been in education? What is your educational background? You might want to ask, what are some challenges you've seen while working with kids and getting them into colleges? And how have you overcome those challenges? Because it's really more about, like, the process. We, no counselor, can guarantee, if you hire me, I can get your kid into X, Y, and Z school. But what we can do is guide you with Excellent choices for courses, excellent choices for preparation, excellent choices for activities to put their best foot forward and cultivate a college list that is the most appropriate for what their end goals are.

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Yeah, it sounds like it sounds exactly the, the same as my profession. If they're saying they can guarantee you 12%, you better run Right, So if you say, Hey, I can guarantee you Harvard. Well, then you probably shouldn't, shouldn't hire that person,

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Yeah, because there's no, I mean, even a college admissions counselor at Harvard couldn't guarantee that. The problem, they're constantly changing. As you've seen, one of the requirements of test optional versus test blind versus test required schools is forever evolving. So even someone who got a kid into Harvard two years ago can't do it now because their holistic acceptances are broken. Forever evolving. So, and I think it's done with intent. It's meant to be confusing. It's meant to not be a science and more of an art.

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It's for better or for worse there, there's lots of regulations and rules and, and things that put guardrails up, if you will, to, to keep people from getting in. having someone like you on their team can certainly help. One thing we didn't talk about that I wanted to get into that you've mentioned a couple times and, uh, through our networking group and things of that nature is, tell, tell the audience, your background in special education and, and how you can help with that as the, as the child moves from middle school to high school because there can be accommodations there and then I'm, I'm sure there can be accommodations through college as well.

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it's a good question. So, one of my certifications is that I'm specialized in, a teacher of students with disability. And part of that training and licensing requires that you be able to assess students weaknesses so you can help fill gaps. I am not a diagnostician. I am not diagnosing anyone. But I can look at patterns of disability. activity, behavior, and academics to make certain, assessments on what accommodations would be appropriate. So, to that end, Florida, and particularly Northeast Florida, is a very transient area, and a lot of people come not only from other states, but from other communities. And they're not fully aware of all the resources that Florida has in terms of filling gaps to meet educational goals for students. So, when younger kids come to me, as young as third, fourth grade, and the parents are saying, I just don't understand why they're not learning, I don't understand why they're not meeting, why they continue to do so poorly in school, we will, um, evaluate them, we will look at, um, patterns and I will make some, I'll work with the school to make some recommendations to put them on the multi tiered system of evaluation where they can look at interventions and supports to help meet those goals whether it be a 504 to, you know, level the playing field for their disability, or perhaps an IEP, which is an Individualized Educational Plan that the school would put in for that student to help, again, level the playing field in terms of perhaps needing more time for assignments or needing duplicates of books, so they have one at home and one at school. There's a lot of different accommodations that can be made for kids, and you want to get that early. So you, I mean even medication can sometimes help. I've had students come back to me and say my whole life changed when I went on this medication, and I had an IEP. I only wish I would have done it sooner.

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-6: 23:55

Yeah, having those proper, um, recommendations and accommodations can make a big difference to the students. to how interested the, or child is in school, which can help them excel and then realize that, Hey, maybe I want to do engineering or be in finance or, or what have you. Whereas it was maybe very difficult for that child to sit in a classroom or, or just go home and study. Even if they were particularly interested in the process or the, the topic that they were learning. just having. So, um,

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Yeah, I mean, I don't want to interrupt, but one of the things that's most important about that, whether you have a learning disability or not, is just, you know, preparing early. I think sometimes parents think, well, I'm going to take, you know, my kids are going to take the test when they're a junior, we'll see what the score is, and then we'll get them some preparation. And if you need, like, big jumps in your score, you really need to take the test sooner so you can assess which test you're going to prepare for and then begin doing that early. Over the course of years rather than months. I have partnerships with a variety of tutors that offer different packages One of whom he has free sessions after 30 sessions You know, you can go up to a hundred sessions and there's no additional cost after 30 sessions so that's a really great incentive to start your test preparation early because It's only teaching you math and language. There's no downside to starting that as early as freshman and sophomore

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super powerful.

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kind of,

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Uh, I hate to admit this, but I didn't really learn how to study until I started taking my series seven and, and the things that I were interested in doing because I knew that it would better my life. And so you saying that was like, well, maybe I wish I would have had a course or something that I could take in or some sort of tutor to, to do more practice of where I took that initial one because, um, at that time my, SAT scores weren't that great. And so. Like you said, I had a big jump to make and so it, it seemed like it was insurmountable at the time. Now, everything worked out for the good, but, as most people say, Ah, I wish I could

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have done

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something a little bit different or what have you in high school. and those are, that's one of the things is, once I figured out how to take a test and study, Um, it, yeah, yeah, it changed everything. It was like, oh, well, now I feel like I could, I could pass medical school or

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not learn those test taking techniques and that material at a younger grade There's no downside to learning how to do Tackle a reading passage, handle some grammar tips, or focus more on an algebra question, by starting that earlier. So, I highly recommend that, I mean, everything with college prep and test prep in, in life, as you just pointed out, is better to start early. But, I think the misconception is, I don't need to think about college until they're juniors, is really hampering kids success, because that, that's something that really does need to be at least thought about as early, like I said, as middle school.

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-6: 27:01

that's, that's helpful. So let's transition to kind of the process and ideal students or family that you work with. So let's touch on that. If a family came to you, what are you hoping they have that would be ideal to work with them? Um, Yeah.

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-7: 27:15

So, uh, When I meet, my first session is always with the parents and the student, or at least just the parents, to make sure that we have the same goals. And what I explain to them is, I'm here to help assist, to guide, and advise. And if you just want the, like, 14 things you need to do to get into college, I have that on the sheet. I'll give it to you right now. And you don't even need to hire me. But if you want me to, uh, You know, assess what their career past their strengths and weaknesses. What major would be appropriate for them. I have tools for that. Then after we do that, then we start fine tuning our college list. So we know where we're going to apply. Everybody thinks, well, I'm going to apply to a million schools because everybody takes common app. The common app maxes out at 20 schools and 20, you know, 10 years ago was a preposterous amount to apply to. And now kids are applying to more than 20 just kind of throwing their hat in the ring. Um, of everywhere, independent of the application cost. what I would highly recommend is a student come in picking the most, Colleges are always looking for a student to take the most rigorous course load that their school offers that they're capable of being successful with. So, I often get the question, you know, should I take a bunch of APs and get Cs or standard classes and get As? And the answer is the same. Take the most rigorous courses that you can take, that your school offers, That you can do well, and they don't want you to take a piece and get sees. They want you to take a piece and get ace. So if you can't do that, then maybe stick with the honors and get the ace. Do whatever level of rigor you can do successfully.

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stick the honors and the A's. Do whatever level of rigor you can do successfully. You talked about the assessment here just a second ago, and so to me, I wish our, our public school system and speaking just for Florida, just because that's what I'm familiar with. I wish they would track kids a little bit better. because some, some kids have more of a engineering mind. Some of them have more of a, artistic mind where maybe they would be a better writer. and it doesn't necessarily have to be novel writing, but maybe it's technical writing or, or what have you, or maybe they're more math. and so is that something that you provide where you can say, okay, based off your, your, 9th, 10th grade, report card, if you will, or your GPA, and what classes you excelled in. These are the colleges that you probably should apply for as we work on the next couple of years. Like, what does that process look like?

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-7: 29:45

Yes, it's it's actually exactly that. We start out with four different diagnostic tools where the kids will take these tests like a little quiz and it will identify their strengths and weaknesses, not just, you know, things they like. The questions vary as much as do you like working with your hands? Do you like cold weather? Do you like being outside? Do you like technology? So it focuses on their strengths and weaknesses, and the output data that we get from that will tell them what careers they That they would be good at based on those answers. Then we take those careers and we break those down to majors. And then we take those majors. We find out what's a good fit. And then we start looking at colleges by what schools are best for that major. And we look at job placement. We look at graduation rate. We look at selectivity and for every school that we Yeah, you know every school concept that we're trying to apply to we Will apply to three levels of selectivity a reach a target and a safety now in the past You know kids might apply to Ten reach and three safeties But the problem is things that used to be safeties are no longer safeties, and schools are becoming more selective and competitive. And so now, at least with my students, my requirement is for every dream school you have, you need to have one target and one safety. So we look at a lot of data of admission profiles to make those selection, and the college selection and the, you know, selection process is about a two year process with my kids. We start with a list of about 40 and we whittle it down to around 12 schools by the time it comes for applying.

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Yeah, no, that I, of course I only have two, three years of experience in education, but I, I felt that if, if we could do a better job of that in house, in schools, I feel like our success rate of graduation and just fulfillment of kids wanting to go through school would improve dramatically because they're doing something, one, that they're good at, and two, if they're good at it, they're probably more willing to work hard at it and so on and so forth. that being said, some people are not necessarily cut out for Harvard or UF or FSU or whatever name university. Are there other alternatives that you help with, like, or things of that nature? How do you help with those type of students? That's So that's a good question. My, my company is called Florida college coach, and that's a bit of a misnomer because it implies that I only work with Florida schools or Florida kids and that I only work with college. And neither of those things are true. I have students from all over the country. Because I work virtually and we don't just focus on college. We focus on any post secondary plans that the kids might have. In fact, I have a student who, is 16 and after a lot of soul searching and speaking with the parents, he dropped out of school and opened his own, uh, Plumbing business and he's making about 70, 000 right now as a 16 year old kid with his plumbing truck So it's not just about college and college isn't always the right path for kids and I'm not like a college pusher I recognize that the cost of the second highest cost next to buying a house. I Recognize that it it, you know, my husband is an attorney. He's Almost 50 years old. We're still paying student So I recognize that this is a lot of Expense and not something you want to take lightly. So we have a lot of different pathways that we can kind of tackle that between, you know, community college partnerships between scholarship searching. You were talking about finding scholarships and it made me smile because, um, scholarships, they come and go and it's just a matter of finding a needle in the haystack. And parents often ask me, do you do scholarship searches? And I say, sure, you know. You pay me an hourly rate. If you want me to go through Google and, you know, find some scholarships for you, I can do that. But let me tell you some resources where you can find them on your own. Anyway, a couple years ago, I had a student who brought a scholarship to my attention. She wanted help with the essay, and it, I was looking at the requirements, and it was focusing on her experience as, um, a black student. And I said, you know, honey, you're, you're not black. And she goes, I know, but I'm really passionate about what they're talking about, so I want to write the essay anyway. And I said, Okay, but it said it's the requirements for the candidate of the scholarship is that you need to be African American. And she's like, I just want to write it anyway. It's something I'm really. So anyway, she writes the essay. We submit it again. You're paying me an hourly rate if you want me to write that. So we worked together to, you know, kind of fine tune what she wanted to say with that. And lo and behold, she wins the scholarship. And I was so surprised that I actually reached out to the scholarship committee for that scholarship and said, you know, I just got it. Like she doesn't meet any of the criterion for a candidate you were looking for for the scholarship. And they told me, well, she's the only one who applied. And I said, well, that's a pretty good reason then. So don't, you know, rule out scholarship opportunities where you don't think you're the perfect fit because, you know, people are not throwing their hat into the ring with scholarships as often as they could. And if you have a 251 here and a 251 there, and you can sometimes even tweak the same essay to meet those similar scholars requirements, you can add another 2, 000 to your kitty just on one essay. Well, that, that's the other thing. And High school kids', brains don't work this way. Maybe the, the kid that is owning a plumbing company now does, but to me is like, okay, how long is it gonna take me to write that essay? Okay, it's gonna take me an hour or two, I'm gonna get$2,000. Well now you just made a hundred or a thousand to$2,000 an hour because you just wrote an essay and so

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Or even if it's 250. Yeah. I said, if I told you, write this essay and I'll hand you 250, would you take it? You'd write it. Yeah, you'd write it. And I said, and even if you don't get that scholarship, we could probably use that essay for a different scholarship, so. That's

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-6: 35:38

no, that, that, that's very helpful. And, and, uh, hopefully that, that, uh, 16 year old has a financial advisor. Cause I don't know what I would do with 70, 000 a year at

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year. I'd

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be, I'd be in a lot of trouble.

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-7: 35:51

Yeah, he's got a good head on his shoulders. He'll, he'll be all right, but you know, everyone could use a financial advisor to manage their money more appropriately. Yes,

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to manage their money more appropriately. So the best way to reach out to me is to

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So the best way to reach out to me is to look at my website, which is www.flcollegecoach.com, and first check it out. Like if you wanna reach out, there's a contact section. But just check it out. Look at who we are, what we offer. If it's something you wanna get on board with, there's a tab called an intake form. And you just fill out that intake form. I'll follow up with the necessary papers we need to get started, and we can go ahead and get started. If you want to talk first, my email can be found on there. Reach out to me, and we can set up a time to have a free consult. And, I'm perpetually offering, uh, free webinars. So, this, I am offering one this Monday, March 25th, but I also have future ones. So, there's a webinar tab on my website, and if there's a current webinar being offered, you can fill out the registration for that, and you can get an hour's worth of free advice just by signing on to register for that

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-6: 37:19

Yeah, that's very helpful. I knew that you were going to have one Monday. I'll actually release this on Tuesday. Is there a way for, because I'm certain there's probably specific topics that you cover, is there a way for them to watch old ones or do they,

Analogue 1 + 2 (Focusrite USB Audio)-7: 37:32

yeah, so excellent question. Um, so we, it's a zoom, so we're going to record the webinar and on the webinar tab, when we don't have a current webinar coming up, we'll have the recording of the last webinar that we provided. So, um, you can either watch the recording of an old webinar or register for a new webinar just by clicking on that webinar tab.

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Awesome, and that's no cost to whoever's

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free, yeah.

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Perfect. Well, I appreciate it I hope everybody found this very valuable. I certainly did and please reach out to Wendy if you have a child that you think could use the help or you need the help as Far as getting your child into college and making that transition or we're starting His own plumbing company whatever that ends up being so I appreciate it and we'll see you in the next one

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Thanks again. If you like this type of episode where I'm interviewing another professional, please let me know in the reviews. Leave me a review on your favorite podcasting app. Also, I'm excited to have a few guests on here in the next few weeks. We'll have a CPA to talk about tax prep and tax planning. We'll also have a financial crimes investigator to talk about common scams and ways that people get their money stolen. Uh, and then we'll have a realtor and a mortgage broker here in a couple of weeks as well. So a couple of great interviews coming up. Please let me know if you like these, leave a review, share it with your friend. Um, and as always, this podcast is for educational purposes only. Uh, this should not be construed as financial planning advice, investment advice. If you have a specific situation or question, please seek financial, legal, tax, or insurance professional to help you with your specific needs. And please always keep Palm Valley Wealth Management in mind when making those considerations.