In The Huddle
The world of US college sport is both expansive and exciting, and international student-athletes are signing up in their droves for their shot at a scholarship opportunity.
In The Huddle is the creation of Study & Play USA, widely regarded as the GO TO experts in facilitating the best possible outcomes for all stakeholders in this industry: US college coaches and recruiters, local high schools, families of student-athletes and most importantly the student-athletes themselves.
So as you jog on the treadmill, drive to work, school or training, tune in to hear from industry leading experts, US college coaches, parents and student-athletes and learn how to best approach this pathway to maximise your opportunity and set yourself up for your most successful life.
In The Huddle
EP#62: The Brainee Way: Revolutionising SAT Prep for International Student-Athletes
Navigating the path to US college sports can be complex, especially for international student-athletes who must balance intense training schedules with unfamiliar academic requirements like the SAT. Today's conversation is with British-born Woody Sandhu, founder of Brainee and former US collegiate rower at Florida Tech.
Woody shares his remarkable story of going from a complete novice in rowing to earning a collegiate scholarship in just months. After being identified through a UK talent program and achieving an impressive sub 6:20 on his first-ever 2K erg test, he found himself scrambling to understand the US college recruitment process while juggling training and academics. His experiences highlight the unique challenges international student-athletes face – usually facing a disadvantage compared to their US counterparts when studying for the SAT.
What makes Woody's perspective particularly valuable is how he transformed his challenges into solutions through founding Brainee, an SAT prep platform specifically designed for time-poor student-athletes. Unlike traditional prep methods that cater to American students with years of familiarity with standardised testing, Brainee employs AI tutoring, personalised analytics, and athlete-friendly strategies that recognise the unique constraints athletes face. The platform identifies specific weaknesses, predicts potential point gains from mastering particular topics, and even offers shortened diagnostic tests for those with limited time.
We’re thrilled to join forces with Brainee to supercharge the SAT journeys of our international student-athletes! This partnership means smarter prep, tailored support, and even greater results ahead!
In the Huddle was created to give student athletes, parents and coaches an inside look at the journey through US college sport and all that comes with it the demands, the experiences, the excitement and the opportunities available to our student athletes from around the world Study and Play. Usa facilitates a comprehensive, customised approach for student athletes and families for their whole journey, from their high school preparation years right through to US college graduation.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to In the Huddle, the podcast where we dive into stories, insights and strategies that are shaping the journeys of student-athletes chasing their US college dreams. Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Woody Sandhu, the founder of Brainy, an innovative SAT prep company tailored specifically for busy international student-athletes. With a deep understanding of the challenges athletes face, balancing sport, school and testing, woody and his team have created a smarter, more efficient way to prepare for the SAT. We're excited to now announce, via this podcast, our partnership with Brainy, because they truly understand the unique needs of international student-athletes, offering flexible, targeted SAT support that fits around their demanding schedules and helps them set up for success both academically and athletically. We'll be chatting about what makes Brainy different, the importance of test scores in the recruitment process and how student-athletes can stay ahead academically without burning out. Let's jump in and learn how to sharpen your mental game with Woody from Brainy. Hi, woody, welcome to In the Huddle.
Speaker 3:Hi Alexia, thank you for that intro. That was perfect, thank you no worries.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm excited, like I said, for a number of reasons, and the first one is actually announcing that Study and Play USA and Brainy are going to be partnering up together just to be able to add another layer of trusted support for our student-athletes and our families. So, yeah, really excited that this is our official announcement. So let's jump in. You know, that's one side of it. We want to talk about Brainy. You know how it's going to benefit. You know our families and our community. But also you know, woody, you've got a really unique story yourself, having been a student athlete in the US, so can you share with our listeners a little bit initially about your experience as a college rower?
Speaker 3:Yeah, certainly. So I'll just give a bit of context and sort of start at the beginning so you understand a bit more about sort of my journey and everything. So in January 2014, I started my whole process of looking into the US. Before that, I was a part of a talent ID program in the UK where they put people of like athletic background who are tall, they send them to a testing day and then they'll put them into some sort of intensive program. I think the options were handball, volleyball and rowing. When I went and I got put into the GB rowing system. So I was in that for a few years.
Speaker 3:When I did my first 2K erg test was when I really understood that I had the potential to go to the US. So for people who don't know what the 2K erg test is, it's basically the gold standard that all rowers will be judged on. It's done on an indoor rowing machine. Two kilometers is the distance that you traditionally race and it's a great way to be able to basically judge the power output of rowers. So my first score was a 6.13, which is a really good time for sort of junior athletes, I'd say anything.
Speaker 2:I love that. That was your first. That's incredible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had some jokes with my friends that my slowest time was better than their quickest.
Speaker 2:but I believe it, my goodness, they picked the right sport to put you into, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it seems so. I mean, the program that I was in was really intense, like I'd never rode before, um. And then I was put into a full-time program, sort of six days a week, sort of five to seven hours a day, um. So I first started off just attached to a bit of rope in a single just falling out, um. But the thing that was awesome is that I had this full set of you know, really experienced, really knowledgeable coaches to of ingrain the good habits from the very start.
Speaker 2:Yeah excellent.
Speaker 3:So I'd say like, if you're looking at the US, if you're a junior, anything from sort of 620, 625 and below is sort of a good junior standard for the 2K erg.
Speaker 3:But once I knew that the US was a possibility, I then had to start sort of figuring out what else I needed to go along with it. Like I heard some whispers or like, oh, like my friend went to the US with this time or you know, with this background, and things like that. So then you know, I knew I had to sort of act quickly and see what else I needed. So I did actually approach a scholarship agency like StudyPlay USA just to see, just to try and get any sort of information, see what they offered. But at the time, like me and my family didn't have money to spend on this, so I just had to sort of do the research and try and figure it out for myself. Wow, but I can go in a bit more about sort of what I had to do with the sort of recruitment process, or we can yeah, I'd love to hear about that, about how you found that.
Speaker 2:You know, doing that yourself and also probably looking back now and thinking is there something that you'd wish you'd known? You know before you went or through you know, reflecting on the recruiting process now.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, there's a ton of stuff I wish I knew before I went, but generally I'd say your applications for rowing it's I think it's easier than other sports. You generally get like an erg time, so an indoor rower time that shows sort of your power output. And then there's you send videos and things so coaches can can gauge your sort of standard of technique. And what a lot of coaches in the US they want to understand is just your profile sort of as an athlete, the coaching you've had, sort of your history. You have to send things over like your height, your weight and all these things, just so they can also gauge like your height, your weight and all these things, just so they can also gauge like your future potential, because as your athlete you're not the finished product.
Speaker 3:You are. You're still working towards trying to climb to the top of your sport. So they want to really see what potential you have and just try and form a picture of what they are recruiting over email and phone calls, which is quite difficult. And then the other side of the application process is obviously the academics. So in all the sort of recruitment forms and emails you send out they have a bit of a different format, but generally you're going to put together an athletic portfolio and an academic portfolio, basically your most recent sort of big exam results your GPA in high school. In the UK we don't use GPAs, but you can easily find like a converter.
Speaker 2:Same here.
Speaker 3:You can find a converter for those sort of things to to send out with your application, um, and then a huge part of the application is the sat. So every student who applies to university in the us whether it's for academics, you're just going there, uh, athletic scholarships, like you need to take the SAT. Every university has a different minimum SAT score that they require of their students just for admission purposes, just to keep you know. I guess it's to keep a standard for all their students. And then on top of that, it's not just trying to hit the minimum, it's trying to get as best a score as possible, because things like academic scholarships come into play as well.
Speaker 2:So for me, personally Particularly for male athletes right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because of the Title IX there's a lot of funding for women's sports, so they tend to have more athletic scholarship funds available. Because they have to counterbalance for sports like that spend so much money like American football, football, yeah, exactly, yeah, like this. So you really want to try and maximize your SAT score because that will change the amount of academic scholarship that you're offered also, and then your combination of athletic and academic scholarship is what's going to be sort of your, your total offer and how many times did you take the SAT?
Speaker 2:can I ask?
Speaker 3:um, I took the SAT twice okay.
Speaker 3:I. I was on a really short timeline so I first thought about going to the US in January 2014. And because of my age, I was 20 at the time, so right on the barrier of being able to go. So I had to make sure I went that year and do it in sort of the next four or five months. So I booked a few later dates for the SAT. They usually offer seven or eight per year and you don't want to just take the first date that comes up. You want to actually prep because all official SAT grades get seen by the universities. You can take the first one and get you know 1200.
Speaker 3:Say, you just wanted to take the SAT to see where you fell and you wanted to do it officially. You could do that, but it's better to do sort of mock tests, understand where you're at A really good performance for any official SAT that you do. I was on a really pressed timeline. I booked in a couple SAT tests. I was learning from just an SAT book. I had no idea of the process, the SAT, all of this stuff.
Speaker 2:And can I just say, the book used to be this thick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:It would also keep doors open as well as, you know, help you prepare for your SAT. So I'm glad we've moved past that era.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely you can get it all in one place now. But yeah, I remember the stack of books one of my friends gave me. Yeah, it's a bit intimidating, intimidating, but then the more you understand about the sat, um and I, yeah, so this the standardized admissions test, so it's, it's a standardized test over every year, so you know it has certain traits, it's always going to be. You know certain formats, certain types of questions, certain topics involved. So once you understand more about it, it becomes less intimidating, for sure.
Speaker 3:Absolutely and with the benefit of hindsight, do you wish you could have taken more than those two. Yeah, it's tricky because you're balancing so many things at that time in life. Like I was still doing my A-levels Um, I had, you know, I had other things to do at the current time. Like I was training um five, six, seven hours a day. So, yeah, it's just about trying to maximize your potential with the SAT. Like a lot of the stuff you're not learning for the first time, it's going to be stuff that you've covered in school. Yeah, like um, it's. It's English maths, like reading, writing, and you're you're going to, you're going to be at a certain level in those things. Obviously there are tips and tricks and maybe there are certain areas that you need to brush up on, but you're going to have your, your standard um things.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I'm sure I could have got a better score Um, but I was. I'm, I did pretty well um in my first one. The second one was just to try, and I'm I did pretty well um in my first one. The second one was just to try, and, you know, maximize the score Um, because when I, when I started chatting to the universities, I didn't know which college was interested in me, and not back in January. So it was all. I was flying, you know, half blind at the time.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:It was more just like how can I maximize this in the time that I have and then, hopefully, you know all these pieces come together. Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So tell us before we talk. You know we've touched a little bit about the SAT and I want to go into it a little bit more. You know when we talk about brainy itself, but tell us about your time in college as a rower what. Tell us what your highlights were and tell us where you went, how that was your right fit. How did you know, particularly doing it yourself? You know, how did you know that? Um, you know you'd made the right decision, or the best decision you could with the information that you had.
Speaker 3:You know you'd made the right decision or the best decision you could with the information that you had. Yeah, so um, in sort of April May I I basically went on to the? Um, the IRA national regatta, which is the rowing nationals in the U S? Um, the top 20 teams at the time would go there. Um top 20 universities sorry uh would go to the international regatta and I basically applied to almost all of them and it's sort of Harvard and Yale and things like that, where I didn't actually have the academic, like the, the great, like stellar academic background to get into those. So I sort of left those out. Um sent my application around to all of these teams. And another tricky thing about applying late is that each uh each sport has sort of an amount of scholarship that they can allocate um each year for the like their entire entire team.
Speaker 3:So the later you leave it, there might not be any scholarship money left for you, even if they want to recruit you yes, so luckily sort of four or five universities got back to me but focused on FIT, boston University and Dartmouth and that the ones who seem sort of most interested. And I even got emailed by some universities that I didn't even reach out to.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure how yeah right the information spread around um, but no like talks develop with um universities like. You'll then get put in touch with the academic side. You'll talk to the coaches or whoever's handling uh, recruitment and then sort of the international student service of the university as well, because you have to sort out visas and and all of this stuff.
Speaker 3:Uh, also, and basically, like I said earlier, they're just trying to get a picture of you know what they can offer you. Um, so the academic side is separate to the athletic side. They run their own, like they're. They probably talk, but they run their own situation, like their academic scholarship is independent of whatever you're doing, uh, with sport. So if you're, if you're actually like really academic, you can get a lot of academic scholarship. And then the sport, the team will only need to give you an extra to make it sort of a full run.
Speaker 2:And that makes you a more attractable recruit. That's you know. What I say to a lot of you know, the student athletes that we work with is that your athletic level is really important and a big part of this. But you know, coaches are managing a budget and a bottom line at the end of the day, and if you can take less out of theirs because you're getting more from over here, that can make you more attractive than a recruit that they're talking to from you know, from Germany or from New Zealand. You know so, it's all. It's a competitive environment. So that's why you know good GPA, good SAT, it's just maximizing opportunity, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely it's about them sort of managing their resources, like they have this amount of stuff and they want to build the best team and get the best recruits that they can. But yeah, the sort of talks develop, you chat to coaches on the phone, you sort of try and get to know each other. If you have more time, which I wish I did, they also invite you on official visits. They'll fly you over to the university, for I think it's like 48 hour visits, and even international students they'll fly you over and show you around, like the campus and like the boathouse, and you'll meet the coaches and you'll get like a much better understanding of where where you're going, like who's there? Um, because the things that I had to make a decision on, well, after universities actually reached out to me, um, I then had to somehow gauge an understanding of you know, what are these universities? Where are they, what's their academic programs like, what's the climate? Is it city, is it rural? So just form that picture, because you're going there for four years, you want to understand the environment you're going to be in, you want to make sure it sort of fits with what you want.
Speaker 3:Um, dartmouth didn't really, um have the academic programs I was looking for. I was looking for more sort of engineering, uh pathways, um. So I I whittled it down to Boston University and Florida Institute of Technology. Um yeah, luckily they're quite contrasting. Like, bu is a huge university, they have like 40,000, 50,000 students. It's smack bang in the middle of Boston, so city campus it gets really cold. Good, at the time they were a top 10 running program, so I knew that was going to be really intense and it was awesome. They offered me an 80% scholarship with the potential to increase to 100% if I was in their top boat two years, which was awesome. To just get an offer from someone.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's that relief, right, it's the yes you know it's all coming together.
Speaker 3:I've got something.
Speaker 3:Exactly. You have this idea and you chat with people you don't know, like for me, I didn't know what was going to happen. If anyone wants me or anything to get, the first offer is awesome, but still, if it's 80% of the total amount of college and the college costs 60, 70k a year, then paying 20% of that is still you know, 12, 15, 16,000 a year. I had to bear that in mind, which really contrasts BU. It's around 5,000 students. It's in Florida, next to the coast, near Cape Canaveral, because it was by NASA back in the 60s to sort of train their engineers. They came back to me and they said we have enough money to give you a full ride, accommodation, tuition plan, everything.
Speaker 3:The Ryan program was in the top 20, wasn't as prestigious of a Rwanda program. Also, I wanted to study engineering and it was a. It was a university built by NASA to train their engineers and I went there to study aerospace engineering. So I made the choice to focus a bit more on the academic side of things. And maybe I also secretly wanted the nice weather, because I've been rowing in England and brushing ice off my boat all the time.
Speaker 2:So yeah yeah, yeah that's, um, that's so good to to hear you weighing up or understanding. You know the thought processes that you went through between two very different offers and that's something that we talk to our families very early on in the process about. But then throughout, is that, and every student athlete that we work with is unique in that way? Is that? Yes, I want to be an engineer. That's actually slightly more important to me than the level of rowing program, you know, whereas we can have other athletes where it is all about the sport program. You know, the fact that they're getting a degree and all of these other things is a beautiful by-product, but it's by no means the focus, whereas it sounds to me that you would probably, if you're looking at 50-50 athletics academics the academics were probably up at that just tipping the scale slightly for you. Is that fair?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, and I was pretty late to the sport. I only started rowing when I was 18 through this Talent ID program.
Speaker 3:I hadn't grown up doing this sport Living and breathing it yeah exactly so if I was, if I had gone to like junior worlds and things like this, if I'd got into the sport earlier, then maybe it was a bit more realistic of an idea to be like. Well, firstly, I would have hopefully had more time to evaluate the different universities and program um that could sort of keep up with those aspirations which which there definitely are um out there. But my, my choice was basically either stay in the the GB rowing program that is geared to get me to Olympic level, you know know, in the UK, because it's, you know, fully funded, they have the best coaches, they have the best, they have the best team around to make my rowing dream a possibility. But I also really I knew that I had to get something else under my belt. I would always wanted to go to university, I had the academics. I wasn't comfortable just putting everything, all my eggs, in sort of the rowing basket.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And going to college in the US. You can still progress in elite programs, but you're also getting a degree at the same time, which you're which, unless you know, you go on to win Olympic golds and things like that. Like you're still going to need your degree. Yes, at some stage. Yeah, unfortunately, rowing you don't really get much money. If you're a medalist, it's still not really well funded.
Speaker 3:It's not that sort of sport, so yes, If it was like basketball or something else like that, where I could potentially make a career and make a lot of money out of it afterwards, then that would be a different story or that would be a different sort of thing to think about. But with rowing, I also wanted the experience. I wanted to go, yeah, and have this wild experience in the US, like this unknown wanted to go in and explore that. So, yeah, I don't regret the choice that I made at all.
Speaker 2:Excellent, and that's what you want to hear always, and that's what you want in life is no regrets, but for you to have in such a short time, to have to process so much and then to get your best four-year experience out of that is fantastic, so, um so, what like advice would you have, I suppose, for any male rowers in particular, considering this pathway? It's just good to hear from a former student athlete you again before we kick into all of the sat talk I would say like, like we just mentioned, mentioned, like, understand what you want to get out of it.
Speaker 3:Do you want to use your, like athletic prestige that you have at the moment? Do you think you've, like you can tell sometimes an athlete's like how much further you have to grow in a sport. Sometimes you might be at the like close to the top of your potential or you could be really new and think you could go really far. So, like we were just saying, like, understand the academic to athletic balance that you're trying to get into. Like, even if you still have sort of Olympic aspirations after college, there are universities that can prep you for that, like Princeton. The Australian national team now have a training base at Princeton because so many of their athletes are over in the US. That actually happened while I was at uni. A lot of the national teams didn't want their athletes to go to the US, but the unity was so enticing and so great that so many of their top prospects did go. So the national teams had to adapt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we've seen that as well. It's been awesome to see that from Rowing Australia. They, you know, they've got a dedicated your pathways manager who keeps in touch with all of the athletes that are in the us. Um, and it's just embracing a way to be able to keep more athletes in the sport rather than seeing it as as them being lost to the us. It's great exactly.
Speaker 3:I remember when I left the, I left the GB program and they were a bit salty about all the athletes they were losing and at the time as well, they were quite stubborn. They didn't even like their athletes staying in the UK and going to Oxford or Cambridge to take part in the boat race and get a degree while being in the GB program. Because GB are the they're the best rowing like nation historically um in the world. So they, they take things really seriously, really intensely, and there's a reason why, um, they're so good and there's a reason why they, they win so much and I think that sort of fed into their stubbornness of like, no, like, we know what we're doing, you're either in or you're out.
Speaker 3:They weren't comfortable with adapting. I'm not sure what the situation is now. Hopefully they've done something similar to the Australians, where they sort of keep tabs on them. I know programs like the if you're going, if you do have Olympic aspirations and you do want to go to the U S, then obviously look at sort of the top three, four rowing universities in the U S, like Yale, washington, cal, berkeley, princeton, like they're all crazy valuable degrees, like if you go to university, like you're, you're going to be set. But they also have like amazing uh programs as well.
Speaker 3:So I'd say, yeah, just sort of understand that. And on the flip side, like if you do think you know rowing is a really tough sport and people do burn out of it. So if you think, oh, like I am really good, I want to make use of you know my skill in rowing and go to the US, but I kind of want to make that my last four years in the sport, um, you can, you can focus on that as well. Like, yeah, sure you prioritize your academics, prioritize um, like your classes and everything, because if you do have olympic aspirations, you're gonna have to do things over and above just generally what you can do um and again. Like student athletes are really time poor. So you gotta decide what, what you want to focus on. Are you gonna go do your extra mobility and core and stretching and physio and all of that stuff, or are you going to go and study?
Speaker 3:so just have an idea of what you are trying to prioritize and put it to account with your application, I think yeah, absolutely good advice, and that's it.
Speaker 2:That's, I think, of what you're saying is an athlete using their sporting ability as a vehicle to get this amazing experience and live in another country. You know, get some of it paid for. You know, get a degree, but the long-term goal may not be an Olympic pathway, you know, but you're good enough to do this, you're good enough to get this opportunity. And then there's the ones that are pushing for that olympic pathway. So that's where you're. You know, understanding where you fit right and what your goals are, and then using that to help you find your right fit.
Speaker 3:Basically, yeah, definitely, and it comes into just having information about the university, because a lot of the time, if you're a, if you're a desired recruit, these universities are literally selling themselves. They are trying to pull you into their programs and they'll say and do a lot of things Like any sort of good salesman. They'll tell you what you do all the time. So that's another piece of advice as well, I think, is try and get a picture of where you're going.
Speaker 2:If you can talk to people who are there or have been there, um, and just don't take everything for face value of what they, they tell you, because they, if you're a good recruit, they're going to want you there by sort of any means no matter what, that's right and um, something that we talk about as a team is that, um, for our athletes that are just commanding that level of interest, that can be as difficult as a student athlete who is, you know, just trying to get as many offers as they possibly can, you know, at varying levels. So that athlete that's getting you know. So, so, so, so much interest. Whilst that's wonderful and that's what you want and it's really exciting, that can be as hard to manage as trying to just eke out every last opportunity that you could possibly have as well. So, yeah, we definitely see that as a team, that can be hard to juggle and hard to know, because how do you differentiate?
Speaker 2:They all sound amazing, they all sound great, they all offer amazing things. How are you going to know where you're going to be happy? But I'm really pleased to know that your choice, woody, led you to an amazing four-year you know, student-athlete experience at FIT, I suppose. Tell us how you're thinking of your time in college, what you studied, the experience that you had, what then prompted you to start training.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so another thing that a bit more time and a bit more information would have helped me out on is, um, just understanding the degree, uh, that I got. So I studied aerospace engineering, um. Wow, always I was great at math, physics, science, I. I knew I wanted to do engineering, um, and I was looking at aeronautical engineering, um, just because that's that's where my curiosity flows and I think that's like um, it's an important thing.
Speaker 3:On selecting what degree you want to do, yes, you do have to be pragmatic and think of like oh, what's going to be really useful in the future? Um, but also like follow your curiosity, um. The thing I didn't realize with aerospace engineering is that 90% of the work is actually in the defence industry. So missiles, weapons, things like that, which I should have known before getting into it.
Speaker 2:Live and learn.
Speaker 3:But I found out during the time, like it's still a really it's a great degree, like you can apply so much to it. It sort of proves. It proves like a level that you can. You can do this thing. That's really hard, especially while training like 25 hours a week, so that's a lot of the time.
Speaker 3:What employers and things they want to, they want to know, they want to sort of get an idea of who you are. But the thing with the defense industry, like are like why, why wouldn't you go and then sort of work for NASA or things like that? International students, uh, they NASA only hire US citizens because of their um, for security reasons. So that was a thing. Um, so I was kind of a bit stuck after like I got this great degree, I didn't want to, you know, work in the defense industry. Security reasons for NASA and things like that. So when I went back after graduation, I went back to the UK, I started coaching rowing. I'd coach rowing in the summers when I was back from from uni as well. But no, I absolutely loved coaching. I'd been exposed to so many great coaches over my rowing career, um, and that sort of seeps into you like if you've experienced these people. Like you understand the difference between like a really good coach or someone who you know, someone who's who's not great yes, getting a paycheck definitely so I'd I'd coach.
Speaker 3:You know a wide range of people like learning adults, high level juniors, like everyone in between. Um, and the thing I really like about it is as an athlete, you can think you've got so many bases covered, but a lot of the time you need externalized just to see you know what your weaknesses are or any blind spots that you have. Like every world-class program is going to have a plethora of different coaches like sports psychiatrists dietitians.
Speaker 3:just to be able to extract performance, you need a lot of these different people around you. So I got really into coaching and during my time when I was trying to sort of understand what I wanted to do, sort of the path I wanted to take, um I came across this Japanese concept called ikigai um you've heard of it yeah so the people who don't know, it's basically um.
Speaker 3:It represents the intersection of what you love, what you, what you're good at, what the world needs, um, and what you can be paid for. So, if you imagine, like a vendor.
Speaker 3:Um, so after I'd done coaching and things like that, I was still looking for for an actual adult job and I got a job at a us educational technology startup called GT School. Basically, this company was trying to revolutionize sort of teenage high school learning in the US. They would use learning apps and mentors instead of teachers in classrooms. So the idea was that the learning apps they are personalized and self-paced and interactive and whereas in a classroom you're usually stuck at the pace of the rest of the class, or the person in the class and that can leave a lot of students like disengaged, uninterested and pretty much just bored, like yeah, the great thing about learning apps is that they're self-paced.
Speaker 3:They're self-paced, they're personalized, like it's a much more efficient mode of learning. Um. So my job at this startup was basically to test the learning apps um and interact with the students to understand um sort of they like what they don't, keep track of their results, like their progress, and just gathering data to prove the effectiveness of learning apps. Because it was still quite a new technology. This was back in sort of 2018, 2019. Actually, no, it's a bit later than that, it's like 2020, but it's still, you know, a relatively new idea to have a school with, you know, learning apps mentors instead of sort of a teacher classroom.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 3:So when I saw the data of you know the progress that students can make using learning apps compared to classroom from my time at GTt school, like I was sold. Like there there's so many statistics and so much data out there that that anyone can look up just to see. You know the effectiveness of learning apps, um, we would say it's between sort of depending on how you utilize them, it's between three and five times faster than sort of traditional classroom methods. Yeah, wow, but that obviously comes into sort of how you use it, um using it effectively and things like that. Um, but alongside the learning apps, um, I had this awesome team of of really inspiring people, so these were the mentors and that was.
Speaker 3:It was like Olympians, college athletes like myself, cancer survivors and just like really sort of inspirational people, and we were tasked to work one-on-one with students and run workshops surrounding topics like motivation, developing high performance habits that we picked up through our time in elite sports and just digging into areas of sort of passion and curiosities that students had. So, a lot of the time, teenagers are just sort of told to do certain things because it will help them in the future, but if you can firstly sort of help them identify some dream or goal that they have. Ideally, setting a goal as high as you can imagine is is much sort of like a realistic goal. It's much better because then you can link back the work that you're currently doing to show like that it's in pursuit of the thing that you really want, like that you have, um, there's a lot of time, um, working one-on-one with students or or running workshops around this. Yeah, just to get back to to brainy, I went off on that.
Speaker 2:No, no it was good. As a parent of a 16-year-old, I love hearing that stuff. So, yeah, no, please go on.
Speaker 3:So to Brainy and this icky guy concept like what do I love, what am I good at, what the world needs and what I can be paid for. So I love sport, I love coaching and I really love helping people progress like in their own, in their own journey. I think a lot of people tend to become what they wish they had when they were younger. So I wish I had. I mean, everything went great and I'm really blessed, but I wish I had a little bit more information here or a little bit more support there or a little bit more sort of personalization to my needs when I was younger. This is something that I'm really interested in now. What am I good at? I'm great with data numbers, identifying strengths and weaknesses, understanding new tech from my sort of curiosities and passions in engineering. What does the world need? So, like I said, seeing as I felt so blessed to get the opportunity to go to the US and I'm such like an advocate for it the more people I can help do that also. I think that's something that the world needs, like the more people who can access this or the more people who can understand sort of the opportunity that is so close to some people, but some people don't either want to pursue in fear of failure, or don't understand that they could actually attain it. I see that as a really important sort of goal for me. So, yeah, that's why I developed Brainy to help international student athletes with like a huge part of their application process, which is the SAT. And basically Brainy, like you said in your introduction, it's a cutting edge SAT learning platform which combines sort of personalization, data analytics, ai, tutoring, and another sort of add on is the one on one coaching, which is similar to what I did with the US Startup GT School, where we basically help identify weaknesses, keep students accountable, help motivate through finding like a student's why and it could range to a lot of things A lot of students feel sort of performance anxiety when it comes to, you know, pressure situations, whether it's in athletics, whether it's like before a race or exams and things like that.
Speaker 3:And there are techniques that you learn in your time in a league sport that help minimize those anxieties. Those anxieties. If you learn, if you learn about yourself, you learn how you perform well or how you prepare best to perform well. You apply that to so many different things. It's not just the SAT test, it's every exam you're going to take for the rest of your life or, you know, any big competition that you have. Like you want to be able to understand yourself so that you can perform to your sort of maximum potential. You don't want these fears sorry, these fears and the anxieties to I don't know, to take a hold of you and have an effect on things that are really important to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. I resonate with so much of what you say, particularly with what you know. Study and Play USA does as well, and for those of you you're watching and listening, this is you know, I got to learn all about this. You know, with many, many meetings with Woody, you know, to discuss and find out, you know, whether this was, you know, a right fit, I suppose, for our studying and playing community. And you know you've just summarised it so well of you being a student athlete, being an international, how you prepare for the SAT is so very unique compared to an American high school student, and I think a lot of the SAT prep companies out there are really good at what they do, but it's tailored to American high school students and it's just a completely different ballgame for international student-athletes. So that, to us, that was a big thing is having that you know, customised platform that you know considers those things Like college, considers the demands of a student-athlete and puts all different things in place to support and help you. You know, perform well as an athlete, but also in the classroom. That's what I see. You know what you've brought together to create Brainy is as well is in alignment with that. So, no, thank you for explaining that.
Speaker 2:I think it's always good to understand the why. Why are you doing this? Why are you so passionate about it? And that's one thing that I've always noticed in all of our interactions is, you know, your pure passion for this, not just as a business but as what you're providing, you know, for student athletes, and I love that. You see that it was something that you would have liked as well, because I think if you would talk to Chris as well, it would be the same. Is that something like Study?
Speaker 3:and Play.
Speaker 2:USA something like this for him. He was very similar timeline to you in how he got recruited. You just see what you would have liked and what would have really helped you, despite the fact you probably wouldn't have changed anything either. And then being able to put your sort of life's purpose into that is pretty cool. So well done.
Speaker 3:And that's a really good point about the other SAT prep platforms they cater to US students, whereas in the US curriculum you have classes and a lot of knowledge already about the SAT, like you're prepping for that in the year before you graduate is when students usually do the SAT and, yeah, they have a lot of information, they have a lot of you know, teachers, classes and everything surrounding the sat, and then the prep sort of build on top of that, whereas international students you're finding out about it, learning like, yeah, everything sort of brand new in quite a short, it's just right and ultimately disadvantaged, you know, just because of those.
Speaker 2:You know it.
Speaker 2:It's like anyone coming to Australia or going to the UK to try and take out, you know, senior exams. You know you wouldn't expect, after a little bit of preparation, for you to, you know, line up with what you know we've been doing or preparing for for the last three to four years of athletes as a part of you know, the study and play USA family and um. That can range from, you know, athletes who their goals are, some of those universities that you spoke about earlier, those Ivy leagues where you know that SAT is a critical part of your acceptance or giving yourself your best opportunity. So you're trying to push up into those 1500s, you know, out of 1600, you know, for SAT and getting as close to that as you can. And then we have other student athletes who are just trying to get the best score that they can whether that's 1100, 1200, to then eke out every last bit of potential academic scholarship to bring down the as a platform and as an SAT prep resource sort of accommodates both, you know, regardless of your goals as a student.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. And just to touch on something you said, in the UK our exams are not multiple choice. Like we don't have multiple choice exams yeah, I can't last time like we had one of those in the us. The sat is a multiple choice exam. It's like a very different format. It's a really long exam as well. So a lot of sort of technique comes into play, um, with these different style of exams.
Speaker 3:Um, but Brainy, the way that it caters to people looking, say, you're at 1450 and you want to get to 1500 plus. Basically, the data analytics within the Brainy platform will identify a range of different metrics that I'll get to. But every test and every um sort of practice uh session you do, every every bit of learning you do, will go into uh, these, this analytic system to give you metrics on you know a range of different things like, say, you do um one of our practice SAT tests. It's all formatted the same as a regular SAT test. It's all timed in the same way, but then at the end of it you will get results of. You know what is your weakest area? What do you have to focus on? What areas are going to yield the most points if you? Then master that topic.
Speaker 3:And it will give you predictions on these things. Along with that, if you're aiming for those very high SAT scores, things like how much time you spent on each question come into play. All these very minor well no, they're not minor details, they're really important details that are actually quite hard to identify. So, um, you could have a topic and you could get three out of four questions on that topic, right, but you don't want to risk that. When you come to exam day, you want to make sure you get, you know, four of four on that topic, like, if this topic question comes up like you're going to nail it. Um, so all these different metrics time accuracy um, you know which one you performed best in is listed out to you like really easily. Uh, it will give you your you know top three weaknesses to work on, which then you can go and take personalized lessons instantly from looking at your metrics.
Speaker 3:So it's really great at identifying the weaknesses that you have. So that's a huge point in anything, you want to know the areas you're lacking in, and then you have the content to be able to strengthen those areas of weakness and then retest again just to make sure that you have those areas covered, like you want to build confidence in the sat. And the way you do that is is firstly, by understanding what's going on, like you want. You want all these detailed metrics. You want to see what's going on with the amount of time you spend on different topics, or what topics you get wrong, or what topics you can sort of put to the side, like I know I've got these nailed. I'm going to focus on these specific areas.
Speaker 3:It's really important when it comes to trying to get to that sort of top level on the sat and then just the repetitions, to build confidence for the actual time you take the SAT. And another thing that we find when it comes to people aiming for sort of a very, very high level is then, just as you would have in athletics, like the pre-exam routine Like it's a really long exam, it's like three hours long routine, like it's it's a really long exam, it's like three hours long. So all of these things, like training to stay focused for that amount of time, like knowing what effects your body is going to have after two hours of intense concentration, and what things you can do, like hydration is six percent of your performance, so that's something that will make a difference to your overall sat grade. Like you want to put yourself through that as many times as possible just to have confidence that on the the big day when you're taking the sat, you know what's about to happen nothing's, nothing's going to come at you uh, that's new um.
Speaker 3:And on the flip side of that, when it's students who say you scored 1000, and you need a 1200 to get to your university of choice, it's all about the efficiency of your learning. Again, you want to identify what your weak points are, where your strengths are, have those lessons like at your fingertips to be able to start learning and building upon your weaknesses. And also, a really good feature of brainy is when you go to the practice and play section. Each of the topic areas will show you you know how much, how many points you can gain by mastering that area, or you know that topic so really effectively. It's basically like effectiveness of learning, right? We we said earlier, student athletes are really time poor. So you have an hour a week. You don't want to spend that hour, you know, marking your own past sat test or trying to find the content for the thing you're learning. You want to be able to instantly see where's my weakest point. Do a lesson.
Speaker 3:If you have any questions from the lesson, you can use our 24-7 AI tutor. You can ask it. Where did I go wrong here? Break this down in a different way. I go wrong here. Break this down in a different way. Give me the top three tips to be able to identify this topic type and then even just ask it like give me you know three, four, five more questions of this topic type and practice those, and that will just build confidence and enable you to learn far more effectively than pretty much almost any other method of learning that AI, because you showed me that that actually blew my mind and I'm going to be the first to put my hand up that I'm probably showing age of how I use AI, which is not anywhere near to how it can be used, but the fact that you could even just write in there.
Speaker 2:Could you explain that in simpler terms? Could you give me dot points? So, no matter how the student needs to receive that information, and even if the first way that they receive it doesn't have the meaning and they think they can just go back and ask and it gives it to them in different ways so that it is customised to them to help, and regardless of their academic level. I just honestly, I just thought that was so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so whenever you go through your practice, sat exam or any of the lessons in brainy, it will give you, you know, a general summary of this was the correct answer. Because, xyz, but then to have that extra level of say, say, you don't understand the summary that the program gives you, you can then ask it to expand upon that in any way until you understand what went wrong and how to fix your problem, yeah, and the question, if I think of the question that I get asked the most about the SAT from families that we work with is where do we start?
Speaker 2:You know, and when you've got and this is where the international student athlete comes into it is that they're managing their own um education system, which doesn't include this. So they, they are, you know, more time poor than the americans going through the process because that's built into their system, to their education system, to help them get ready. But it's like I'm focusing on, you know, whether it's the VCE bubbles that I'm in, you know, and now you're telling me that this is my goal I want to go to America, and now I've got to do this exam and I've got to. Where do I start? So the fact that you know the practice SATs, you know, starting there, seeing where the weaknesses are, helping to identify them, just break it down and take the guesswork out of it, I just think is so valuable.
Speaker 2:And you know, something that I didn't think of in all the times that we've spoken is about that time management is that it's telling you this is the area, this is what you need to do, but then giving you something tangible that, if you master this, it will equal this many points. Sometimes you just think, oh, what's the point? That is so hard, I'm not even going to try and understand that or whatever reasoning it might be, but to see that that could equal this. And then, if you know what you need to get to to be admitted to this university, to get an extra 5,000 academic scholarship, whatever it is.
Speaker 3:I just think and that's what I liked about it is, you can drill down as much or as little as you want, depending on you know how much you need yeah, and every lesson and practice sat test uh you take, uh like the scores from those are all mapped, so what you'll be able to see your progress, which is actually really motivational to see like the effort you put in is having a difference in your results.
Speaker 3:And, like you said, with the students, student athletes, being really time poor Brainy has actually. We've sort of considered this, so we've made what we call a diagnostic test and there are two diagnostic tests on the Brainy platform and basically what this is is basically like a shortened version of the sat test, so it takes 30 to 40 minutes instead of, you know, two and a half three hours, and if you are really pressed for time, you can do a diagnostic test instead of a full sat test. But there are only two, two at the moment. So use those sparingly when you actually really need to. And something we tell all of our Brainy students is first thing you do when you sign up to Brainy either take a diagnostic test or a full SAT test, because then all of that data analytics, all of that personalization comes into play. You can find your weaknesses. There's a button below, you know, take me to the lesson for that weakness and you can just instantly get started.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's telling you where you need to put your focus immediately after a very short diagnostic, that's yeah that's brilliant, I am, and I'm so glad you've been able to share this.
Speaker 2:There was all the study and play community, because I just think it's got great value for students who feel that they need help. You know, with the SAT, they might feel overwhelmed, lost, or they also want to keep pushing themselves to that next level. You know, and, depending on you know, the caliber of institution that they're looking for as well, which I think is just, you know, works for all student-athletes you know that we're working with, which is incredible. So, from here, I guess, for all of our you, you know, study and play families you're listening is that we have a dedicated partnership page on our website and you can now it is live, you can find brainy on there and, um, you get a really, uh, special deal, um of a 10 discount, um, of being a study and play client, and that'll take you, you know, to a special page where there's a code that you can use, which is really exciting. But then study and play families, you know, get two one-on-one sessions instead of, you know, the standard one, which is an added value as well, which is really exciting for our family.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, make sure that, if this is something that you've been thinking. Maybe you've been looking into yourself of. You know where to start with the SAT. Jump onto our partnerships page and have a look there and you know you can also reach out. You know to Woody via that as well if you've got any more questions. But, woody, I really have enjoyed our conversation today. I just feel it has so much value for so many families that we work with and we feel really fortunate that our paths have crossed so that we can now introduce you to our study and play families and they can get the value that we've been able to see in all of our communications over the last little while. So before I officially sign off, is there anything else that you wanted to add or say at this stage that we haven't covered? Or you know to let Study and Play families know?
Speaker 3:I think we've gone through quite a bit.
Speaker 3:It's been really useful. Anything else they can find out through the, the portal on on your end. Yes, that's right, um, along with just going to brainyorg um. Or if you want to sign up for a, the free trial version of brainy, which is includes a diagnostic test and a few of the lessons, um, you just go to learnbrainyorg um. Yeah, thank you um to you and study play usa um for engaging in this partnership and and giving me the opportunity to like show you, uh, the different things that are out there in terms of, you know, learning an sat prep. Like it's very easy to go down these really sort of established channels because there is a lot of sat prep out there like two million students sat every year didn't know that number.
Speaker 3:Well, a lot of that is catered, uh, towards them. Um, and just to mention, like a lot of those you know, personal tutoring boot camps, a lot of those you know, personal tutoring boot camps, a lot of those programs are really expensive. Part of the thing that motivated me for Brainy is to make it like I want people to be able to access these scholarships. I want people like me, who might not have had a ton of money when they were growing up to get you know, really good help towards you know, attaining this really really special experience.
Speaker 3:So Brainy is really reasonably cost, really reasonably costed, just due to the fact that you know the advancements in technology and AI and all these things make you know these programs and these platforms more accessible to like a much wider range of people. It's less sort of people, labour-intensive like boot camps, yes, and one-on-ones constantly.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, absolutely, and I would echo your sentiments. There is that we've. You know, we've been doing this for 21 years and that's why I'm so excited about this. I've just never come across, you know, an entity such as yourself that tailors to international student athletes but also isn't for just, you know, the families with big budgets, right? You know you're tailoring it to be able to help all student-athletes, which is, you know, which is what we do, as well as what works. Yeah, it very much aligns with our values as well and the opportunities that we want to be able to provide for the families that we're engaging with. So, congratulations, well done. You know, love seeing your passion, love seeing all of that come together and hearing about it, woody, and really excited, yeah, for the future of Brainy and Study and Play USA.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing where this all goes and seeing how many people we can help out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, excellent, thanks, woody.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Thank you so much, alexia.