Bonus Episode: Unlock Debt-Free College Strategies Today!

🎓 From Anxiety to Ivy League: Empowering Teens for Success

In this episode, I team up with Shellee Howard from College Ready for a dynamic, double interview that blends the best of both our worlds! Whether you’re navigating the maze of college applications, dealing with test anxiety, or wondering how to support your teen’s mental health, this conversation is packed with actionable insights and encouragement.

What You’ll Learn:
🌟 How to help teens manage anxiety and thrive during transitions.
🌟 Shellee’s proven strategies for debt-free college planning.
🌟 The truth about test anxiety—and how to overcome it.
🌟 How technology impacts mental health and what parents can do.
🌟 Why starting early with college planning is critical for success.

Shellee shares her inspiring journey of helping her own son get into Harvard (debt-free!) and offers practical advice on balancing academics, extracurriculars, and life. I dive into my unique approach to managing anxiety and building resilience in teens and young adults. Together, we explore how to create a support system that sets teens up for success—both academically and emotionally.

📚 Grab Shellee’s book, College Admissions Simplified, for even more insights.

🔗 Explore free resources from College Ready:

College Ready Podcast:


If you’re a parent of a teen or young adult, this episode is a must-watch! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more valuable content.

 Struggling with anxiety in your family? If anxiety is causing tension, fights, or disconnect in your home, you don’t have to face it alone. I help parents bring more peace, confidence, and connection to their families. Let’s talk—schedule a free consultation today or email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com

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Transcript

Shellee Howard: [00:00:00] Howard with Parents Is Your Teen College Ready? And today I have a wonderful guest. I can't wait to share with you, Cynthia Coufal. Welcome to the show. 

Cynthia: No, thank you. I'm so excited to be here. 

Shellee Howard: Outstanding. Well, Cynthia, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself so they have a little bit of background and knowledge about the conversation today?

Cynthia: Sure. I was a public educator for 31 years, so I was a special education teacher for six, and I was a school counselor for 25 years. And then I decided I just want to work with teens the way I want to work with them, and so I created an online business. Where I am a coach for teens and I also have college students who have anxiety and we work through how to manage anxiety.

And that's what I do now in my home business. And I've had that for two years. 

Shellee Howard: I love it. And for listeners who [00:01:00] haven't maybe, you know, heard my spiel, I just wanted to share a little bit about College Ready, and then we're going to get into our time together. So College Ready was started 17 years ago.

When my firstborn came home from eighth grade and said, mom, I know exactly what I want to do. And I was shocked. I had changed my major five times and he was very simplistic and I want to be a brain surgeon. Can you help me? Oh, and by the way, mom, I want to go to one of those top Ivy league schools.

Can you do that? And I was like, Yes, I can. I'm your mom. Moms can do anything. And long story short, he got seven full ride offers. He was, got a full ride to USC and Harvard matched it. So Harvard, he spent four years pre med, went on, graduated with zero debts, went on to UC San Diego Medical School. And he's now an orthopedic surgeon at [00:02:00] UCLA at 30 years old.

So he was my, why I switched from the career that I had, because when he graduated, when he walked across the stage at Harvard and handed me his diploma, he's like, mom, we did it. You need to write a book to help other people do it. And so I did, and then college ready was birthed at the same time. So.

Those are some juicy things we're going to talk about today, listeners, and let's go ahead and jump right in, Cynthia. Can you help me understand the difference between what you offer and what therapy might provide for our family? 

Cynthia: Hmm. That's a good question. What I do is I take the teen where they are, or the young adult, where they are right now.

And then we work on, what do you need to do to get to those future goals? So there's we look, we do a lot of assessing of where you are now, where, you know, where are the problems, what kind of obstacles [00:03:00] might come up, and then we plan through them. Therapy and therapy is very much needed. And sometimes I'm working with a client who is in therapy and sees me.

So my program works really well alongside therapy if someone's doing it. But therapy goes back and looks at past things that have happened. Maybe there's just underlying things that need to be uncovered or taken care of before they can get on to that best life. And so I kind of see what I do is just taking a really.

Maybe not high functioning child, but a child that's functioning fairly well and helping them to function better. And so that's kind of what it looks like. And because I'm working with anxiety, if they do have a diagnosis of anxiety and they're taking medication, of course they have to be with they have to be being managed by a doctor or a therapist because that's where they would get their medication or any help with the diagnosis of that.

But I just help with managing that, learning different. Techniques to do [00:04:00] that and moving on to new goals. 

Shellee Howard: Wow. That opens up a lot of questions for me. First one I, I have to ask is how do I even know if my child has anxiety? 

Cynthia: Well, everyone has anxiety and so that's the tricky part because not everyone has diagnosable anxiety, but everyone has anxious moments about things that are new and different, and college is one of those things or just anything that's new, like the beginning of a school year, or going into a new class, or learning an instrument for the first time, or driving.

There's so many things that we and so we're going to talk about what we are doing for the first time through that teenage young adult time. And of course we feel, I mean, we, we need to normalize that everyone has anxious moments and even be role modeling about, Oh, I'm feeling anxious as the parents saying that to your child.

And here's what I'm doing to feel better about it. Or here's how I'm managing it. But when we know that it's a [00:05:00] problem, when they. We know they're wanting to do something like try a new instrument, drive, date, go to college. And yet we see them not doing that because they are too afraid or they're, the anxiety is getting in the way of them doing things.

And certainly if they're, they're not doing. Like what we would consider daily functioning things like getting up and going to school or going to their job or going to their activities. If they, if their life is disrupted in some way, or your home life is disrupted a lot by anxiety or anxiety behaviors, then that's when you need to at least be assessed to see what is exactly going on.

Shellee Howard: Absolutely. So we have, you know, I've helped students for the last 17 years. I speak teen teenager. I love teenagers. And one thing I do know that, that definitely drives anxiety is test [00:06:00] taking the 

Cynthia: SAT, 

Shellee Howard: the ACT, the PSAT, the AP, I can go on and on and on. And that is a real thing. And so I help families understand that if a student has a high GPA and a low test score, that is a concern for college.

Because they're like, you have to test when you get here. It may be optional to get in right now, but it still is something you have to learn the skill. So my second child had massive test anxiety and I, I thought I tried everything, but I would love to hear how you could help that child or maybe you know some, some ways parents can understand why their test score doesn't match their GPA and what can they do to, to handle that because it's, it's not over when they finish high school, 

Cynthia: right?

Shellee Howard: How do you address test anxiety? 

Cynthia: Well, a part of my program talks a lot to them about [00:07:00] normalizing anxiety. Of course, I'm anxious about this test. This is a lot of those are high stakes tests. Those are going to decide scholarships and decide what you're going to you know, what level you're going to go in at or whatever.

And so, Of course, you're going to be anxious about that. I think a lot of times anxiety gets the best of us when we're trying to fight against it, or we're resisting it, or we're mad at it, or we're, and of course the kids are because they don't want to feel that way. It feels terrible to be anxious. We all know what that feels like in our body.

So I teach a lot about allowing that Feeling to be there, that uncomfortableness buzzing around. And if we give it space and we allow it to do that movement around and feel uncomfortable for a little bit, it's going to actually move through our body. But when we're fighting it and we're. You know, clamping up around it and trying to get it to go away that actually makes it worse.

So that's a little bit like just that talking ahead of time. And also when we are really prepared for things, we're [00:08:00] not as anxious about them. So preparing, like practice testing, and maybe if you're going to be testing in an environment you've never been to before, is there any way you can go to that environment ahead of time just to see what it looks like?

I know my anxiety is lessened many times when I can. Imagine the room and I can imagine, okay, there, I'm sitting there and I'm taking the test and it just makes me feel better before I go. So if there's any way you can see it, but sometimes you can't. If you can just, everything you can do to prepare for it ahead of time.

And then I also talk about getting grounded in the present. Because when we are in our present self, then anxiety doesn't have a lot of room. Because anxiety is about. So you're either worrying about the past things that happened or worrying about your outcome of the test or like what's going to happen later.

So if you're thinking about right now, right now I'm safe, right now I'm doing fine, and then in [00:09:00] order to be able to get grounded, we just have to use our five senses. So I tell them when you go into the testing center, what does the door feel like when you're opening the door to go in? What sounds are you hearing around you?

What What does it smell like in there? They're like everything that you can do to bring yourself into the right now. And just like those deep breaths, because if you're breathing deep and slow, your body has to calm down. It can't stay in a heightened state if you are really doing deep breaths. So deep breaths are easy to do.

No one knows what you're doing and you can be doing that as you're getting prepared to set down to take that test. So all those kinds of things. So there's, you know, you have to do stuff ahead of time, like the preparing for it, but then there's a lot of stuff the day of and walking in that you can do.

Shellee Howard: It's so helpful. It seems so simplistic that I think that's why a lot of us skip over like, yeah, just calm yourself down. But I do [00:10:00] remember telling my daughter, like she, I would watch her test prep for hours and she'd take the test and she'd come home and she said, I bombed it. And I'm like, how is that even possible?

She goes, mom, when I sat down. My blank, my brain flipped off. It just, it left me 

Cynthia: and 

Shellee Howard: my heart was racing and so on and so forth. And so I love that you teach them these skills that are life skills that they can carry with them now and in the future. We add a few things to that as well, where we tell students.

If you have the score, we can tell any student, here's the test score you need to get into your dream school, whatever that may be. So now they have a measurable goal. They can visualize that. Now they need to take a practice test and get that score so they can see they can do it. Which brings down that anxiety.

Cynthia: Yeah. 

Shellee Howard: And then actually lay everything out [00:11:00] or put it in the car, the pencil, that calculator that, so in the morning they're not all over the place and have GPS set direction set. So what, what you say is what I say. What a beautiful thing. I love that. 

Cynthia: Yes. Well, and when you're talking about your brain just sort of blanks, that, that is by design.

Like we, when we are in an anxious state, when our body is alarmed, part of our brain actually does shut down because if we're in a life or death situation, which is what our body thinks at that time, even though we're not life or death in a test but our body thinks that. And so our body just thinks, Oh, this is a time when they need to not think and just go.

And so that's when the. The brain gets turned off and that's why they're, you know, it's like I can't access this information and that's why it's so important to keep your body in a, a regulated state because then your brain can stay online, which then has access to the information. [00:12:00] 

Shellee Howard: Wow. I just told her I don't get it.

Cynthia: Well, I don't get it either. I'm a good test taker, but I know that that can be a problem. 

Shellee Howard: So parents out there listening, if your child has test, test anxiety. It is a real thing. It took me a bit to understand my firstborn is gifted. He has, he sees it, it's over. He can it's, he just has a photographic memory.

So testing was super easy. So when my second born came to me and said, mom, I am studying, I thought maybe she wasn't studying to her full potential. And I did everything I could with the right test prep and giving her all the resources. But the one thing I didn't lean into is your anxiety is real because I didn't know how I could help her.

So having you as a resource, outstanding. I love it. I love it. Let's switch gears a little [00:13:00] bit and let's talk about how your program is different from other programs. 

Cynthia: Well, I was trained to do the UMAP assessment probably a year ago, and when I started working with anxiety, it was mostly just like this feeling the feelings and reframing our thoughts and preparing for things and making plans for anxiety.

But when I got trained to do the UMAP assessment, I saw a really good opportunity to add this into what I'm doing. So the UMAP assessment is four assessments in one, and it, so it creates a profile, but it shows. So I teach my clients what their top five strengths are, and it uses Clifton Strengths, which I think is fun because that's already a very reputable strengths measure.

So they learn what their top five strengths are, they learn what their values are, their preferred versus burnout skills, and then also their personality or interests. And so even though, if they have a future [00:14:00] planning. Like if they have a lot of anxiety over the future and like, where, where will I go to school and what will I study?

We use that information to help decide those things as well. But I, I use the strengths a lot just to show them that these strengths can be used in every area of your life and you can use them to manage anxiety. And if we have a good, why, which is their values of why do we want to make Manage our anxiety.

Like if somebody has a value of adventure and they're staying in their house all the time because they are anxious, then they're not valuing that adventure piece of them. And so we talk about, because adventure is a value of yours, then we need to figure out a way to get past the uncertainty, get past the worrying about what happens when I go outside, because you want to be adventurous because our values, when we're, when we're Living in alignment with our values.

That's when we're happiest and when we're our most successful. And so I [00:15:00] talked to them a lot about how to use those things. So I don't think there's a lot of anxiety programs that use strengths and values and interests. And and because I was a school counselor, I love kind of that future planning piece.

And so if anxiety is If they have anxiety around that future planning, which a lot of them do, then we just kind of add that into it. So I think that's what's maybe makes my program different and my 31 years of experience of working with young people, which lots of people are great with working with young people.

But I think the more experience you have, you just kind of talk their language, like what you were saying. 

Shellee Howard: I love that. The first thing we do in our program is similar. We start with their core values, their gifts, their talents, their advocacy, that the thing we do a little bit different is we help them to build a passion with purpose project 

Cynthia: where they 

Shellee Howard: get to lean into, here's my passion.

That is my, that is what I want to see changed in the world. So they get to test out those skills [00:16:00] to see, do I like people? Do I not? And, and gently. You know, serve another person because the focus is then taken off of them and put on somebody else. So I love the future planning piece, because at least with the students that I get to support, it's their massive anxiety.

Cynthia: Yeah, 

Shellee Howard: it truly is. I mean, other than. The social media always in front of them and never being good enough. That's the other one, 

Cynthia: right? 

Shellee Howard: And that's what I want to switch to next. So for those parents who are like, okay, my kid was fine until they got a cell phone and a computer, and now they're having all this massive anxiety.

Can you help that child? 

Cynthia: Oh, definitely. I mean, there's lots you can teach about that. I don't think that young people realize the impact that cell phones have had on them. I am still learning about it. I watched Jonathan, I think his last name is [00:17:00] hate. Jonathan, it's H A I G H T or something like that.

But he wrote that at the book, Anxious Generation. I think that's the name of it. I watched a webinar that he did, and he totally convinced me that the cell phone is the reason for anxiety. Because in the, as a school counselor, I was seeing anxiety way before the pandemic. A lot of people blame the pandemic on the anxiety increase in young people.

And I kept thinking, no, I saw it before, but I couldn't pinpoint why I saw it before. Like what, where I, why was it going up before we had the pandemic? And he has. data points and charts to show that as soon as the cell phone, the smartphone became very widely used in 2012, it's almost like a straight up line from that, that year, that anxiety and teens went up and all sorts of other mental health issues, even suicidality and all of those things that [00:18:00] You know, we don't want for our kids and he talked a lot about why that is.

And as he talked about it, I thought, Oh my gosh, I saw all this happening before my eyes and I didn't understand it because the millennials had cell phones, but they had flip phones and they couldn't just get access to a whole bunch of stuff, texts you had to pay for. And what did he call it? I think it's like the front facing phone or a camera, but you know, they could only take a picture.

away, they couldn't see. And all of this has to do with anxiety and their mental health. And I'm like, completely fascinated by it. So yes, I can help because I understand that now. And I talked to my clients about that. But that's a trickier one because If they've had full access to a cell phone, it's very hard to get them to stop doing that.

I mean, I think if they understand and their parents maybe [00:19:00] have been putting some parameters on it. I've seen kids be able to successfully use their cell phones without getting involved in all this mental health problem. But that's with boundaries that they're putting on themselves and then boundaries that their parents are putting on them as well.

Shellee Howard: So important, right? Now when I go, I'm very observant and I'll go out to dinner and I'll see four people at a table and they're all on their cell phone. And so I always tell students, if you're looking for a job forever, chiropractic, because everybody that's going to be like totally a mess and the eyes, eyeglasses and stuff because of all of that light coming in, in all sincerity.

It is a normal thing now that these kids are always seeking and learning. And I look at it, there's, it's a double edged sword. You have access to everything you need, 

Cynthia: which 

Shellee Howard: is really cool. Except [00:20:00] for now that. AI is here. Kids are using it to write essays for college. And we have an AI tracker that we're able to run their essay through.

And it is super hard to talk to a student and a parent about your child just used AI and they were caught. So these technologies can be brilliant and they can also be very, very stressful. So parents, I'm right there with you. I, I'm going to I'm concerned for all of that generation, but I know if we can help them to use it well.

We use test prep apps. I mean, there's really cool stuff that we can do for them. But what about that child who is a little bit more resistant to seeing you? What about the one who is like, I'm fine. 

Cynthia: Which is probably most. I don't think I've had a client that originally said, Hey, I want to work with Cynthia [00:21:00] Cofill.

Like a lot of them, the parents are finding me and then they're talking their kids into it. I, I just suggest to parents. I do a free consult for the parents, but I will also do a second free consult for an hour with the child alone. And they, I let them decide, like, let's chat, let's talk, let's see if we can create a connection.

And because I have all this experience working with teens and I do talk teen language and, and I sometimes feel like I'm like secretly a teenager in my brain. So I feel like that's part of why I totally get it. But yeah. I don't have trouble like making those connections. And so if we can just get them on the call and just have them try it now, and if they don't, if they're like, that's not a good connection for me.

And of course I couldn't connect a hundred percent with every kid on the earth, but I don't usually have trouble with that. So if you can just talk them into doing that, that one hour, just talking with me. And we can, I just usually talk about [00:22:00] whatever they want to talk about, you know, what, what things are getting in the way of the things that you want to do now, if they don't think there's anything at all wrong with their life, which I doubt that to be totally true, but if they really don't believe there's anything wrong, then they aren't going to find, they don't have a why to work on this, but I'm guessing most teens do think something's wrong.

Maybe they just don't want to admit it to their parents, or maybe they don't I think a lot of The people that are going to work with me, they just think, oh, is she just like my parent or is she going to tell my parent what I say? And I, I do summarize things for parents and I, of course, parents know what, what I'm working on with their, with their child, but I ask the client first, what do you want me to share?

You know, if they're talking about romantic interests or, you know, friend problems or. teachers they hate or, you know, like all of that, or [00:23:00] maybe they're mad at their parents. If, if those are the things that they're wanting to talk about, I say, what, what can I share about this with your parent? Or can I share any of this?

But there's always stuff I can share, but, and very rarely do kids. Not want me to share anything. There's sometimes they're like, well, don't tell 'em that I'm mad at 'em, or don't tell 'em that. I think they're weird or whatever. And I don't do that part of it. But so I think just giving 'em, if, if they just give me a chance to visit just for that hour, it's almost always a go.

Shellee Howard: And you know, trying to get them to do something they don't want to do anyway is an uphill battle. I, I often, when I'm working with the teenagers, find out that they just didn't know what they were going to talk about and the unknown brought them anxiety. And so you're just like I am in the fact that when they figure out we're here to help them and support them.

They absolutely see the [00:24:00] value. And once they see the value, they're, why is like, I have somebody on my team. I'm not in this alone. And as a parent, we all want to be that go to person. Let's be honest. Like at least I did. There's there's I know my, my Fourth, my stepdaughter, I had to pay one of my consultants to tell her what I would tell her, because as step mom, it was not being received the way that I would have liked it.

So there's some beauty in that. That gentle approach you're taking. I, I just, I think it's super valuable. 

Cynthia: I've often thought about using the tagline, a voice your teen will listen to, or a voice your teen will hear, because I am saying the same things that their parents are saying almost always. And It does.

It's just different. I don't have an agenda. I, I love them and care about what happens to them, but I don't, [00:25:00] you know, the parent, of course, I'm a parent. I have an agenda for my kids. And there's, it's just different because I'm, if they don't go to college, but their parent wants them to, that's not the end of the world for me.

I'm just going to talk to them about, you know, You know why they want to do that or not do that. So it is different for them. 

Shellee Howard: I, I totally agree. I mean, we've had some conversations that had nothing to do with college whatsoever, but they wanted to know, hey, how will this affect my chances in my future career, whatever that may be.

I think having a village to surround these young people. is so important. And that's why I wanted to share with my audience. So I am so grateful for, for your help. Is there any last words of encouragement or thoughts that you would want to share? 

Cynthia: I really think that kids Always figure it out. I mean, I know that there's, you know, terrible stories out there where [00:26:00] kids don't figure it out.

And I think that's parents biggest fear. That was one of my biggest fears. If my kids weren't doing what I thought they should be doing, then, oh, they're going to be homeless on the streets or they're going to be a criminal or they're going to, I don't know, all the worst case scenarios that you can think of.

But in all the years that I worked with kids, and maybe they weren't doing very well in high school, maybe they were even failing. And I even had some that dropped out. But almost always there's something later, like they just needed to mature or they just needed to have some kind of life experience that changed their thinking and they turn out.

Okay. And I. And I just think if, if we just kind of allow ourselves to think they're going to be okay, they're going to be okay, then it takes away some of that, that fear of, you know, I just have to control all this stuff because I don't want anything, I don't want them to have a terrible life or I don't want them to be homeless or, you know, on the streets or whatever.

And I just don't, [00:27:00] I've very rarely ever seen that happen for real. Like it's a lot, it's a fear of everyone. But then. They figure it out, and they become very successful people. 

Shellee Howard: That's so beautiful, and it's inspiring, right? Is there anything that you wanted to talk about College Ready? Any questions that you're clients might have, 

Cynthia: I definitely do because I had tons of these questions before.

I wish I knew you 17 years ago for not only my own children, but just to be able to ask you some of these questions. But parents and parents that I have now want to know when should their child be getting ready for college? Like what's the timeframe, you know, is it freshman year? When is it that they should get started?

So what, what do you tell your families about that? 

Shellee Howard: It's interesting. A lot of it has to do with culture. A lot of it has to do with parents expectations. I've had parents who have gotten pregnant and called me concerned about where their child will go to school and how they should navigate that [00:28:00] whole path.

Really what I tell families is teach your child to love to read. Love of reading will help them all the way through life. So speaking of technology, instead of you always being on your phone and they want to mimic you, I tell parents when they're little, put your phone inside a book. And even if you know, they're next to you playing, they see you with an open book and they're like, I want a book.

It's really a monkey see monkey do. Now, when it really starts to ramp up is right around middle school, right? So fifth and sixth, they're starting to think about I'm gifted in this area, and I'm struggling in this area that they're starting to learn who they are and the things they come with. But when it really matters, Is an eighth grade because those eighth grade classes, if they're not prepared for high school, they're going to put [00:29:00] going down one wrong path because they just didn't know.

And I always tell the example of my son took Spanish in middle school and then his high school counselor said he needed to take Spanish all over again. It was so, right. It was so counterintuitive to me. It's like, well, why, if he's already taken Spanish, that was just the way that high school. Plan worked.

Cynthia: And 

Shellee Howard: that was the difference of him being salutatorian versus valedictorian. So that one class made such an impact. Now, is that a big deal through life? Not at all, but you can see with that example, starting sooner and having the plan that can pivot is so much better than waiting on the financial side.

It's critical because the FAFSA looks at the second semester of the sophomore year and the first semester of the junior year. So if you [00:30:00] want scholarships and you want the big money, you need to get your family's financial house in college planning order because the FAFSA looks at some things and they don't look at other things.

ethical, legal, they tell you what they're going to look at, but it would be so wise to do that before you have to complete the FAFSA. So really middle school on, and it's truly never too late. Unfortunately, it gets harder and harder and harder. The longer you wait. But it's same with retirement. If you don't save until you're 80, retirement's not going to be fun.

So we, we like families to understand if you start doing college tours, like you would tour a museum or a park or, and just make it a fun environment. 

Cynthia: That's, 

Shellee Howard: that's all we're talking about. It's that open, gentle discussion about maybe your PG [00:31:00] version of your college days, right? What, what you remember that was so important.

So planning and, and going at it gently is really the best path that I found over the last 17 years. 

Cynthia: Hmm. That is that's great advice. Well, you were talking about the finances and I, every parent wants to know how in the world do we do this debt free or can we even do this debt free? And you mentioned in your story that you, that your son did do it debt free in going to Harvard, which is such an expensive school.

And I, even as a school counselor, don't understand all these finances things. So how do you do that? 

Shellee Howard: And that's such a beautiful question. Unfortunately, it has to be done by students. So I'll explain. So everybody's finances are different and everybody, every student's abilities are different. So that's the first.

Hardest part. So the, the, the number one thing that will affect [00:32:00] the cost of college is the lack of planning. So my second book has been released this week called College Admissions Simplified, where I simplify and I give a plan that if the family follows the plan, they can graduate without debt. So. It's exactly what you're asking because over the last 17 years, everybody wants to know when my son got a full ride to USC and Harvard matched it.

Everybody's like, but Harvard doesn't give merit scholarships. Well, it wasn't, it was a financial negotiation and people are like, what you can negotiate with college. College is a business. You have to remember they need your dollar to stay open. They need your student to graduate from their college and be a productive citizen with the diploma on their wall.

It is all a business. So why would, I mean, Except in California, most people would [00:33:00] not pay full price for a home, right? They typically, you would negotiate a price. You would drive down the price and you would have comparables. That's all this is. So you take the comparables, you have a strategy and a plan, you pick the right colleges, you help your child be the most successful they can be, which, oh, by the way, is the right thing to do.

And that is not pushing them to take 20 APs. It's helping them to navigate a very balanced life. I remember my son saying to me, mom, all my friends are freaking out and this is really easy. Am I doing something wrong? And I said, no, we've been working on it since you were in middle school and you don't even know what you're doing, but you are planning for college.

And that was a huge eye opener for me is because his norm was what other [00:34:00] kids are reeling from because they truly are just deer in headlights. They're scared to death. It is possible. We have students do it all the time. Last year, our students, we had, I think it was 29 and seniors graduate with 9. 3 million in scholarships.

Cynthia: Oh my gosh. That's amazing. I love it. 

Shellee Howard: That's important. And like you said, as a high school counselor, you don't know the family's finances. So it's something that you really don't get to talk about. Right. That's not a problem. An opportunity that you get to observe the beautiful gift of meeting with the students, but the financial side of things, how would you even know if it's a need based family or a family who doesn't just want to write a big check for a university?

Cynthia: Right, and there are both, definitely, because I remember, even though I didn't know their finances, you can sometimes tell, or sometimes they would [00:35:00] say something about it during the college process. Well, so, how does College Ready help those families through this process? Like, what does your, what does your program do to help the parents go through this?

Shellee Howard: So, the program is, Is there's not one other program like it in the world because when everybody kept asking me what it took to get my son first accepted to Harvard and then to do it without debt. There was nothing that I, there were no resources available to me. There were people like his high school counselor who was wonderful, but she just kept telling me he's caught all A's.

He's doing great. Leave him alone. Like that was, that was the strategy, right? Like I'm dealing with kids who are not showing up for school. And so as helpful and as wonderful as that may have sounded, it was hard for us thinking, how are we going to compete? My son's like, I want to be a brain surgeon and go to an Ivy league school.

And [00:36:00] she's saying, Oh, you're fine. So then we stepped it up to the next level and we're like, okay, what, what is this need? And I built him as I build businesses. So I'm seven time entrepreneur started seven businesses. And so I took his want of an Ivy league education pre med and I reverse engineered it.

So that's what we do with each child. We figure out what is their academic plan? What is their testing strategy? How will they show colleges? They have leadership. How will they step into passion with a purpose so they can talk about their compassion and empathy? We help students balance life and school, right?

Extracurriculars. These kids are doing multi sports and theaters, and I know I felt like a taxi cab, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we have to help them to understand that doing a zillion things [00:37:00] is not what colleges are looking for. They're looking for depth and breadth and they're looking for who is that child.

Then we help them to really put a resume together for letters of recommendation. We have essay editors that help them polish, not write, help them polish their essays, application reviewers. Then we help the family get their financial house in order. Help them understand where the big scholarships are, and that's what it takes.

So it's not easy and not everybody may want to do it. But for those of you who do, it is possible. And I just want to encourage you to either, you know, go to our website, get free resources attend our free webinars. If you are like, hey, I'm a busy parent. I just want somebody to do this. Tag, you're it. We need to help you with that.

Our goal is to help a million families. And that is why I wrote my second book is because in the [00:38:00] seven years since my first book became a bestseller, so much changed in just seven years. So even if you're a parent who went to college, guess what? It's not at all like it used to be. 

Cynthia: Well, I feel like it changed.

I haven't been in the high school now for two years and I feel like it's already different. And just those two years since I, I left and also I'm not around it as much. So I kind of lost some of those things that I remembered about what to do, but that, That is amazing. I love what you're doing and I'm definitely going to let my audience know about your books and how to get to them and how to get to you and your free resources because I know a lot of my families want this information and I just, I think it's great and I, I wish I would have known about it years ago.

So I'm glad I got to meet you. 

Shellee Howard: It has been my pleasure. And parents, for those of you still listening, hopefully you will see the benefit of having the [00:39:00] village of resources around you. So thank you so much, Cynthia, for your time. And parents, until next time, we're so excited to support you. 

Cynthia: Thank you.