man I don't know if I should do this but fuck it let's do it I'm about to crash
out
you
this is the pop-out and I'm Albert Shin and today's episode is gonna be one
that's gonna probably make a lot of people angry namely the people who make
money off of providing help for people for students on SATs on college
admissions etc etc but you know screw it we need to talk about this this is
important now I want to make a note from the very beginning I cannot speak to
what is happening across all of the different private industries that offer
help to students for everything ranging from like tutoring services to classes
on how to take the SATs or etc etc so you know I'm gonna speak strictly from
my experience I have taught at let's see one two three three four four different
private academies they were primarily targeted five actually nothing but
primarily targeted towards suburban middle-class students who had high
ambitions but also whoever else could really pay for those services and I've
done everything from tutoring services to college consultation to helping with
college essays just a range of services AP tests preparing students for that and
I've come to learn a few things that you know I think over the years reflecting
on it that I now am completely unhappy with unhappy with in it in mainly
because I think one it's grounded in half truths and lies but second of all I
think it doesn't actually put the students first okay so I want to talk a
little bit about what some of this actually is and we have to break it down
to kind of different services you are looking for let me start off by tutoring
okay the industry of tutoring right okay so here's the thing if you are
struggling with a particular subject and this could be at any grade level right
any grade level you're looking for somebody who could help you better
understand whatever it is that you are struggling with all right so let's say
you're taking a history class or like I'm having trouble understanding history
one of the things you might do is I want to get my grades up I'm gonna find
somebody who could help me make sense of this help me learn so that I could get a
better grade right okay so far seems perfectly fine okay this is where I
think the tutoring industry takes a left turn a lot of people don't necessarily
know what they should be looking for right so if you are looking for a tutor
and you're thinking oh I need somebody who knows something about this
particular topic and maybe you might be thinking I want somebody who is
experienced okay you could use word of mouth and rely on somebody that somebody
else recommends somebody you trust like oh yeah you know they help with a you
know your students your kid maybe they can help my kid right okay so it could
be word of mouth it could be you go through a website it could be you go
through an institution right some of these academies after school programs
have options to hire a one-on-one tutoring usually the academy will take
a cut and the tutors get paid a portion of what you pay right okay so the
question is this how do you know you're getting a good tutor well this is the
hard part okay word of mouth we tend to rely on other people's testimony but of
course who knows right like you'll see results from students and has nothing to
do with the actual teaching of the tutor the tutor didn't really do much of the
student just was a little bit more disciplined because you schedule time to
get some work done right so word of mouth can be tricky you don't know if
you could trust the person if it might not apply because circumstances might
differ between the other student that they've tutored versus your kid okay so
that's one issue you can try going to academies but they're gonna push
whoever they can to go ahead and make sure that you come to them for those
services because there's monetary gain to be had and then you could try to find
people online there's sites where you could you know tutors will go up there
and hire off of their services and then you hire them off the spot like and then
you're gonna ask for qualifications right you might ask them like oh where
what do you you know specialize in like what is your tutoring experience and so
on but here's the thing teaching is a very particular skill set teaching as a
skill set is not the same thing as learning or knowing a lot about a
particular topic now the two sometimes go hand-in-hand right if you don't know
it then it's gonna be hard for you to teach it right but in all the years of
teaching what I've learned is that teaching is a distinct skill that is not
the same as just simply knowing about a particular topic all right so let's go
back to the history example right you might have somebody who is very well
read in history maybe even got a PhD in history they know a lot about history
okay teaching that to a you know eighth grader ninth grader that's a separate
skill set and that you need somebody who knows a how to teach generally B how to
teach specifically to the particular age group right that they're actually
working with okay and C do it in a way that is effective because they actually
connect with the student right and this is actually an important aspect of
tutoring right you need to the the teacher the tutor needs to actually
connect with the student that I mean you should be working on trial and error
here because you're not sure exactly what you're gonna get okay you're not
sure exactly what you're gonna get you can look at a resume and the resume
could look wonderful on paper and then you get them in person and then you see
the tutoring session you're like oh shit this is not very effective or maybe it
is effective but like it like helps you improve your grades and maybe it helps
you understand a little bit more but maybe you're not getting the most bang
for your buck right so if you hire them for an hour in that hour you're not
getting as much as you could in an hour okay so here's the thing I'm gonna talk
about this specifically tutors but I think this could apply across the board
with more generally any kind of help you're seeking right I personally would
like to see a shift in the private education industry and I want to see a
shift in a very radical way and the way I want to see this shift is that we get
away from teaching particular topics in the way that private tutors often do
right a lot of times a student will go I don't understand this can you explain to
me and then the teacher explains it to them tutor explains to them oh okay I
think I get it now oh if I don't get it let me try to explain a different way
here right okay I actually think that part of the problem is that we are
actually focused on teaching to the particular subject that the students
struggling with and the reason I don't like this approach in teaching is that
it actually might be effective in short term but one of the things you're gonna
realize is you're gonna have to rely on somebody to help you again and again and
again and again right you're gonna be a repeat customer you're gonna have to
shell out a lot of money because guess what you understand that particular
thing that they helped you with now but then a week later when they learn
something new and they don't get that they're gonna come back and you're gonna
have to go back and seek more help right so I want to talk about seeking help and
particularly in the way that we approach the way that we seek out what are we
looking for what are we actually looking for okay if your goal is to get a quick
fix then this is perfectly fine I have nothing against it you go ahead and do
it okay but my guess is that if you're struggling with something in your class
or on a on an exam a standardized test right if you're struggling in some part
of your academics then most likely it's because there's something about your
approach to learning right the specific topic is merely a symptom of something
deeper going on in the way that you learn the material you are expected to
learn right so let me give you an example right suppose you're studying
history and you're like I'm having trouble understanding you know all of
these facts and trying to you know remember all of these details of how it
is that what happened first and when it happened and how it impacted this and
that that's partly because my guess this would be my suspicion is that your focus
on the details but when you're studying history that's actually not the first
place to start the first place to start is actually the narrative it's the story
it's the it's the story of who is doing what to whom and why it's the story of
how did these two countries get into conflict in the first place why do these
people love each other hate each other why are these groups allies and not
right like that the bigger picture is where you should start before you dive
into the nitty-gritty details but that shift in your approach if that's not
addressed then you're gonna constantly struggle with history you're gonna
constantly struggle with it right and this is the thing this is the thing each
topic has a unique approach because of the nature of the stuff that you're
learning right like so in the sciences you're gonna approach it a little
differently you're gonna study it a little differently because the topic is
different and it's gonna require a different part of your brain to be
activated in a different way so if you seek a tutor who is just merely telling
you how to do the thing that is immediately in front of you you're not
addressing the deeper roots of your struggles and when you don't address
those deeper roots you're gonna constantly be seeking help you're gonna
constantly be seeking help inside the classroom outside the classroom etc
what's gonna be better for you in the long run is to actually address why it
is that you're struggling so much and fix that right fix your learning habits
fix your study habits right like fix whatever it is and it could be a range
of things right it could be like emotional well-being it could be like
family life it could be you know whatever it is that you're struggling
with like whatever that is that's hindering you from learning that's the
thing that needs to be addressed now people don't want to do this people
don't want to do this I think for several reasons I'm not gonna guess as
to why you might have not wanted to do it in the first place but you know some
of the common things I've heard from students of mine are one it's hard to
let's see oh yeah so it's hard let's see it's a it's it's gonna take too long
right I'm not gonna see immediate results three I think I've seen
something like oh but how can I trust that it's actually gonna work it doesn't
feel like it's gonna work right okay look at the end of the day the proof is
in the pudding right the results you get should be an indicator of whether or not
your study habits are actually yielding is that it's actually a good way to go
because if you're using the right methods you should be seeing good
results right if you're not using the right methods you'll know fairly quickly
within a week or two whether or not that method is not effective at all okay in
recent years in my one-on-one sessions with students I have shifted completely
from away from talking about a specific topic to addressing the root of their
inability to grasp the concept right and what I found is that in working with
students if they use the right approach they feel the effects immediately right
it you know right it you know how you have those moments when you're like I
understand I understand it now and when you understand it like you could feel
the difference because you can explain it in a way you couldn't explain it
before there's clarity in your mind right like people know what it feels
like to really grasp something right and it's because we don't pay attention to
that feeling enough that we're not realizing that there are certain things
that we do that are more likely than not to lead up to those kinds of moments
right so when I focus on on the methodology on the approach with
students what I found is that they experience a difference and then they
see the results on actual exams tests whatever metric you want to use right
essays and when they see the results they're motivated to continue using the
more effective methods right one of the again the reason we're seeking help in
the first place because we're having trouble with something you don't need to
constantly be seeking help if you seek the right kind of help okay what you
what I'm saying is if you seek somebody who could help you address the root of
the issue and get over that whatever that barrier is to your learning then you
don't need the help afterwards right because you're gonna be motivated to
using good techniques good study skills and that's gonna continuously feed into
this loop motivating you because you're seeing results that's really gonna be
the biggest motivator you're gonna see results you're gonna notice them right
and honestly after a few months you probably won't need the help that you
needed before okay now like I think a lot of a lot of people in the private
sector might not like my saying this right for one because they might not
know how to provide this help for students I know that this is a very
specialized set of skills so you're not gonna find a lot of tutors who have the
kind of self-awareness to know or to have the background knowledge and having
done research in cognitive psychology or some of these areas of study that have
demonstrated empirically what kind of methods work best for things like memory
or learning big concepts or things like that so one a lot of people are just not
skilled a lot of tutors that I found are just people that are straight out of
high school straight out of college they know nothing about teaching they just
did well in certain subjects and then they know a lot about the topic and so
they think of it as a way to go and earn a quick buck or they I mean again it
could be coming from a genuinely good place like they might be I want to help
people right but unfortunately what you need is training in an area where you
could be better equipped to help students in the long run if you actually
want to be affected but here's the second reason I think a lot of people
are gonna hate this it's that it's gonna it's gonna really screw up the money
okay let's be honest if you if you need to constantly seek help that's a steady
stream of income for whoever is providing the help right but if the
business model is I'm gonna help you so that you learn how to help yourself
right then it's kind of like well after a few months I don't need you right so
it's gonna be a revolving door of people that you'll be looking if you're if
you're one of these people working in these industries you're constantly be
looking for new students to help right and that's not necessarily good for
business right if you're especially if you're charging an hourly rate you'll
want to keep as many of these students as possible and then continue to take
money from them okay again I'm not saying there's anything malicious going
on nobody's gonna like right like some evil villain here trying to steal as
much of your hard-earned money as possible to scam you or anything like
that I think a lot of this stuff is unintentional but I think it stems from
the fact that in this industry there's not really kind of a way to screen
people along these metrics that I'm suggesting you should be looking for
right and I think once you start doing that once you start asking right some
of these tutors right questions like how long do you actually have a student for
before they could you know learn for themselves or if you ask them questions
like what kind of training or knowledge do you have about how to study well
right in a way that is backed by empirical data not just your personal
experience not just some stuff that you've looked up online or heard about
I could do that on my own but I want to know very like this is what you'd be
paying for you'd be paying for somebody who is an expert in this particular area
of helping you to learn yourself right and the reason I'm stressing this shift
so much is that I think a lot of people especially from out of the United States
in the United States the people who have been to college I think they might be
able to tell their kids or people they know that this is for the most part true
but in college a lot of the learning happens outside of the classroom the
lecture helps you make sense of the stuff that you're learning or you should
be learning on your own right but a lot of the learning happens on your own right
when you go to college it's like you go to class for a few hours a day and the
rest of the time you're supposed to be self-studying right sometimes a teacher
is not even going to be helpful the lecture is just lectures weren't not
helpful you just study yourself you get into a habit of teaching yourself if you
don't know how to do that well while you're in high school first you're gonna
struggle in high school but second that struggle is gonna carry over later on in
college in life right because you're constantly gonna have to learn how to
help yourself to learn how to learn so that you can adjust to whatever the
circumstances are gonna give you but also be able to seek out and ask the
right kind of questions to help you help better better whatever it is that you're
trying to accomplish okay so first things first right when you're seeking
help I would hope that you stop going base off of resume accolades etc unless
it's actually relevant but specifically I would hope that you are screening
specifically for teaching ability people who have taught before who have
experienced teaching but also that they have taught students in a way that has
helped students learn for themselves where they could study independently they
didn't need a tutor anymore they didn't need you know some Academy or after
school program in order for them to learn okay I'm hoping that makes some
sense okay which brings me to one of my most hated enemies in the private
education sector which is these SAT and actually any standardized tests
academies right SAT AP exams you know all these things that students are
preparing preparing for in order to improve their chance of getting into
college but also once you get into college right if you're trying to go to
law school right LSAT classes and so on okay whoo let me back up before I start
going on a cuss riddled rant here okay all right look there is such a thing as
learning how to take tests well okay there is such a thing as learning some
concepts that are gonna be helpful for taking certain kinds of exams right for
instance if you're taking an AP English literature test like you should be
familiar with a range of literature because it's gonna be covered on the
test right okay so I understand the need to seek out help okay I'm gonna tell you
this all the help that you actually need are available for free at your local
library in the form of all of these baron and was a Princeton review books
that you could borrow you don't need to purchase them you could borrow them from
your local library if you don't know your local library get familiar with them
right they have a lot of free resources really nice okay you can just borrow
away you don't even have to and then we actually read through it okay because
here's the thing the SAT class is not gonna tell you anything different than
what those books cover your AP you know class or tutor that you get probably is
not gonna cover anything different than what is covered in those books if you're
talking about content the books cover them all in fact if you were good about
studying on your own you could probably read through and practice through all of
these like you know books and then just take the test and do well okay the
information is all there and it's free okay so then why are you paying thousands
of dollars for somebody to help you with this particular topic right or that
particular test because let's be honest like I say tease people who's pouring
thousands of dollars like I've seen it I know how much these places make okay
make a lot of money so why are you paying them well here's the thing it
could be for a lot of different reasons my pride my experience is that with like
about half the students that I've taught at these SAT classes right about half
the students are there because they lack any sort of discipline where they're
able to study this material on their own right it's not about their inability to
learn they could learn if they wanted to they're just not motivated to like
there's a deeper issue going here a lot of the students that come came through
through the doors for me like about half of them were students sent there by
parents and they have they have it was always like an argument right like the
kids didn't want to go parents forced them to go all right okay parents are
doing what they could because they don't know any better well parents I'm talking
to you right now I'm gonna tell you let's talk about what could be better
right sending them to an SAT class usually is an indication from my
experience that something else is going on and one of the primary things that
might be going on is that the student just has a hard time actually bogging
down and working on this stuff right this has to do with time management this
has to do with scheduling this has to do with motivation this has to do with a
range of things sending them to an SAT class is not necessarily going to help
with that it's gonna help them get a lot of practice in and you know here's the
thing SAT you know classes those those programs they take credit for the
students improving on their SATs but a lot of bullshit is thrown out in these
conversations right like one of the things I hear a lot is one of the
bullshit I hear a lot is look look you're you're used your SAT scores went
up right from the first time you took it till now okay look the evidence shows
that the you know if you've taken the test a certain number of times you're
just naturally gonna do better just from the experience of having taken a lot of
practice tests your score is gonna improve right your score is gonna
improve it's probably not gonna dip from the first time you take the SATs to the
second time right they know this right but then they're misleading you into
making you think like oh we're responsible for your SAT scores going up
no you just need to take a bunch of practice tests you just need to get a
lay of the timing you just need to get a feel for what the exam is about what
they cover right if you actually take the time to read through a book your
score is probably gonna jump significantly especially if a lot of
the information is not covered in you know the classes you took elsewhere
right like at your school okay so what I'm saying is this these classes are
extremely expensive and again it's a patch job for a deeper issue which is
that you're having trouble actually teaching yourself and again the why of
that could be a whole lot of things I think I don't know personally I honestly
think that that money is probably better spent on somebody who can teach you how
to learn and or addressing the circumstances that are making it
difficult for you to learn the circumstance what am I talking about in
terms of circumstances financial difficulty family trauma issues going on
in the family it could be you know something else right relationships
happen let's not let's not kid ourselves right like you go and get into a bad
breakup and all of a sudden your grades drop like that's like this should be
expected especially for a high school student who doesn't know how to deal
with a lot of these like feelings that they might be feeling for the first time
okay if you're suffering from any sort of mental health issues right go get a
therapist therapists are expensive right but I guarantee you that'll be money
better spent than spending it on all of these academies that are only going to
maybe help you with your scores to some degree right but at some point right
it's not gonna it's gonna stop being helpful it's gonna stop being helpful
right for me I don't know about you but for me it feels like a lot of waste of
money and honestly a waste of time because they are very intense especially
the ones over winter and summer breaks these SAT classes are super intense
extremely time-consuming time that could be honestly better spent elsewhere for
the same goals you're trying to accomplish okay okay
on a similar note right because look I'm on the same theme here I mean I know
we're talking about a lot of different things but I'm trying to stay on the
same theme here which is when you're seeking help a lot of people are
seeking the wrong things I want to make sure that you're seeking the right
things right so again whether it's help with specific exams or whether it's help
with a particular topic the overarching message then is seek somebody who can
help you help yourself don't seek out right help that will only help you in
the moment or for that one particular topic but then you'll need to continue
going back to them right I think a real good sign of whether or not a tutor is
doing a good job or you know one of these after-school programs are doing a
good job is if they get repeat customers right if they get somebody coming back
to them again and again and again for extended periods then they're probably
not doing a good job they're probably not doing a good job all right I'm gonna
tell you from my personal experience because again like I said I've been
experimenting with this for about a year now where I've been when I'm helping
students one-on-one I focus strictly on their ability to learn well right from
my experiences it takes no more than about three months usually less so it's
usually about you know two to three months of working with a student working
out a lot of kinks doing some trial and error see what kind of methods work best
for them okay and then after that time they get bored in my sessions because
they feel like they got a handle on it and that's when I know when they're
bored in our sessions together that's when I know that they're ready to leave
the nest or how they're able to do this themselves some of them will come back
to me for a consultation here and there just to go ahead and you know because
they ran into some new thing or there's like a new topic and there's a new way
of learning something or you know they want to try out something new or you
know they're facing a new set of circumstances so something's shifted and
they come back to me but even then it's only like two three sessions at most
right we only meet a couple more times and after that they're back to being
good on their own and that's what I would look I am NOT trying to just
complete shit on all of these programs that are available sometimes this is
the best thing you've got around you I get that okay but what I would like is
for a lot of these programs to do better and do better specifically in this way
because there are too many programs where they hire people based off of
credentials based off of the reputation of the schools they graduated from or
the awards they have or X Y & Z but it does it's not actually reflected in the
way that they teach or what they teach or how they teach right so we need to
actually focus on what matters which is the the teaching part of it like what is
it that you are getting when you're seeking help right from these people
that are so-called experts okay and what I'm telling you is that name recognition
of University people word-of-mouth recommendation that that honestly is not
the right indicator of whether or not they're good at what they're doing what
I'm saying is if they're good at what they're doing you'll see the results and
what I mean by results is that you will never need them again okay that's what
you should be looking for got it now I've said all this about seeking help
with regards to AP SAT exams and also with help in your school subjects here's
where it's a little different okay when it comes to college admission and you're
seeking assistance on college admission okay you should be looking for something
a little different because it is a one-time thing all right college
admission is a one-time thing now there are some skills that carry over for
instance learning how to write a personal statement learning how to
present yourself these are all skills you're gonna need for going on interviews
for jobs right so these are all skills you should be developing and maybe you
could seek out help with that with being a better professional in the way that
you present yourself okay that's all well and good but when it comes to
things like let's say how to write my personal statement and getting edits on
them okay you do need somebody who who can help you with this particular task
all right it's very task specific okay and so the help you're looking for is
gonna be a little different than the help that I suggested you seek when you
know you're trying to learn how to learn okay so what does this actually look
like okay one you need somebody who has experience reading through a whole shit
ton of college essays okay here's the thing students you know when you unlike
this just like an English class that you might be taking right you write an essay
for an English class the students read their essays and they might read the
essays of the friends they have next to them so like a few more essays right on
the same topic but the teacher has to read all of your essays right what does
that do for the teacher the teacher has a better sense of what a quality
paper looks like not necessarily because they know more but in part because they
have exposure to more you need people who have actually reviewed a lot a lot
a lot of essays okay I'm telling you this right now from experience I feel
bad for the students that I worked with you know like this is maybe about 18
years ago all right a long time ago where I didn't have as much experience
now that I've read through thousands of personal statements I have a good sense
of what hits and what doesn't right and it has to do with a lot of factors it's
not any of these like things we'll talk about this but it's not any of the
things that you get least quick responses for like right on this topic or
don't run on that topic it's not that there's the writing style is the way
that students present themselves you develop an eye for it because you've read
so many of them you need somebody who has that experience okay you could
develop that to some degree by reading as many personal statements as you could
get your hands on okay and then seeing how they did in terms of their
applications but what you need is somebody who professionally look at this
and then went through them went through one after another after another that
developed an eye for knowing what works and what doesn't okay here's a second
thing right and this is more of a pitfall to avoid okay if you've been
following me up to this point then you should have it in your head that college
admissions is partly your work but that meeting good luck right what I mean by
that is there's nothing you can do to guarantee admissions into any particular
place you could improve your odds but you can't guarantee admissions anywhere
aside from you know doing something shady like paying somebody off okay which
I recommend you don't just be clear okay you're not gonna get a guarantee right
and in fact the writing statement you here's a harder part you don't know
whether the writing statement right the the personal statement that was written
actually contributed to helping them or hurting a student getting into a
university right so anybody who tells you that they know the secrets to how to
write a personal statement to get you into a particularly good college right
where the college that you want to get into okay if they say that to you you
know they're full of shit they're liars okay they might be meaning well they
might believe themselves they're liars okay your personal statement doesn't
guarantee shit it doesn't guarantee anything at all okay so if somebody is
feeding you lies you should have red flags right you should have your ears
perked up and be thinking hmm something about this doesn't sound right okay
here's another red flag okay I know a lot of academies right these after
school places that offer college consultations and college admission help
and all that that they will flaunt all of the different universities they got
their students into Princeton Harvard Yale Stanford Berkeley yada yada yada
they'll brag as a marketing tool about all the places that their students have
gone in fact some of these places will actually have their students write out
some sort of statement talking about how helpful their program was to help them
getting into the university and how excited they were when they got in okay
if you see that a ignored at the least or B call them out on it call them out
on it because that's that's a bunch of shit okay look the reason you get into
university probably has 90% of it has to do with you and what you did it has to
do with what you and what you did throughout your time in high school
all right and throughout your life it's about you okay the personal statement
could help push you over the edge but again it's a luck game I don't know what
a particular college is going to like or not like about your personal statement
all I can do is make your personal statement look as good as it can to as
many eyes as possible right to be it to make it as informative as possible for
as many people as possible so that it improves your odds but you never know
right you might get somebody who reads your essay and for some reason it doesn't
click with them or something another but it's like a one-off very it's because of
the specific reader and the fact that they didn't give you a particularly high
score on the personal statement or it might have nothing to do with it maybe
they didn't even pay attention to your personal statement right it didn't help
or hurt it had nothing to do with it your mission had to do with all the
other metrics that they were looking at right every college is going to be
different in exactly what they're looking for and what balance they're
looking for and the types of students are looking for so if anybody takes credit
for a student getting into a particular college by saying we help them get them
there by getting them a particular SAT score or we help them by with our
college consultation or we help them by you know you know right helping them
with their personal statement in such and such a way they're full of shit they
should not be taking credit for it the credit should be going to the student
you're the one doing the hard work you should be getting the credit people can
be there to help you along the way and they should deserve some credit for
helping you but they are not the ones who got you in that is absolutely false
hundred percent okay so look out for those red flags okay what does this
actually mean okay well here's what it means when it comes to seeking certain
kinds of help unfortunately you're gonna have to pay a shit ton of money to get
good help and this is particularly true when it comes to college essays okay the
people who are most equipped to be able to give you good guidance are people who
have been on admission committees but guess what those people who are in
admissions committees they are very very talented they have a great resume they
if they choose to spend the time to work on you with your college essays it cost
a lot of money I know this because I've been in that industry I could be
charging up a lot of money for this right I offer free to my PCC students
when they're transferring over to UC or Cal State I help them for free but I
always tell them like look this is not something that is usually offered this
level of in-depth one-on-one feedback is something that you usually cannot get
for free and definitely cannot get good help for cheap it's gonna be expensive
so what are your options well this is why I created this podcast okay I'm going
to try to give you at least some guidance from my own experiences and if
we get enough people participating sharing this podcast so let them be
familiar with what we're doing here if we get enough people I am wanting to do
some live streams where we could talk about have honest conversations about
what kind of strategies work and don't and why because what I'm finding I've
checked on YouTube on podcasts is there's a lot of good general advice but
those general advice might not apply to you specifically you need the one-on-one
help in this particular area and unfortunately this is one that the
wealthiest is gonna either give the ones who are gonna have access to the the
useful help anyways okay but that tells you that tells you a couple of things
right there's a lot of people that offer you help that offer you some sort of
maybe not a guarantee but they sell you a kind of dream of what you can get okay
I want you to be careful when you're seeking out help and I hope that at
least I gave you a couple of things to kind of look out for so that you have
the right tools to figure out what kind of help best fits your needs all right
what kind of help is the is it that you need at this particular moment what kind
of help is actually useful and especially for those of you who struggle
right I've worked with so many students whose parents are middle class they make
you know they can make a living wage but you know a lot of these extra
curricular activities and you know SAT academy so they cost so much money that
they're squeezing their budget as much as they can in order to provide these
opportunities for their kids right I don't want you to waste your money just
to not see lasting results I want you to see lasting results which means that you
need to know you need to be an informed consumer you need to know what you're
looking for you know what to ask okay so again be mindful of what kind of help
you should be seeking and how to seek it out and then start looking for some of
these red flags that should help you question whether or not this place is
actually doing things in your best interest or you know again it might be
that they have their well-intentioned but they just don't know right they're
going off of their own experiences but they don't know because they haven't
been on the other side they haven't been on that admission committee they don't
know what these places are actually looking for okay so I hope that was
helpful we'll start talking a little bit about personal statements specific
Lee okay but like I said what we're gonna have to do at some point is to do
some live streams where you could ask your specific questions so that we could
unpack your particular circumstances and how to approach the approach the the
college application or studying generally with regards to your personal
needs okay so until then