The Real Work of College Admissions: What Students & Parents Get Wrong | Christopher Parsons

Welcome back to Real Work Ideas, where we dive into the grit and strategy behind how people choose to spend their time and energy. Today, we are joined by Christopher Parsons, the founder of College Planning Center in South Carolina and author of Entering the Arena. Chris has spent more than 13 years helping students and families navigate college admissions, but his work has grown far beyond one-on-one consulting. He's built a community supporting thousands of families, written a book to make college planning strategies accessible to anyone, and has just launched a new app, check it out in the App Store, College Arena. I'm especially interested in the work behind it all and how you take years of deep personal experience, build it into a business, and then figure out how to scale that business so everyone can benefit. Join me in welcoming Christopher. Hey, how are you? Hey, nice to see you. It's really great to see you again. So before college planning existed, back when you were doing, I think your doctoral studies in literature, what did you actually think your career was going to look like? Yeah, I don't know if I can think back that far, but yeah, I really imagined myself working in education for the rest of my life on some small liberal arts campus somewhere tucked into some small community in the who knows where, but that's where I envisioned it. That was my romanticized vision of my future. Reality proved to be a little bit different. Okay, so then kind of walk me through your resume a little bit and how did you get here? What did that look like? Well, I was a strong student, so I had gotten, I had kind of had to go through the whole process myself when I was applying to college because even back then we had guidance counselors, but they didn't do much more than just a general, general meetings for scheduling classes and whatnot. And so I had applied for a lot of scholarships, I'd done a lot of programs, I studied abroad, I did things that made me at least somewhat educated about how the process worked. And then as an English teacher, I was the one that when I was teaching English that the kids came to for help on their essays, their recommendation letters, you name it. And really the light bulb went off when I just saw a lot of kids that were dejected at the end of the process and somewhat, you can say a little bit disillusioned with the process. And I said, there had to be a better way to do it. And so I started kind of fiddling with it about 14 years ago. I was teaching English full-time in the high school at that time, AP English. And I just, I took a leap of faith, jumped in, did a intensive training program with the IECA, which is Independent Educational Consultants Association. And I did that in Swarthmore up in Pennsylvania and spent a week there and everything changed. I just saw that kind of was, that was my calling. That was going to help families and kids, you know, navigate the process in a more efficient and a more, to bring a little bit of joy back to it. You know, so it wasn't something that overwhelmed them. And that's when I started it. I worked about a year in as on both sides of the aisle, working as a consultant and also as a full-time teacher. And then I finally realized I couldn't juggle all those balls and keep them in the air. And I decided that, you know, I was going to take the leap of faith. And once I convinced my wife that I could walk away from a guaranteed paycheck each month and take it and gamble on myself, then, you know, the rest is kind of history, so to speak. And, you know, we've grown exponentially since then because for good or bad, there's a need for what we do. And if anything, it's gotten greater because the price has gotten bigger and the competition has gotten more stark. And so it's something that, you know, it's just, you know, and that's where I landed and I've been doing this for 13 years. And I'm just keep trying to find ways to help as many people as I can. And the book, the app that we launched, all those things are ways to get to more families than we're able to get to personally, but ones that can still benefit from, you know, the scope of experiences I've had and we've had in this company. I love that. So I am a first-generation college student and I had zero idea the process. I had absolutely no idea. A lot of my listeners come from my other channel I teach. You might find this interesting. I teach speaking clarity and communication and I work with a lot of students who are applying to U.S. universities who need to pass the TOEFL exam to also get into U.S. universities. So can you give us a brief? I know it's very complex. What are some of the things that you need to do to get into college in the U.S.? What are some of the basic steps? So you're applying as an international student or just in general? Just as a general student. I'm thinking you live in the U.S., you're someone like me and you've never, no one in your family has gone to college. What would you do for that? And then we might have to do a different session someday so you can talk to my international students because that's a real need. So let's just talk U.S. based. Well, I mean, the first thing, this is something that, when I originally started this company way back, one of our initial monsters or mottos was plan to succeed. That was the one that we had planned to succeed and that was a whole, and planning is an important part of the process and it's something that young people left to their own devices. They're just gonna live in the moment. They're worrying about the next week, the next dance, the next game, you name it. And that's what makes them fun to work with because they are living in the moment. But as adults, we see down the roadways and this is even stuff I've had to convince my own children of is that there's a reason why you need to plan and to think about it six months out, one year out and things like that. So my first bit of advice is start formulating a plan early on. What kind of schools interest you? And I would say if anything, one of the biggest things that kids do, I won't say incorrectly, but where they kind of stumble a bit is they don't really get a clear idea of the schools they wanna apply to till later on. And it really needs to be flipped because if you decide earlier on what your list is looking like, then you can really build your resume to fit to the school's admission standards. And so if you're looking at certain schools and you need a 1400 SAT score to be competitive and you don't do test prep, then you put yourself in a very difficult position. And if you're looking at a school where they really put a major emphasis on community service and you haven't done any, you can't make that up in six months, your senior year or even later in your junior year. They wanna see something happen in the whole time you're in school. So understanding your audience, in this case, understanding the schools you're looking at is really important for you to understand what you need to do to get to that school. That's interesting. And I don't think we really do a good job of that. And I think that we just kind of expect things to fall into place. And we look at the schools that we're familiar with and don't look outside of our comfort zone to find schools that might be a better fit for us. So do you still submit an application these days? How does that work? Because I do it on paper. Now it's called the common application for the most part, common application. And with advancements come the downside as well. The downside, I would say for the common app is it allows you to apply to lots of schools. And the downside is that it allows you to apply to lots of schools so kids don't really narrow their list down, it gets expensive. Application fees can mount pretty fast. You know, the average application fee is $75, $80 per school. Per school. And so you apply to 10 schools, you're looking at $1,000 in just application fees, much less, you know, everything that goes with paying for college. And that is something that the common app makes it easier in some respects, but also causes a little more angst in other respects because there's so many you can consider. And each school has a separate kind of angle that they want kids to look at. They might have additional essays. They have to write that fits into the common app. And so kids have to kind of, you know, they have to zero in a little bit on the schools they're looking at and make those schools feel like they want to get to that school and not just get into a college. And so sometimes- Okay, so this is interesting. Yeah. So with the common app, right? That's what it's called. Common application, yeah. Do you write then one essay or is it still different per school? Well, it depends on the school. Some schools have additional responses. So you have one main essay. You have the common application has two sections. You have the general section that is the same and you send that out to every college you're applying to. Okay. But every college will have their school specific section as well. And in that section, they may ask you to answer like Wofford has a why Wofford response. Okay. It's only 250 words. It's not a full essay, but where kids can really stumble is those essays are really important, especially for the smaller liberal arts schools. They want to feel like you really want them not just want any school. And so you could spend all your time perfecting your main essay and then just kind of go through the motion of the specific essay for Wofford. And they may have a problem with that and see you as maybe putting them as a fallback or a fallback school or school that really isn't your top one. And if they don't feel special. And I use this analogy with kids because they understand it is that you kind of have to flirt with the schools. You have to kind of court them. And if you're not courting them, if they don't feel wanted and you, when you ask them out, they're going to say no. And so if you don't feel, if they don't feel like you really want them, then they might reject you, even though you might be qualified to get into those schools because they have things to consider like their numbers when it comes to their, not only their acceptance rates of the kids getting in, but also the kids that will choose them after they accept them. So they have to make sure their numbers are good as well. And accepting a bunch of kids that don't come there doesn't really reflect well on their numbers. Okay. And then last question on just the general application. I know for a while, the SAT and the ACT, they weren't looking at those, correct? In colleges, I think during COVID. Tell me a little bit about like, do you have to take the SAT and ACT now? Are schools looking at that? Like what's happening with that? It is a fluid situation. I will say that what we're seeing is the pendulum is swinging back to requiring test scores in a lot of schools. Almost all, most of the IVs, which the kid, they tend to be the leaders of the pack. People follow kind of what they're doing. A lot of times they've gone back to requiring test scores and a lot of schools are moving back in that direction because initially when they got rid of the test scores, they thought that would help create more diversity in their incoming classes, but really it was hurting the diversity of their incoming classes. So kids that would not have been applying before because they didn't have the score to get in, were applying and it was watering down the general field of applicants. And with a bunch of kids that have, there's no really nice way to say it. You have a lot of fluffed up GPAs these days. And so making a decision based on GPA is harder than it used to be. And not having that test score to utilize makes it harder to really gauge kids against each other and against kids all around the country. I think that's so interesting. I'm totally going off of script now. I had some questions for you, but I think I really don't mind testing. I know that's not a very popular opinion, but I think it does help with getting kids into the right fit schools. You don't wanna go to a school that's too much or too little. You wanna have that like just right fit. So I'm glad to hear that they are bringing it back and also that the schools have looked at it and said, this really didn't work. This was working better. So there's like a reason behind it, not just to give you work. So that's good to hear from a person who's not in that whole area. Okay, so you've already given us so much to think about. So you've been helping parents and families for over a decade now. What are families besides, because you already did tell me that kids are waiting too long to kind of figure out where they want to school, but what are people getting wrong with this whole process? Well, one of the main thrusts of my book is, and I don't know how familiar your audience is with, my book is obviously based on, you can see from the title, Turning the College Admissions Odds in Your Favor is to play on the Hunger Games because this is kind of like a modern Hunger Games with these kids for- Thanks for explaining that. I get it now. Yes, okay. And, you know, in one of the chapters in one of the blogs that I wrote about this is that, you know, everybody runs for the same weapons in one part of the, in the original, in the original Hunger Games when they go up and they get the, when they start the game and everybody runs, they all run for the same weapons. And that's, I think one of the mistakes kids make is they try to be just like everybody else instead of being original. And being original might mean not taking every AP class, but take, but focus on the areas that you really, you're really interested in and maybe getting a job in that area or, you know, starting a club in that area or something where you can really show your, what really makes you unique rather than trying to be like everybody else. And I think that is a problem. And parents fall into this too. They're like, oh, you have to have three AP classes every year. You have to do this, you have to do that. And there's a formula that they plug everything into and then eventually everybody looks the same. And if everybody looks the same in the movies or in the book, the kids from the, you know, the richer districts have advantages and that's no different than it is in America today. The kids from the wealthier school districts, the kids from the private schools, they're gonna have more resources. They're gonna, it's just a fact. And if you're trying to compete with them on that same footing as they are, you're gonna fall short. And you're not going to differentiate yourself and you're gonna fall through. You're gonna be sublimed in with everybody else and they're not gonna see you for who you really are. And so that's what I try to convince families of and kids of is lean into your passion, lean into what really motivates you and stop trying to be like everybody else. And that's- So be authentically who you are and you are going to find the right fit. So I worked in schools for a long time, like, I don't know, almost 30 years. And I worked across socioeconomic spectrums. And what you said really just resonated, which is certain schools have a lot of resources and they will coach those kids up and those kids will get into the best universities. You have kids at schools with less resources who are very, very qualified. They don't even know where to begin. So that is why I just, I love someone who is just helping kids who really, really need it. And that's why I love, I wanna talk a little bit about, yeah, so it would be great if everyone could hire a one-on-one coach, right? I know it is like impossible. So I love that you're being so creative and helping all of those kids who really need you. So tell me a little bit about your book and your app. And if I remember correctly, you even have another organization that you are- I started a nonprofit called All-In College Planning and that All-In College Planning is designed specifically for those kids who even paying for our app would be something they might not be able to do. And so, we've kept our app price very low and along with the book access, but sometimes even that access, sometimes it's too much to pay for. And my philosophy is that a high tide raises all ships. And so helping these students out, not only is that gonna benefit those students, but it can change the trajectory of a family for generations. The numbers don't lie. Having one parent who went to college, even one parent is going to dramatically change the odds of the next generation of somebody going to college and maybe both, both of the kids going to college. And then little by little, that changes the economic future of that family. And then that improves society in general, communities, they give back to the community. It's just, it's kind of, you know, throwing the pebble into the water and the ripples they go out, it's going to ripple out in a lot of ways that we don't see right away, but in ways to which long-term can be very beneficial to society and to those families. So, and that is something that they feel like a lot of times that it's, the college is unattainable. And I'm not here to tell you that college is the only way to be successful because I don't believe that. You know, and one of the chapters in our book deals with trade schools, deals with community colleges. And so that is a very good direction if that's what you want. What we don't want to happen is we don't want the kids to feel trapped into that if that's not what they want. Yeah. And that would be the same conversation I've had with families sometimes that have the resources, just because you have the resources to go to college doesn't mean college is the right path for those kids. And that is something I will say too, that I've had to learn as a parent and also that some families really need to learn is that they need to take the ego and out of the equation as a parent and think about long-term what's in the best interest of their child. And sometimes it's not what you think it's going to be. It may be something very different, but it could be something where they can be very successful and very happy, but it doesn't meet your preconceived notion of what their journey was going to look like. That's such an excellent point. I think college has become sort of this status thing. I like how you described it as ego. So when you are working with students, how do you help them figure out what to do? Like, do you coach that or is your coaching mainly just on how to get in? No, no, no. And that's one of the, I'm glad you asked that. That's one of the first things we do with any new client we have is in-depth career counseling and personality testing. This is another way where we fall woefully short in the public education system. We just assume kids will figure out on their own what they're going to do. And that's just not the way that, I mean, that's just not practical. We don't answer the why question for kids. Why am I doing this? Why do I have to do that? And without the why being answered, a lot of kids really stumble through and fumble through high school and never feel motivated to do the things they need to do because they don't know the why. And they don't really know what direction they're going to go. And so that career counseling, we want to show them all the possibilities and say, okay, based on your strengths, based on your personality, based on the things that you're good at, these professions will be a great fit for you. Doesn't mean they have to choose their profession for the rest of their life as an eighth grader or ninth grader or 10th grader, but we do want them to think about it because when they're building their college list, it's not just about what schools are good schools in general, but what schools have the right programs for them. You know, what schools have engineering as if they're working in engineering, what schools have an aeronautical program if they want to do that, what schools have architectural program. Every school isn't going to have everything. So, you know, picking a school without considering what you want to do when you get there is a really big problem. And just figuring, and unlike when I was in school and maybe even when you were in school, I was so far back now, it's just too expensive to find yourself in college now. You know, one more year of college, you're talking about at a private school could be 60, $70,000. And even at a state school, our state school is just close to 35, 40,000. Yeah, one more year of finding yourself in college is really big investment. And if you can spend time earlier on finding yourself and figuring that out while you're in high school, when it's not costing you anything other than a little bit of, you know, sweat and effort, that is really important. Yeah, so I didn't come from a family where we found ourselves in college, but I do find that many, many students nowadays kind of say, well, I really like, and I'm just going to use this as an example. I love to watch movies. So I'm going to go into film. And that's just one example. I'm trying to think of another one. Like I love to craft. So I'm going to study art. I never know how to help those kids because I like that they have a passion, but how do you, what's the process a little bit? And is there a chapter in your book about how do you figure that out? Like what is a good match for what you're doing? Well, you know, for us right now, the big CSI, all the CSIs, everybody wants to go into forensics. Oh, really? I didn't know that. I want to go to forensics now. I want to be CSI. I want to do crime investigation. I mean, you name it, because I mean, how many different CSI shows are there on TV now? I can't even keep track of them all. Right, but you know what's so funny? I know no one in my whole life who's gone to college for that, but that's interesting that now that's a trend. We have a lot of kids now looking at forensics, you know, criminal investigation, whatever, and things like that. And because they, I will use myself as an example here. I thought I was going to be a lawyer my whole life. I went to law school. I mean, I went to school, studied English. I was in the end of court, which was our pre-law society in school. I mean, I had everything planned out in my head. I was going to be a lawyer because I grew up on, you know, LA law and all those shows where I was going to be arguing that big case in court. I romanticized this vision of what it was like to be an attorney. And then I finally worked in a law firm. I'm like, what am I thinking? This is horrible. I was like, I will be miserable stuck in the back of some legal law library researching cases, you know, eight hours a day for, you know, to try to make, to try to eventually make, you know, partner after working 80 hours a week for all this. I was like, no, that's not what I want my life to look like. And so I wish I had done that earlier. And so that's what we were encouraging kids to do. Job shadow, intern. Things like, and just spend a day with someone. You spend, you know, maybe two days and shadow them. Find people in your community that will mentor you in those areas you're thinking about going into. And you're either going to figure out, yes, I love that. Or wow, that's, what was I thinking? That is not what I imagined my life to be being like. And that will help eliminate or, you know, solidify your job choices. It's not a perfect system, but it is definitely one that kids can. And then not only that, but we have so many resources online now. You have massive online classes they can take for free. No grades, they can just sit in, they can explore. I mean, you can do a lot of exploration by not even leaving your bedroom. You can just jump on the computer, do a class, do whatever. You don't have to pay for it. And so a lot of them are free. And that is a way to figure out, you know, kind of what lights your fire. Okay, very, very interesting. You do so many things with students. How long does this process take with you as the coach? Well, it varies because, you know, we have families come to us as early as eighth grade. The longer we have with them, the better. We like to get them early on because, you know, like I said, when you're formulating a plan, the longer you have to carry that out, the more we can help them do. So we use the word coach very deliberately because we coach them through the process. And I coach my kids, and coaches have to sometimes push kids to do what they don't want to do, you know? Good point. And so in that instance, we're not always somebody that, they don't always love me, but they like the results that they get. You know, I didn't love it when my coaches made me run sprints, but those sprints helped me be stronger at the end of the half, at the end of the game. And I realized down the line that that made me a better player, even though I didn't like doing it. And so pushing them to do what they don't like to do is very important. And having that accountability, the coach who can check in with them. We meet with the kids every month. When they start doing test prep, they're doing test prep every week. A consistency, really, really formulating, working this into their daily or weekly routine will make it much more, not only possible, but much more probable they're going to do the things they need to do. You know, because like I said, left to their own devices. Kids are just, they're living in the moment. They're not worried about turning in an extra credit assignment. I have a 93 in that class. Well, you know, a 96 will give you a higher GPA. So do the extra credit. Even though you have an A, do it. Well, it will still help you out. And they don't see that. They just see the moment where they don't want to do that. They don't want to do that extra credit assignment. So just answering a simple thing like that sometimes can be, okay, oh, that makes sense now. So, you know, finishing 10th in my class and my school will get me qualified for the Palmetto Scholarship, which is the highest in-state scholarship for us. So that matters. So I'm going to make sure my GPA is high enough to be in that. Because if I have a lower GPA, my test score has to be much higher. Yeah. If you don't have the, if you don't meet the requirement in South Carolina of the class rank, which is top 6%, then you have to have a 1400 SAT as opposed to 1200. So that's a huge difference in test score that a child might not be able to get that test score, but they can work hard enough to get that class rank that makes the test score obsolete. I love one thing that you said that really resonated with me, which is you have to say the hard things sometimes that maybe kids don't want to hear. So I know you're coaching the kids. The parents are there at the same time, correct? The parents are, we call them silent observers. We really encourage the parents to let the kids take ownership of the process. The parents might be in the first meeting, but from that point on, we're just filling them in. After every meeting, they get a breakdown of the meeting, what we did, what's going on. So they can track everything, but they don't need to be in the meeting because I don't have to tell you, but kids just aren't going to say the same thing or act the same way when the parents are sitting beside them in a meeting. They're not going to be honest. They're not going to tell us what they really want to say. And so they need to have that freedom to feel like we're their coach, we're not the parents' coach. So that is something that- That's really interesting. I was coming more from the parent perspective, but I like the student perspective as well, because in my mind, I was thinking, I know so many parents who just say, sure, you want to go to Timbuktu for college and you want to study blah, blah, blah, and it's going to cost a million dollars, sure. So there's a fine line there between saying yes and encouraging your children and then helping steer them. But then also on the flip side that I didn't think about, you have this student that needs to sort of take some ownership and not just do what the parents want. So do you have any tips for parents and for students on how they can better communicate about this whole process? Yeah, I would say most of the biggest, I won't say the biggest problems, but some of the hardest conversations we've had have not been with the student, have been with the parents. Ooh, tell, okay. We have to have those conversations and say, listen, you're driving your child crazy, your kid's stressed out, you're pushing too hard. We've got this under control. Take a step back and you're going to be happy with the results, but at the rate you're pushing now, the kid's going to crack. Or the schools that you're looking at are what you want, not what the child wants. Good point. And so sometimes we have to have that conversation where expectations of the parents sometimes don't line up with what the kids want. And the kids feel the need to make the parents happy, but they really want what they want. And so walking that line, and the thing that's very difficult is, and this is a hard dynamic, is the parents pay us, but we really work for the kids. Yeah. We're really working for the kids. And so we have to keep the parents happy, but really our job is to make sure the kids are happy and the kids are healthy and in a good place. And sometimes that means we have to, you know, sit down and have difficult conversations with parents and kind of explain to them why that list is different than the one that they were thinking in their mind and why the schools are the ones that are the best fit for them. And then we encourage the kids to have the conversations with their parents. But that's something, like I said, it gets back to the, you know, in their mind, when they're talking about where their kid is in college at their parties with the other parents, they don't want to say that school. They want to say a different school. And so that's where the ego comes in sometimes. Yeah, I hear that all the time. Like, I don't want my kids to go here, they're better than that or something along those lines. And we talked offline about this. I took a bunch of classes at my community college and it was incredible and saved me so much money. So I love to hear that you are coaching people through, it's the right fit, not exactly what you think you want. All right, before we wrap, because I can just keep talking to you all day. Tell me a little bit about what is in your book and in your app. Are they similar? Are they different? How does that work? Well, the app is based on the book. So the app takes the book and breaks it down section by, chapter by chapter into the chapters the kids follow, you know, starting with building the college list, building your resume, test prep, everything, every step they're going to have to go through is laid out in my book. We have a different chapter in the app that lays out how they do that. And then we have resources in the app that will assist them, resources for like finding an internship, resources for finding scholarships, resources for building their resume, you know, and actually creating a resume. And we're gonna be adding other resources in and our app is gonna be growing and evolving, but we're gonna be adding resources in on how to write the college essay, you know, the step-by-step process to developing, you know, a winning college essay. So all of that's gonna be in there. And we're gonna also, the kids that join the, that buy the app are also gonna have access to, we're gonna be doing monthly webinars where kids that have purchased the app can come in for a discounted rate into those webinars and find out more information about, and ask questions, find out. We're gonna hopefully have speakers, people, whether it be college directors or college admissions people on those so that they can see things and work and then maybe get a chance to ask their questions as well. The, and the main thrust of it, of the app is it takes the book and it really boils it down to the things they need to focus on the most and then gives them all the resources and the PDFs, the documents they need to do the worksheets and things like that. So they have it all in one place. They can do it on their phone, on the computer. It just simplifies it to the point where, to be honest, we're gonna be shipped, we're gonna be shopping this to, a lot of schools could use this as app for, I mean, schools really need to develop their college admissions programs. I mean, their college admissions advising is below, I mean, it's not always adequate. It's not always what it means. Sometimes they meet the needs of some kids, but they just ignore the high achieving kids because they feel like they'll figure it out. They don't need to write that much out. But this is gonna be a good resource for high schools to have the way they can, all the kids can have this app and it's something that the counselors can use to help them. It's just, I think as long as, what I want guidance counselors, and I've tried to get them to understand when, and because they still see us as not the enemy, but they see us like we're stepping on their toes. We really wanna help them. You know, I'm a champion for guidance counselors. I think they're great. I think they're overworked. I think they have too many kids. I think they have expectations that are unrealistic of what they can achieve. And our resources are meant to really make them look like superstars. Because when those kids get into school, you know who gets the most, the biggest pat on the back is gonna be the guidance counselors in the schools. When the kids are getting scholarships, that adds to that scholarship number. They get to quote it, their graduation ceremonies and all that kind of stuff. So in the end of the day, we're really on the same team. They just see us kind of, you know, I've heard the term shark thrown around like independent cost consultants there. We pray off fear and things like that, but really it couldn't be more opposite. We're trying to make them less afraid. We're trying to give them answers that will make them more confident and more successful. So it's not fear, it's really information that we're trying to give them that they just don't get enough of through the way it's done right now. I love it. So this is more personalized service than you probably get because I get it. I worked in schools. You have to be more general because you do have so many students. Okay, so parents, students, schools, libraries, everyone needs to get Christopher Parson's book, Entering the Arena, and just launched yesterday, his new app, College Arena. Is that correct on both of those? That's correct. And the full title, and I will happen to have a copy of my book right here. Yes. Entering the Arena. Okay. And it's turning college admissions odds in your favor. Okay, so I'm gonna link everything in the show notes, in the description on YouTube. I'll include links and everything so you can have all of that. I'll add your link is the best way for people to get in touch with you through your website or is there a different way? Yeah, through the website. And we have free consultations we do with families. So families, if they just wanna talk to us and get a plan for themselves, that's 30 minutes. We don't charge anything for that. That's really just kicking the tires, asking your questions. And if families leave that with just a plan that they can follow, it's worth the 30 minutes you take to sit down and talk with us. Okay. So quick summary, plan ahead and give me like a time, eighth grade, ninth grade, when should people start thinking about this? Students start taking high school classes in eighth grade. So I would say from eighth grade on, they need to be cognizant of what they're doing, why they're doing it, and everything will be affecting their college admissions from that point on. Okay, be authentic. Really just lead with yourself. And number three, don't romanticize it. Try things out. And I would say number four would be either get in contact with you, get your book or get your app. Am I missing anything? No. I just think that, and I think the more honest conversations that parents can have with students, and I want to say honest conversations, that also includes that comment you made about costs. I mean, what realistically can we afford? What realistically, because they can take that in two ways. They can say, okay, I know we can only afford this much, I have to get this much scholarship money. So that motivates them for the next four years to do what they have to do to get that tuition covered so they can go to that other school maybe that might seemingly be out of reach. But also if you don't, then understanding why those schools that might not be a good option for you to apply to. So we've seen families mortgage their own future to send kids to schools they can't afford. And we never advocate for that. To me, that's a bad decision for the student and for the families in general. I love that. I love that you were just so real and you're thinking about outcomes, which isn't college about getting a job and having a career and a future, not just about today and where you're going and where you can tell people where you're going. Okay, Christopher, this has been amazing. I could keep going, but I know you are very, very busy. So thank you for being here and please come back. I would love to talk about- Yeah, I hope we can talk some more. I have plenty more information that we could go through and that would be helpful for your people. Yeah, I would love to talk about smaller colleges that are available that people don't really look at. We didn't even touch on your work that you're doing to bring this to students who can't afford it. Yeah, that could be an entire episode. So if people wanna donate to help another child go through your process, where can they do that? They can go alloncollegeplanning.org. Okay, and again, I'll add that in the notes. So Christopher, thank you so much. It has been an absolute pleasure. I've learned so much and you have an amazing day and everybody out there have an amazing day too. Okay, take care. I enjoyed it. Thank you, bye.