Speaker 1: 0:36

This meeting is being recorded. Okay, welcome back to Speak Out. Stand Out. I'm Elizabeth Green and today's guest is Denise Thomas. Denise is a TEDx speaker, an international bestselling author and mentor to parents of college-bound kids. She inspires, educates and equips parents to take an active role in supporting their children to live a life of financial freedom and that sounds amazing. So I'm super excited to have this conversation. Denise, thanks for being here today.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for inviting me. I cannot wait to share this topic with your audience.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Yeah, and this is a little bit different than what we often talk about, so we have not really had this conversation before, and before we dive into how you started doing this, I want to preference that, even though we're talking about college and financial freedom, those things could seem so far away for some of us as parents. This is probably a conversation that every parent needs to hear, right? Regardless of the age of your kid.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Oh yes.

Speaker 1: 1:35

Okay. I didn't want somebody to hear like college and be like oh, this isn't for me.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Yeah, please. Let me just hit you with one really important fact. Private college scholarships begin in kindergarten, so I don't care how young your kids are. There are things that you can learn about now that will help your children in the future. So definitely, this is a topic for everyone.

Speaker 1: 1:59

All right Sounds good, and college, regardless of the age of our kids, will be here before we know it, right In the blink of an eye, and so I'm sure that's what you experienced too. You have two kids that were homeschooled. They attended college on numerous scholarships. Right, and tell us a little bit about how you started this journey with your own family.

Speaker 2: 2:17

Well, I was probably a lot like most of your listeners. We had not saved for college. We didn't have a 529. There was no college savings plan. Yes, I thought about it once in a blue moon. No, we never actually discussed it or put any money aside. But I learned later after the fact that my husband thought, well, just take money out of the 401k to pay for college, no big deal. I learned later that that's a really bad idea. So if that's what you're thinking, please don't. Okay, your financial advisor is going to tell you that's a really bad idea.

Speaker 2: 2:51

So, anyway, my husband was in a corporate job for about 15 years and he got laid off Twice Within a couple of months, two or three months timeframe. At about that same time, the stock market crashed. Oh my goodness, we lost our 401k in the blink of an eye. That was devastating. And we had just built our dream home. You know the one you thought you were going to retire in. So I put the house on the market. But we didn't have any takers because, with the stock market crash, the economy tanked. Nobody is hiring hint no job. And nobody's buying houses either. But you still got to pay your bills. You've got a mortgage right. So I saw the money running out really quickly and at one point I said to my husband we have no choice, we have to declare bankruptcy. But this bankruptcy was liquidation. That means if you could touch it, it was sold. That means if you could touch it, it was sold. Books, toys, christmas decorations, furniture, pots and pans I mean everything. And most of us have either been to a garage sale or had some ourselves.

Speaker 2: 4:19

But this is having strangers walk into my home making an offer on the pot I was cooking my dinner in. I had to ladle my food into a container and clean out my $200 Magnolite pot that I had gotten as a wedding gift and sell it for $5. But losing all the stuff we had built in 15 plus years was not the hardest part. We had built in 15 plus years was not the hardest part. The hardest part is that we had two very large dogs and now we had to move into an apartment so we had to let our dogs go to a new owner.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Oh no.

Speaker 2: 4:52

That Elizabeth was. The most devastating thing is to watch my children went into the house crying while our two dogs were being taken away by their new owner. But about three months later I'm sitting in this new small apartment and I realized my daughter's starting high school College is around the corner. How are we going to pay for this? There's no savings, no 401k, no house to borrow equity from, that bankruptcy. That means we can't co-sign for those student loans everyone loves to talk about. You see, your kids can only get a small amount of student loans on their own. The rest requires a cosigner. That cosigner it's you. So that took loans off the table for us.

Speaker 2: 5:51

Now what I started doing, the research and all my friends were telling me denise, you're starting too early. Wait till junior year for that, because that's what we're told. We've been hearing that for decades. Right, wait till junior year for all things college related. But in my research I found that there is a segment of the population not a large percentage, but there's a percentage or so that of kids graduating from college without student loans. The parents are not wealthy, they're not student athletes getting paid to go to college, they're not destitute and they're not geniuses. They normal people in the middle. We call it right because we make too much to pay for it and we uh, you know, make too much to get uh grants but not enough to actually come out of pocket with. It's what I meant, right? So, in investigating these kids that were making this work, I found some commonalities of what they're doing that's different from what the rest of us are doing, and what I found is that if you do what everyone else is doing, you're going to get what everyone else is getting, and that's college debt.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Yeah, you've got to think about the whole thing completely differently, and I will mention because this is, you know, a part of this same topic your kids need those communication skills and those critical thinking skills that they get with speech and debate. It's imperative that you have your kids in some type of program where they're going to learn these skills. It doesn't come naturally to probably 80 plus percent of the population. Most of us put us in front of an audience of any kind. We're going to freeze, right? It takes practice, right, yeah, and you can help your kids, even from a young age, to learn and get familiar with talking to people that are not family. I was thinking about this earlier. I know this is a little bit off topic.

Speaker 2: 8:07

We'll get back to the other in a second but you can have your four or five-year-old walk up to the counter at McDonald's with a $5 bill and say order a large fry. They're going to stare at you like you have lost your ever loving mind, your child. Okay, go on, I'm watching you. You're cool and tell them you're short. You barely make the countertop. You have to put that $5 bill on the counter and you leave your hand on the money. That will get their attention and they will ask how can I help you or what can I get for you? And you just tell them large fry, please. And after they hand you the fry, wait for the change, bring everything back to the table. Trust me, your kids can do this. It's hard, though right I mean, it's not something that we're so used to taking care of our kids.

Speaker 2: 9:01

And we don't think about it.

Speaker 1: 9:02

We don't, we don't and we're busy and all of those things. Yeah, that's something we try to incorporate too. Or if we're having pizza, you call and order the pizza for us. My son just got his learner's permit yesterday and I said, well, you can't drive until you call our insurance company and talk to them about adding you to our policy. Obviously, it's our policy. I have to be on the phone too, but these are things that you have to do, right? But I'm interested because this is something, obviously, with my business being centered around communications. It's something we think about a lot in our lives. But I'm really interested to hear how does this apply to the college and debt picture that we're talking about?

Speaker 2: 9:40

Okay, so apply to the college and debt picture that we're talking about. Okay, so here's the thing In doing this research, I found that there were these common things these kids were doing and I didn't know what worked. I had no idea. So, daughter being the guinea pig, we put into place everything that sounded remotely logical there's that word again logical that might impact college acceptance or winning scholarships. Fast forward to her junior year. The last half of junior year, in the spring, she applies to her first college and this is a college that basically has checkboxes at the top that asks which semester did you plan to start? We figured nothing's going to change in the next six months. You know from March to August, what's going to change? Her GPA is not going to change. Her activities aren't going to change. Go ahead and fill out the application. Why not Get something over with? And plus, you know it's always good to have your kids get a win in early.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Just saying so, three days after she submits this application, we get a phone call from the college asking we received your daughter's application but we did not receive the application fee. And we'd like to offer her tuition fees, room board and books, but we need the fee to process the scholarship. What now? Hold on. I got my daughter on speakerphone and she is about to jump up and down for joy. I can see it in her eyes and I'm doing the hand across you know the karate chop hand across the neck going uh-uh, something's not right. Colleges don't call you. You know what. Usually if they miss the check, it's going to end up in a pile waiting for that check and that check would never come because how would I know she didn't send it right so then I asked him you do know she's a junior he said yes, ma'am, we'll wait for her.

Speaker 2: 11:39

There was something in this application package that had them sit up and take notice. Well, at the same time, she had applied to her first private scholarship. This was a national scholarship for $10,000. And I'm telling you, elizabeth, you're going to hear other parents, and even your high school counselor is going to say things like don't bother applying for national scholarships, we don't, we don't promote applying to those because nobody wins those and I'm laughing all the way to the bank. Ok, she won that ten thousand dollar scholarship, ok. Well, my daughter applied to eight colleges, and these were private and public schools across three states. We heard similar things at other colleges. Now my son is five years younger. Can we do this again? Yes, we can. Between the two of them, they attended college on 17 scholarships totaling more than $199,000. Wow.

Speaker 1: 12:47

So you didn't pay a dime for college.

Speaker 2: 12:49

Nothing, matter of fact. They had cash left over. Wow, my daughter had $4,000 left over and my son had $10,000 left over after four years. But I had no intention of bringing this to the masses. I was done. Matter of fact, I did a happy dance at my son's high school graduation Yay.

Speaker 2: 13:12

But my husband and I, when we dropped my son off to college, we bought a 42-foot motorhome and went full-time RVing for five years, because when you're not paying for your kids to go to school, it's your money and you get to spend it and have fun. But the whole time we were on the road, I kept getting emails, text messages, asking my friend told me I had to call you. What did you do? This is where we are. What do we do next? And, elizabeth, I found myself copying and pasting. I don't know. Here's what we did. There you go, there you go.

Speaker 2: 13:54

And at some point during our travels, my husband said you know, we've always owned a small business of some kind. During our travels, my husband said you know, we've always owned a small business of some kind. What can you do while we're on the road? I'm already doing it. I'll just get paid for it. That 7,000 hours of research has got to be worth something, right. So that is when Cracking the Code to College went online and I started working with other families, and the results have been nothing short of miraculous. Elizabeth, nationally, less than 1% of kids are offered a free ride scholarship to go to college. Much fewer 0.3% have enough scholarships combined to cover their cost of college. But 100% of my families win scholarships of some kind and 31% have enough scholarships to cover their entire college costs. This process works.

Speaker 1: 15:04

That's incredible.

Speaker 2: 15:06

And it works, elizabeth, because of what you're doing, thinking about the things that no one else thinks about, like communication, leadership, character. Colleges are not looking for that jack of all trades, that well-rounded student. That's a miss. That's another three decades old process, not what they're looking for today. Yeah, that word well-rounded comes up, but they're trying to build a well-rounded community within their college, right? So if your kid and they've got hundreds of clubs to fill on those campuses, where do you fit? Well, if your kid plays chess and is the captain of his chess team, or maybe even he is the founder of the chess club, maybe he competes in chess. Well, you've just told the college your kid is likely to be in their chess club, right? So you know there's no trick or gaming the system to this, it's just understanding what's on the other side of that computer, who's getting the application and applying to the colleges that want your kid. You know there's so many opportunities.

Speaker 2: 16:39

But here, here's the cool thing that I thought about a few years ago Didn't even hit me until my daughter mentioned it, because she's in the business arena. She owns four businesses. So what she said is that, mom, everything that you are teaching in your course is also important to employers. So, even if your child is going straight from high school into employment, everything that we're teaching belongs on their resume. It's what colleges are looking for and it's what employers are looking for too. Yeah, you know. But there is one thing that college, that employers you see, colleges you know they're taking what you've done in high school. Employers yeah, high school, but also college. But over the last decade they have noticed some things that are missing in their new employees, their new post college graduates, and one of the most important things is communication skills. They have to get that.

Speaker 1: 17:44

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so what? So you know we're talking about what I said, like what seems so far away from any of us with younger kids, but you said these are things that we need to be thinking about now, and I know you have a whole program on this, but what are some key things or some tidbits that you can drop for us today that we can start thinking about that would start benefiting us as we start to explore this whole you know this whole path and process.

Speaker 2: 18:14

Well, if you have middle school kids, grammar school kids, truth is, whether you're homeschooling or not, you are your child's teacher Hands down. You cannot leave everything up to their school. They are there to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, science, history. That's it. The rest of life that's up to you. So you've got to teach them, even in the younger years. Let's say they've got. You've got elementary school kids. Well, first of all, I did mention there are scholarships for elementary school kids only about 20 for, say, age 13 and under, but there are hundreds of scholarships for age 14 to 17, before high school seniors, and then there's literally millions of scholarships for high school seniors, and then there are more hundreds of thousands of scholarships for current college students. Don't ever stop looking for free cash.

Speaker 1: 19:15

So that's tip number one, and I just want to stop you there really quickly because I'm so glad you said that. When you said earlier there are scholarship opportunities for elementary school kids in several minutes ago I thought you meant for private schools You're talking about there are scholarship, college scholarship opportunities for our little babies.

Speaker 2: 19:33

Absolutely. It's crazy and you can look it up today. It's the one that is for kindergarten, is called the Doodle for Google Scholarship and that one goes all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade and it's literally a worldwide scholarship. They give out so much money I have not been able to figure out how much they're giving. I've tried, I've Google, searched it. I cannot figure out how much they're giving. I've tried, I've Google searched it. I cannot figure out how many of these scholarships, but they started like a thousand dollars.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Wow.

Speaker 2: 20:08

Right, and you know your kid wins that Well. You open up a nice savings account at the local bank and you're starting their college, yeah. So yes, they can start getting money early.

Speaker 1: 20:21

Okay, that's amazing. I'm glad you elaborated on that. Thank you, cause cleared my confusion just a little bit, not confusion, my assumption, I guess. So that's amazing. Okay, all right. So that's step one. Don't stop looking for the money, okay.

Speaker 2: 20:33

That's right.

Speaker 1: 20:35

All right. What's the next thing that we can be doing at home?

Speaker 2: 20:37

So, so, another thing to do when your kids hit middle school, sixth grade, seventh grade, your job is to give your children as many opportunities as possible to find their passion, to find the activity that lights them up, the thing that they wouldn't be the same child without it. That's integral to who they are. Because here's the thing If I ask a mom of a 12 year old hey, I see Johnny's playing ball, Is Johnny going to play college ball? Well, mom's going to say I don't know, he's 12. Well, sorry, to bust your bubble, he's not. Because those kids are picked out at age eight. I have seen them. It's phenomenal to see those children. It's literally like watching Tiger Woods at age four. You know what I'm saying. I mean, it's crazy. So now, why is this important? Well, here's the thing At age 12 or 13, you know your kids, like I said, they're in middle school. If your child is playing baseball since age three, you have a couple of questions to ask. We already know they're not going to play college ball, but that's okay. I'm not saying they got to quit. But now the question is does he love what he's doing, or is he or she just showing up because mom and dad have been dropping them off since they were three years old, two or three times a week, and it's just what we do. It becomes the thing you know, the status quo. If he loves it, that's cool. We can work with that Because, as I mentioned earlier, colleges are looking to figure out where your kid belongs.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Where do they fit into the campus community? Well, if your kid isn't good enough to play college ball and that's an assumption at this point colleges have intramural sports between the dormitories or they form little clubs themselves and they play against each other in team sports. So you have told the college that your kid is doing that. Now how do you tell them that? Okay, well, your kid may or may not play ball for their high school. Okay, well, your kid may or may not play ball for their high school, but maybe they play rec ball that's cool during high school.

Speaker 2: 23:13

Well, now let's expand this a little bit so that we can showcase his love of the sport. He can be a little league coach, assistant coach or referee. He can hold skills workshops on the weekend or even a summer camp during the summer, and one of those could be something he gets paid to do. That's entrepreneurship. Every one of those things goes on. The college application slash high school resume and because baseball has shown up more than just once, he plays rec ball. You're showing them where your child fits and what their passions are. Doesn't have to be just one thing, but you should probably limit that kind of scope to no more than two. So find what your child loves, Give them opportunities. There's a lot of stuff available, a lot of things it doesn't have to cost money. Look around your community, Look just outside and driving distance even YouTube. Figure out what it is your kid loves and then they can really take that away and expand on it during high school and it becomes something that it's integral to who they are.

Speaker 1: 24:31

I think this is so interesting that I would have never expected. Granted, it's been so many years since I filled out a college application right and haven't looked at those for my kids yet. I would not have ever thought to put intramural ball or something like that, you know, or rec ball or something like that on a college scholarship. I think so many times we're conditioned to think it's all about the grades and the GPAs and the test scores, but there's so much more, really, like you said, that they're looking for.

Speaker 2: 24:59

Yeah Well, it's who you are, you know, yes. Said that they're looking for yeah, well, it's who you are, you know. Yes, they're looking for grades and test scores and course rigor. That tells the college will you pass and graduate. That's a big deal, but will you pass and graduate is just one piece of the puzzle. You've got to tell them who you are and what your character is, what are your ethics? Right, and they can learn that through the activities.

Speaker 2: 25:30

I mentioned earlier that communication skills is something that employers are seeing that's woefully lacking throughout the last 10 years and it's been getting worse. Why? Because everybody's on their phone. That's why, okay, Kids can't communicate anymore. But if they're in team sports, we already know that shows teamwork. If they're in a leadership role in the team sport, they have to communicate with those that they are working with, Right. So there's, and you can go through almost any activity that your kids are doing and list out some of the traits and skills, soft skills. We call them soft skills in my day Today. They call them professional skills. That should give you an idea. You're not a professional if you don't have these skills, but you can probably figure out what skills they're learning. You don't have to list that. Oh, my kid learned. You know I'm Johnny and I learned these skills taking this sport. Nah, they already know that. That's the whole point of listing the activities in the college application.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Gotcha, okay, all right. Well, this is very, very helpful already, and I know you have many more tips and all of that that you can share with us. But since we're out of time, almost out of time, and forgive my dog for being very noisy in the background, can you share one more great tip with us, and then we'll drive people and let them know where they can find out a lot more and work with you too, right?

Speaker 2: 26:55

Well, this is gonna blow your mind even more If you have older kids. You've heard the term test optional, that colleges are test optional today you don't have to turn in a ACT or an SAT score, okay. So, first of all, that's a miss, because even those colleges that have been test optional in the last three years still want the test scores. How do I know that? Because colleges that are test optional are accepting kids with test scores 250% more than those without. Oh, wow, okay. And somebody asked me yesterday well, how do you know that? Because I can do the math.

Speaker 2: 27:44

All of this information is in the common data set. If you love research, go there, okay. But if you're not, someone who's going to read, even like you know, medical research and statistics and all that kind of stuff and numbers don't bother, because it'll just blow your mind and be more confusing. It's just a bunch of numbers and all that kind of stuff and numbers don't bother, because it'll just blow your mind and be more confusing. It's just a bunch of numbers. But do not wait until junior year to take those exams. There is no minimum age or grade level for any of them.

Speaker 2: 28:20

The kids that I researched that are getting free college started taking these exams in middle school. I kid you not, not for the score, just take it cold. You're going to go in tomorrow morning. You're going to fill in bubbles. Learn how to fill in bubbles. You might be able to answer a question here and there, but I don't care, because that means nothing, means absolutely nothing. The point is to get your kid ready to understand how to fill in these bubbles by themselves. And there's going to be nervous right the first time they take it, but then after that, and I'll tell you I've got clients that tell me this is flipping genius have your kid take either the ACT or the SAT exam at the end of the year, spring, early summer, every year going forward, spring, early summer, every year going forward.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Let that be your personal exit exam as a family. They take it at the end of eighth grade, end of ninth grade, end of 10th grade, so that's three times Okay by the time. Now, as you go along, you're not just saying here, go, take this test. As you go along, you're adding test-taking strategies so they're learning how to take the test as they go. And, of course, as they go along, they're getting more and more not only familiar with the exam. But now they're getting some skills, some actual skills in understanding the questions right. They're getting the content as well. By the time junior year comes along, this is when it really counts. At this point in time, your kid is going to be going to take this exam at least once, maybe two or three times during junior year and, unlike literally everyone else in that room, your kid's not going to be nervous because they've taken it.

Speaker 1: 30:18

Four times already.

Speaker 2: 30:20

Yeah, they know the types of questions and the instructions like the back of their hand. They can practically look at a section, not even read the instruction to go straight to the questions, which saves time. But here's the other thing the paper exam. I'm going to qualify that the SAT has gone digital. This year there is no more paper exam for the SAT. There is still a paper exam for ACT. I don't know how long that's going to last, but the paper exam. There are three exams per year that they allow you to pay a little extra money to get the exam, your child's answers and the answer key. Oh wow, Now you got something to study from, you know what they got wrong, right, Right.

Speaker 2: 31:15

But because these exams are starting to go digital, they're not going to have that available for probably another five years, if at all. Because the point of having this option for the ACT it's called Test Information Release, TIR the reason is that they are retiring some of these exam booklets. They might as well get a little money out of it. So the last time they offer that particular exam, they go ahead and let you pay extra to get the copy of it. It's really a great strategy.

Speaker 1: 31:46

That I would have never thought of that. It is, like you said, flipping genius, and it's interesting because this is what you is. What we tell our kids in our speech and debate classes. We say the way you get better at anything is by practicing right, Whether it's shooting a basketball, doing public speaking or, in this case, taking a test. That is really, really genius, I'm going to tell you. My 15-year-old is probably not going to like your idea very much, but he needs to take it now. Yes, we need, we need to practice Right, and you're exactly what I remember feeling nervous, you know, taking it and you're in a room with people you don't know and there's feel so much pressure, so to take the pressure aspect away from things while they're practicing, I can see that just being well, and think about it this way If there's a really good chance, they've never even been in that school before, right, because it may not be offered at your school.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Right. Well, this was really, really helpful, denise. I personally am so interested in your program and learning more as we're turning that curve and, like you said, even with my 10-year-old, I should be thinking about things with him, not just the one in high school. So I am really interested. I know you have a freebie for our audience and you also. You know you do coaching. You have a program, so tell us a little bit more about what people can learn from you and what you have to offer.

Speaker 2: 33:02

Awesome. Well, I actually have a couple of freebies, because I don't know what the age group of these families are. Could be middle school, could be high school, maybe a little of both. So I'm going to offer two freebies. One is for early high school or middle school. It's called Are you Wasting the Middle School Years, and it expounds on some of the stuff that we talked about today. The other, for high school, is 12 Scholarship Secrets Tips from Prestigious Scholarship Judges. And that one is a checklist, 12-point checklist. Before your child hits the send button for either scholarship applications or their college application, check this list first. This is the things that the college admissions have. Looked at it and said, eh, and it ends up in file 13. We don't want to do that, so we want to check these boxes.

Speaker 1: 33:51

Amazing and I have one last question for you, denise All these scholarships that your children got and that you have worked with other families for. Obviously we said, grades are important, test scores are important, but if you have a student that just is not a great test taker or just has struggled a little bit keeping a really solid GPA, should we count these scholarships out?

Speaker 2: 34:12

for them, or can we say there's still plenty of opportunities. I am so glad you mentioned that. The vast majority of private scholarships that are out there. Who wins them? Well, there are organizations that keep track of that. The GPA of the kids that are winning the majority of these scholarships is a 2.6 to a 3.4 GPA. Wow, these are not geniuses. And that 200 grand my kids won half of that money, literally $100,000 worth did not ask for GPA or test scores.

Speaker 1: 34:47

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2: 34:48

Anyone can win these things. Anyone can win. But my website is getaheadoftheclasscom Getaheadoftheclasscom and you can find me there, and if you pick up one of these opt-ins, one of these little freebies, you'll be on my email list. Just know that I don't send a lot of emails. If you get an email from me, it's because it's something I really want you to know about and it's going to be very special for you.

Speaker 1: 35:14

Well, this is so helpful. I, like I said, I'm so excited that we've had this conversation. It's helped me personally and given me a path of where I need to look forward and move forward with. I'm sure other people feel the same way. If you are interested in connecting more with Denise and getting her freebies, go grab them. You can get the links to that right below this in the show notes. And again, we really appreciate your time and your expertise. What a what a great gift you are giving parents in these times of thinking how am I going to pay for this? And honestly, I must say I never expected this conversation to be emotional Like we at the beginning. You know you never expected that. So this conversation really kind of blew me away and I'm really just really grateful for you taking the time to share with us.

Speaker 2: 35:55

Thank you for having me.