Speaker 1: 0:38

Welcome back to Speak Out. Stand Out. I'm Elizabeth Green and today's guest is Leigh Norwood. Leigh is a nationally recognized leader in college consulting and the founder of College Sharks, with a mission to lower family stress, save time and money and find the perfect college fit for students academically, socially and financially. So, leigh, thanks so much for being here today. We're glad to chat with you.

Speaker 2: 1:00

I'm happy to be here. I love your mission.

Speaker 1: 1:06

This is going to be great. So our listeners parents right that they're looking for ways to build confidence and communication skills in their kids and in ways that will benefit them for life. But today we're looking a little outside of that box and looking down the road a little bit to imagining the days when we send our sweet babies off to college, which for some of us can seem so far away. But, as I was just telling you, my oldest son is just starting his junior year and I'm having that realization that, oh my goodness, we're getting very close, very quickly. So I'm excited to have this conversation with you today about how we can prepare ourselves and our children for that big transition.

Speaker 2: 1:43

Perfect. It is a huge transition and it's a huge financial commitment as well. You know we think about those stressful times in our lives. You know getting married, having a child, buying a house and then boom, college. You know it's more expensive than a car, so we go right there under buying a house for families. So it is a stressful situation for parents and for kids. My rising seniors right now, or my rising freshmen in college right now, are in the soiling, the nest stage, where they're just going to be as bad as possible and make their parents just angry. So they're glad to get them out of the house. And it's a phenomenon, it just happens.

Speaker 1: 2:23

That's so funny. I saw something about that recently and the same kind of idea of like making it easier for us to say okay get the heck out, okay.

Speaker 1: 2:32

Dropping you off route. Well, so let's start with um. I have one like oh, I have several questions for you, but looking back, when I went to college, I went to an in-state school and so that was obviously cheaper for us, but I was able to qualify for financial aid and loans and I don't remember it being a very stressful time for my family. Is that because things are so different now? I mean, is that stuff just not as readily available as it was in the early 2000s?

Speaker 2: 3:02

So it's just a very different situation. So let's just think about it. When I went to college, I went to Elon College in North Carolina. I think it was $7,000 a year, right, it's almost $70,000, $65,000 now. So just that. So we've got inflation in pricing. Then we've got grade inflation and all these kids A is like the most commonly given grade these days. So then we had test optional going around, so there were more kids applying to the same number of seats at schools. So things got more competitive.

Speaker 2: 3:37

But what you just talked about, like there's two ways to lower the price of college. One is through merit aid. That is the merit of your student. Did you put forth the best application? Did you pick the right schools to apply to, where those schools want to say, hey, I want you and I'm willing to discount tuition by X to get someone like you. That's merit aid. That's primarily kind of my wheelhouse.

Speaker 2: 4:03

But you talked about some grants and things and sometimes that's financial aid and the proxy for that is the FAFSA. It does have to do with your assets. The government does not want you to go into debt or use your retirement. They'd love you to be in debt, but they don't want you to use your retirement to pay for college. So the FAFSA is that number for need-based aid so you could get a Pell Grant from the government or the FAFSA will tell you how much the country thinks you can afford for college. Whether you can or not, and sometimes schools will fill that gap the difference between what their true cost of attendance is and what the FAFSA says your family can afford. That's a gap and sometimes that gets filled with need-based aid. So there's two ways to lower the price of tuition, but both are really contingent on putting the right schools on your list.

Speaker 1: 4:57

And how do we do that? I mean, besides, just like I'm in South Carolina, my son thinks Clemson is amazing. That doesn't necessarily mean he is the right fit for Clemson and Clemson is the right fit for him. How do we get them to look outside of what they've grown up like, the sports teams they've grown up cheering on and look for you know what is actually going to benefit them?

Speaker 2: 5:17

That's a great question and I think a lot of times it has to do with what state you come from. I mean, you're in South Carolina. There's a lot of awesome in-state schools in South Carolina. You go to a smaller state, say Delaware. There's not a ton of in-state schools for those kids to pick from. In a smaller state like Maryland, those kids are wanting to go out of state. The lowest price straight up is always going to be that in-state tuition because you paid taxes in South Carolina. Therefore, you're going to get that in-state pricing. Colleges don't have a lot of leeway, though, to lower their tuition from that in-state down and your room and board. That's a cost that's flat for everybody. So that is always going to be the lowest tuition immediately. But don't overlook those schools like, say, furman and Davidson. They started a much, much higher price tag, but they have a lot more leeway to lower their cost of tuition to attract your kid if your student is somebody that they want on their campus. So when you're building your list, I always tell kids to have one or two in-state schools, because anything could happen at any time in your life and you need to be closer to home and then go out from there.

Speaker 2: 6:31

Find out what you like Is a big school. What you want Is a lot of green space. What you want what majors are really popular. International business is great at USC. If you want to go to University of South Carolina and you want to go into nursing, you better be really good, because it's not direct admit and you have to figure out if you can get in after your sophomore year. It's really really competitive. So would it be smarter for you to also look at, say, an ECU and then maybe an Elon, right? So you're not going that far away, but the program may be direct admit or have lower barriers to entry for your kid.

Speaker 2: 7:09

You really have to go and see schools, though, and I made that fatal mistake and I knew, and my daughter can say, mom, we need to go, we need to go visit schools, and I'm thinking, oh, we have plenty of time. This is what I do for a living, and you know the time crept up on us, so send them with friends that are going, get them to know what they don't know. They don't know. They can name 10 schools. Three of them are going to be Ivies, others are going to be sports teams they watched or places their friends went. There are 3,000 schools in the country. So if you're going to lead with price, that's one thing. If you're going to lead with major, that's another thing. Weather, I mean, there's lots of different things and there's lots of different options. I do find often homeschool kids like to go to that two years of community college first, and then potentially transfer to their four-year. There are subtle nuances around that track too. There's no wrong way to go. You just kind of have to know the rules of the road.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Well, I like that you said. This is really interesting to me because one of the first things I would have looked at it would have been price and think there's no way we can do that. And so you're saying like we need to take that out of our head because there is flexibility, there is wiggle room in the right situations. Right, Correct, 100%, Okay. And I love too that that you said considering weather and things like that. I guess, because I didn't.

Speaker 1: 8:30

I just kind of knew where I was going to go to school. It was close to home, it was a great school and didn't do any of the college tours or anything, and so it's just interesting now to think about how we're really maybe maybe these things were happening and we just didn't do them. But I feel like where I grew up, everybody was either going to Marshall or WVU. Because I grew up in West Virginia, that was your choice, you were going to go to one of those, and so it's really eye-opening to think about. I could tell my child really think about what you want out of life and whether you like those are. Just that's really cool, I guess. I think maybe we should be looking at college the same way we look at, like when we move out or when we graduate, Like where do we want to live? Like I chose to move south because I like warmer weather. You know, I never would have thought to have my child think about those things when they're making that decision about college.

Speaker 2: 9:19

And they have those choices they truly do and they're not sure that they do so. Here's a quick story about me. I just didn't want to go to Maryland. I don't know why. It's a phenomenal school, but I was that kid who needed to leave the state and all of my friends either went to Maryland or Towson. That was just where they went Two great in-state schools. I jumped in the car with a friend. I visited every single school in Virginia and North and South Carolina with that friend and her mom and there were Clemson. It was homecoming. When I went it scared me.

Speaker 2: 9:50

There was so much orange I was like, oh my God, I don't see myself here. Oh my gosh, I went to Elon's campus landed. I did get invited to a party, I'll be honest, but I knew that was where I wanted to be. And I came home and told my parents I'm going to Elon and they said, well, that's not in the budget. We will pay for in-state school. Well, guess what? Elon ended up being less expensive than Maryland for me because I did get that merit scholarship. I did write that extra essay. I was the kid that that school was recruiting then. And if you think of that small school in North Carolina when I went, it was the answer to a Sunday crossword puzzle for the New York Times. Now it's a school a lot of people know about, but they were recruiting kids from Maryland and New Jersey. I fit the wheelhouse and I went for less than in-state.

Speaker 2: 10:35

So you want to just stay open Anytime you go anywhere. Go to the college that's around there. You'll be so pleasantly surprised. And if your kids of age 10th grade or higher, they can kind of start absorbing. Do the official tour. Go get them excited about high school. I mean college. They love high school. Right now College is terrifying for them, but the more exposure they have, the better it's going to be.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Yeah, I love that, just really opening up the door for them to think about so many options that they truly have. And back to what I said before, I love that you're telling us to not fixate so much on the price to start.

Speaker 2: 11:11

And here's another really quick tip for you there are states your state included, west Virginia, alabama, mississippi, some other states like that that they are not graduating enough college-bound high school seniors to fill their school. So there are in-state spaces available for out-of-state kids. Right, alabama has it in a grid, so does Ole Miss. If we want you and you get in and you have this GPA and this test score, you'll get this much money. So a lot of big Lance Grant schools will be very they'll disclose that. A lot of the private schools. There's more subtle nuances into who gets that merit aid.

Speaker 2: 11:52

But parents don't know that. They don't know that. They don't know that the top neuroscientist in the country now is at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Center at WVU and that is where you should go if you want to go into neuroscience. So there's just. It's just you said is it different? It's so different. It's just so different now because kids are spreading their wings and they want to go overseas as well. They want to. Everybody studies abroad now, like we're just a much more open country and world to these kids than when we were presented with the opportunity. That makes sense.

Speaker 1: 12:27

Well, how do we, how do we prepare our kids so that they are set up to where they can get these deals basically, you know, from colleges, from the colleges they want? How do we help them to prepare? And I know you said test scores and test scores are important, and I have such a love hate, you know, relationship with test scores and test scores are important and I have such a love-hate relationship with test scores. I think everybody does. But it's about more than that, right.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Way more than that. I'm going to quiz you. I'm going to quiz everyone listening. Take a minute and just tell me what you think. The number one thing and the first thing a college admissions consultant is going to look at when they open your file, your student file. What are they looking at?

Speaker 1: 13:04

And please don't say well-rounded, it'll just show your age, I would have guessed GPA and ACT or SAT scores.

Speaker 2: 13:11

Right, it's curriculum. So when we talk about curriculum, you've got the homeschool curriculum, so that becomes almost more on the parent or the group, right, how are you going to make sure you documented your student's journey the right way? Because you are the college counselor, typically as the parent. So there's ways to do that. If you're in a traditional high school, they're going to look at the high school profile and say this school, xyz High, offered these courses and this kid took them all. They offered Calc AB. She took Calc AB. She also took physics, chemistry, bio and honors bio and this she wants to go into engineering. All of that lines up for us.

Speaker 2: 13:52

So did you take advantage of the curriculum your school offered? If your school offers APs, it's great to take them. If you don't think it's in your wheelhouse, don't, life's stressful enough, do what's comfortable. But if you're chasing and you want to get those scholarships and you want to do that, they're going to look at what classes did you take. So course selection is huge, huge, huge, huge. Then how'd you do in those classes? And we don't care about weighted. Weighted just tells you the class rank in your school. We're going to go back and say, oh, that was an honors class. That was an AP class, that was an IB class. We're going to know from the curriculum your rigor. Then we want to know how you did.

Speaker 2: 14:31

And then test scores are back. They matter, they show college readiness. And guess what? We don't teach kids how to take standardized tests. That's why there's a whole racket of businesses, one of which I own, that teaches you how to take a standardized test. And how do you get better? You take more tests. How do you get better at baseball? You practice and you play. There are free resources out there but you have to get good at it.

Speaker 2: 14:55

So that kid that's like oh, I wasn't feeling good that day, I just went in and took it. I didn't do that. Well, it's your future. Put your big girl pants on, go to Khan Academy or find some way to study Aisley. Is this new thing? All the kids are doing now on their phone they get like questions every day and get your brain thinking about how to answer these questions. Because it's going to help you get in. It's going to help you get into a highly selective major Like I want to get into direct admit nursing they might have higher requirements than not and it's going to help you get merit aid. So testing's back, it matters. It never left at some places. Some places like MIT brought it back because removing that barrier of entry just made everybody and their mother who had a 4.0, decide that MIT was in their wheelhouse, their mother who had a 4.0 decide that MIT was in their wheelhouse. You can smell those MIT kids coming. They're different. They're just a different kid that wants to be at that school where I feel like the molecules are just buzzing around your head. It's such a cool feeling. So those three things don't tell me if your kid's a good person, a nice person, anything. They're just numbers.

Speaker 2: 16:04

So after that we look at leadership in a few activities. Don't run around like a chicken with your head cut off. Do stuff you love, do it over time, keep doing it, turn the volume up. Don't do it if you don't like it. Life's too short. And then can you write a good, compelling essay. Can you tell me who you are? That's the first time we get to meet your 17-year-old self and we know we're reading a 17-year-old essay. And then those teacher recommendations which, again, depending on where you are, if you're homeschool, that's a little bit of a different pathway. We have a homeschool expert on our team. I love listening to her coach parents on how to make sure they do their part of it the right way. And then, like Elon guess what? They were recruiting people from Maryland when I wanted to go. So I got a little gold star by my name and I didn't do anything but get born in the right state and those things are kind of out of your control. So yeah, I hope I answered your question.

Speaker 1: 17:02

Yeah, no, I think this is great and so one. You talked about extracurricular activities, and the cool thing is now that one of the cool things that came out of COVID is virtual learning and opportunities where kids can learn anything that they want. What we do is we teach speech and debate through virtual platforms so kids anywhere in the world, not just the USS can take speech and debate even if their school doesn't offer it or even if they're homeschooled, and I know that that's a very valued extracurricular. On the college level.

Speaker 2: 17:36

It's huge I tell everyone if you don't do anything. Please take speech and debate. I can't wait to get all of your information out to all of my kids, because being able to do it when the school doesn't offer it is huge. Like it just presentation is everything.

Speaker 1: 17:51

It's everything and the confidence that it builds and all of that is tremendous. I once read that that is the second most sought after extracurricular on the college front, only behind being an Eagle Scout, which an Eagle Scout obviously takes so much time and leadership and all of those. So I just and I don't know if that's still the case, but that was something that I read and just thought that's, that's such a cool thing. And now kids aren't tied to whether or not it's available in their town. They can take anything they want. So is it better for kids to go deep down in an activity that they really enjoy or is it better for them to have exposure in lots of little things?

Speaker 2: 18:27

Okay. So these days they want pointed and focused kids, right? So if you think you want to be an engineer, it would be great for you to do things that explain that interest, that delve into that a little bit more. If you think medicine is maybe in your future and you can really major in anything and still become a doctor, you just have to pass the MCAT. But it would be great. Let's say I want to go to Wake Forest, so I'm going to shadow a doctor one summer. Those kinds of things that lean me towards. This is going to be a great pre-med kid. If you scatter pattern yourself that just looks like you're trying to fill a gap. But I will say let's say you want to be a doctor but you absolutely love your art course, I want you to do it for four years.

Speaker 2: 19:10

If you can Go deep, Do things for a longer period of time. I would rather see you do less that you love, things that you really love, than try to do more and throw in one more Habitat for Humanity or one more. You know food gathering, for you know the food bank and also blending your things. Let's say you're on a team. Your team has team dinners. You can turn that team dinner into. Everybody brings two things for the food bank. Now you're on the volleyball team. You're having these team dinners. Two things for the food bank. Now you're on the volleyball team. You're having these team dinners. You've turned these team dinners into almost a wonderful volunteer event and you're taking X pounds of canned goods to your local food bank. That makes sense to me because you're using your time wisely, You're doing what you love and you're helping others.

Speaker 2: 20:01

So I love that speech and debate. Yes, it also will save your ass at Thanksgiving, because I have my daughter can shut down an argument Like you would not believe at the family dinner table, because it's speech and debate, you know, and it that's just a higher level of leadership. It's a higher level of who you are and being able to communication is key. There's a huge difference with my kids who are involved deeply in several or just a few activities, and my kids that are running around going, oh my gosh, what do I do? And those that are involved deeply can explain it. They can talk to you about why they can ask questions. The other kids can't. When I have a student that says, well, how do I ask that? Well, what do I say, Well, what do I put in the email? We need to learn some autonomy. We need to learn to communicate, we need to learn to answer questions. We need to learn to be intellectually curious and know that that's okay and a lot of kids are missing that they truly, truly are yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:03

What do you say to the parent who's listening to this? And they're like my child has no idea what they want to be when they grow up. Is there a suggested path for that? I know business seems to be the thing that most people go into when they don't know what they want to do, and I think that's probably a great, great one, but would love to know what your thoughts are if we really don't know.

Speaker 2: 21:24

All right. So I didn't know until I was 50. So let's just be honest, right? I did not know what I wanted to be. I did go into marketing and I loved it. I ended up with a minor in English because I loved English. So those were the classes that I took.

Speaker 2: 21:36

There are several ways to go. There are people that do what I do, that will say you've got to fit to your major and, boy oh boy, you better make sure you know what that's going to be. I'm not rigid like that. I do think college is a time of discovery. I do think 17 is almost too young to even go. The boys' frontal lobes aren't closed. I mean, there are schools that have wonderful discovery or undecided programs. Sometimes the kids will live together. They'll have a meeting with their advisor every week.

Speaker 2: 22:04

Colleges are set up to help you discover who you are and what your strengths are. If you want to know that before, there are lots of assessments like there's a Berkman assessment. We will give to kids that what are your natural strengths and tendencies? That will then show them careers they may flourish in because of their strengths and then the prices and the amount of money they may make in that career. So if you are that progressive thinking and you're like this is what I want to do when I grow up and am I going to make money, you can look at it that way.

Speaker 2: 22:38

I would say probably 80% of the kids change their major anyway, so you need to go someplace where they're going to be flexible and let you know. Yes, you can. At American University you can change your major as many times as you want. At other schools, you're going to end up a fifth year if you change your major. So kind of knowing what you like before you go in is important. But using the resources at the college is the most important thing. They're there to help you. They want you in and out in four years. They want you in and out in four years. It makes their stats look better. They want you to wear the t-shirt, come to alumni events and donate money. They're a business and that's what they want from you. So they don't want to keep you till six years. It messes their stats up.

Speaker 1: 23:22

That makes sense. That makes sense. So one other question for you is what do you specifically say to the homeschooling mom or dad that's listening right now and they're thinking what do I need to start doing today to make sure I'm setting my kid up for success?

Speaker 2: 23:38

If you're part of a program I know there are a lot of different homeschooling programs people are involved in. Definitely dig deeper into that and use whatever their resources are. I would tell most homeschool families it's not always the best thing to go right into a community college. That student's going to miss that whole first year experience that you cannot replicate. The four year journey is just really, really, really different. But I appreciate the price savings and the ease of just matriculating right into community college because they accept everybody and then you worry about being a transfer student later. You need to keep copious notes because you are the keeper of the information, you are the guardian, you are the school counselor and after that I'm going to tell you you probably just need to talk to my partner because that is not my ballywick Document, everything.

Speaker 1: 24:34

Okay, all right. And then last question for you, is college still? So again back, whenever I was growing up, it was like you're going to go to college, you're going to go to college, you're going to go to college. College is everything, and I'm so glad it went. It was a great experience. It changed the course of my life. But as a mother, I look now at my kids and think is college still as important as it was 20?

Speaker 2: 25:00

years ago. You're asking a jaded person because I love a continuous learner. But, truth be told, I have a Marine who hated everything that there was to do with school and had to go to like night high school. One summer I was like our family doesn't do night high school, what are you doing? He hated school. He is a US Marine. He loves it. He's in his third year. He is thriving. He is right, exactly where he needs to be.

Speaker 2: 25:25

So I don't think college is for everyone. I do think that the trades are going to explode soon and you're going to see a lot of schools having offshoots that lead you that way. You're going to see a lot of high schools being able to push kids through a little bit faster. Maybe they come out with an AA and a specialty and some sort of a trade. I think you need to do what you think that you love.

Speaker 2: 25:46

I always ask kids what are their? What's their? Why do you want to go to college? That's my first question, and I will tell you that 90% of them say it's because what I? It's what I do next. Yeah, I would never do it differently.

Speaker 2: 26:00

I loved college, everything about it. My husband didn't. You know two years and done out wasn't his thing. So is it as important? Heck, yeah. If you want to be a lawyer, a nurse, a doctor, have a specialty, an engineer, yeah, you need to. And then there's some businesses, as antiquated as it may be, they're not even going to look at your resume if you don't have a four-year degree. Want to go into pharmaceutical sales? Not happening unless you have a four-year degree. That may be antiquated thinking and you may be a better salesperson, but there are barriers to entry to some jobs. But I have both in my family and I just want everybody to be happy, take care of their mental health and try to follow their path, and your path can be unique and different. So don't follow the herd, step back, think about what you want for yourself.

Speaker 1: 26:47

I think that was a fantastic piece of advice and it applies to all of us as adults and our kids. So, lee, well, this was a really great conversation and if people will make sure we link to everything so people can find your socials and tell us really quickly about the College Sharks program that you offer, if somebody is like I, need a lot more help in this avenue right now.

Speaker 2: 27:08

Well, yeah, I just I didn't want to self-promote, but you went earlier. You said, yeah, I just I didn't want to self-promote, but you went earlier. You said, gosh, you know, covid did give us great online learning. Well, I think that learning word is is a lot of different definitions. They also gave us ability to turn off our computers and not learn a darn thing, but get through a class right. So, if you are willing to watch and learn, that's why we developed College Shark. So we drop monthly content what you need to be doing, why it's important and how you do it in a series of short videos, and we have a whole homeschooling track on that. This is a way for families to not get stressed out. We give you a two-year calendar. I'll have it. You can link it in your bio. Everybody can download it.

Speaker 2: 27:47

What do you do? Junior and senior year by month. If people ask what I do, I say I save family relationships and stress because you don't need to do it all at once, but you do need to take bite-sized chunks out of it as you go. So College Sharks was a way for me to duplicate myself at a much lower price point. It has a workbook. Gotta love a workbook that becomes your college application at the end of that junior senior year. Push, you have everything in there. You've got your activities, you've got it all in there. So that's why we developed it, because we didn't want the barrier to college to be that maybe the high school didn't support its kids well enough, or the family it was first generation didn't know how to support their kids. Here's a resource where you can use this to know how to do it correctly. It's fun. The main character is a shark. He's awesome. She's awesome Whatever you want her to be, and so that's super fun. It's college sharkscom. We have the junior year, the senior year, we have just essay. We have a senior sprint.

Speaker 2: 28:45

For those of you who are going oh my gosh, I have a senior and I haven't done a darn thing. Super easy to get caught up. You won't have as good of an application, though, because you weren't making these decisions earlier. Elizabeth, your family's in that hotspot right now. Your student's about to go in the most important year of their life, the last full year of grades. More testing will happen than ever before. You're like, oh, all I need is more stress. So if you could break it down into monthly, bite-sized chunks. That's what the college sharks do. That's what you need to do and lean on your counselors at school and things like that. That's what they're there for. There's not a teacher out there who doesn't want you to succeed. They're looking for eager, happy, excited kids. They don't want to be caught up in a behavioral challenge or with the kids that don't like school. So show them that bright side of you and you will have an advocate for life.

Speaker 1: 29:36

I love it. Fantastic feedback and everybody listening. Those links will be right around the video wherever you're listening to it or watching it, so be sure to go check out College Sharks. I know I am absolutely doing that today, lee, again really appreciate your time. Thanks for being here and all your insight.

Speaker 2: 29:50

Thank you. I love speech and debate. Girl, I can't wait to send some kids your way.

Speaker 1: 29:57

It is life-changing, really is.