Well, good morning. Welcome to another edition of College Coffee Talk with your hosts, Pearl Lockwood and me, other guy, Andy Lockwood. Good morning, Pearl. Good morning, Andy. Happy day after Father's Day to all of you non-birthing parents out there and fathers. And I'd like to add a very, very heartfelt happy Father's Day to one of the best fathers I know. I am grateful and lucky enough that you are the father of our four beautiful children and You stand as an amazing role model every day and make me proud and make them proud. Thank you. I'm all blushy. Well, we had a great Father's Day. Had some lobsters and burgers and dogs. Yeah. We combined on the food prep. Yes. She did a disproportionate amount of the tabling and setting up. And we all helped on the cleanup. Yeah. So anyway. Hope you all had a great holiday. Yeah. So. Join us in a synchronized sip of your coffee or other beverage. One, two, three. And let's talk about what's happening today on the show. But this is always the time where I point out if you have any questions about either what we're talking about or other college-related questions, this is a show where we talk about tips on how to get into college, how to pay for college. whether it's even worth going to college, how to get more out of going to college, anything related to college. If you have some questions, this is your free opportunity to get them answered. And we're here. We're here to answer those questions. So feel free to pop them in to the comments section. I'm going to say good morning to our friend Nancy Davidson. Hello. How are you? And I hope Will had a great Father's Day. I hope the family did. And congratulations on Alex's graduation. Oh, that's cool. Isn't that unbelievable? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I was reading her essays like yesterday. Yeah. Okay. That was a quick four years. Yeah. That's great. Congratulations. Very cool. So I think we have a really good show today because we're going to talk about two things. One is some of the, I guess, mistakes that people make in appealing things. financial aid awards, and I must say, the one that you came up with today, I just happen to have this here. I don't think I covered in, this might be our best-selling book of all time, the one we've made five figures from, How to Negotiate Your Crappy Financial Aid and Merit Aid Offer. I don't know if I covered your specific point that you addressed today in our production meeting, ours. So that's the first thing we're going to talk about because I think you're doing a very valuable service by illuminating us on some of the bad mistakes that people make when they are appealing. Right. And what you're going to be talking about has some good aspects and some not so good aspects. Yes. Which is the case I think with most appeals. Second thing we're going to be talking about are the importance of life skills that we're pretty certain do not get taught in college. And this is based on- And it's often not in the household. Yeah, right. Well, they may get taught, but perhaps not applied. Right. You do learn them at some point in your life. So this segment that is coming up afterward is predicated on a conversation that we had with our daughter who's doing an internship in the city and giving us feedback on what she's learning on the fly in her beginning I guess second week or third week. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's talk about how to, how to, how to screw up. What not to do. Again. Wow. It's so aptly fits into our new segment that was started last week. Don't do this. But. Are you implying that we're doing that segment today? Cause I didn't prepare for it. No. Well. Don't do that. Okay. We'll go over this during our next production. Well, don't mention the segment if you don't have content for it. That's the segment. If you're doing a show and your partner says that you have a segment that's upcoming and you really don't have any content for it, don't do that. So here's the story. I have a family that I'm working with whose son is appealing his award to Does it matter? It doesn't even matter. This is universal. It's a private school. It's an expensive school. It's a popular school, trendy school. And the best appeal that they have is the fact that currently with their 2022 income, their income falls in a need eligible position. 22. 22. The operative base year that your financial aid award is based on he's a 2024 graduate the financial aid forms this year were based on 2022 tax return and this family's 2022 tax return had an income that had them in a need eligible spot in terms of so that's the first thing we look at and then in terms of their assets um they have not an overwhelming amount of assets but they happen to have a lot of equity in their primary residence. I'm trying to interrupt that because I know I hate when I do this. You may be wondering, well, if their income was in the right spot, why did they get a financial aid award? That's a different discussion, but basically they applied to the school without telling Pearl and she never submitted the financial aid applications because they just thought magically somehow that they were going to be sent over there. Right. I'm good. I'm not that good. You're very good. Thank you, but I can't read minds. Anyway. So they got no financial need based financial aid. And furthermore, so not only is it on its own, that's a disconnect. This is a school that gives more than nothing to need-based families. They are need eligible right on its face. Yes, they use the CSS profile. So yes, they can certainly attribute the equity, which they show a lot of in their primary residence. However, they have very low income that is not going to be successful with a cash out refinance. That is a perfect argument to make on appeal in this case. This time I don't mind interrupting just just to clarify this is a sidebar one of the arguments that pearl just mentioned is If a school penalizes you for having a large amount of equity in your house, but your income is so low the argument that you've got to run this down yourself and do a little bit of homework on is that a Bank will not allow you to access that equity because of your low income. They have a debt to income ratio requirement. That's right And this varies. So this is just but this is just an argument we look for frequently. And in effect, the argument is it's not real. It's phantom equity because we can't possibly access it in order to be able to pay for college. So that's just to connect the dots there. So that's but that's related to income. Right. So so far, we have a very good, compelling, strong appeal. We can all agree it's better. Then I said, well, what has your 23? By now you have filed your 2023 tax return. How does 23 look in comparison to 22? Oh, it's much worse. It's actually, and she submitted her 23 tax return. I'm analyzing it, comparing it to her. Her income went down by 30% in 23. Yet another very strong appeal argument for having gotten no aid. And also supporting the refi. No bank's going to lend you if your income drops. We have a need based on its base. We have equity in a home we cannot access. And furthermore, we have a 2023 income that's worse, 30% worse. Very strong appeal argument. Fine. We draft the letter, tell her who, how, where, who to send it to, exactly what to attach, et cetera, and so forth. It's ready to go. Time's a ticking. Remember this, we always talk about the train that keeps on going. And she comes back and she says, wait a minute, wait a minute. It says on the school site that they also will take as credit of special circumstances, medical bills and elder care. So I said, oh, okay. But this is sort of the first time you're mentioning it. It probably is not an overwhelming amount, but who am I to judge? Let's hear the facts. Let's get the facts. How much are we talking about in out-of-pocket medical expenses in elder care in total for 2022? It's about $2,500. Oh, okay. So You want to now, when we have an amazing set of three circumstances of strong appeal, you want to now cloud up and murky up that argument with two completely unimportant diluting factors that are going to potentially confuse the financial aid officer who you are hoping very quickly sees exactly what your point is and says, oh, of course we have to give this family more money. Instead, you want to potentially add things that are going to confuse and say, what, what? Oh, you know, when you say too much, I used to be a prosecutor for Queens County. And one of the best things I learned from a bureau chief, when the judge agrees with you, Shut your mouth. Stop talking. You've made your case. Same here, okay? You don't say, here's my fork, here's my spoon, here's my kitchen sink, here's my every... You don't want to vomit all over the financial aid office, okay? You want to make You want to be, think if you are reading it on the other end, what is going to convince you? You come out with your strongest arguments. You don't throw in the kitchen sink and you're clear and you're concise. So I absolutely shut her down. I said, absolutely not. It is not important. It's going to weaken your case. Stick with what we went with and we'll see what happens. This just happened. So I can't give you the hopefully happy ending to this tale, but I will give you an update when I get one. I just can't believe someone told you to shut up. Bureau chief? No. Well, yes, a bureau chief, but nobody really told me to shut up. Yeah. Stop. Just stop. Quit while you're ahead. Oh, okay. Don't, you know, put your foot in your mouth and, like, I'm going to stop this segment now. No. I don't want to dilute it. No one puts baby in the corner. No. Uh, so yeah, I, I think the, um, two other comments, uh, I think are appropriate here is number one, you know, what, what you might get from the financial aid officers and more of an eye roll. And it's just like, okay, really? Cause you're, you know, you are establishing a four year relationship with these financial aid officers, with every communication you make and it goes in a file. So, and this is a school that Pearl noted is fairly generous and that we found them to be reasonable. the client's really deserving of probably $30,000, maybe more dollars. They may only get five, they may get zero because it's too late, but it's a four-year process. So this argument is not just a standalone one-year thing because next year when they reapply for aid, they're going to be using the lower income. Anyway, that's one thing. The second thing is some of our clients, and this is not the one I'm talking about specifically, but some of our clients who are self-employed, have some fairly low income on paper because they might have taken advantage of some tax strategies from their accountant. And sometimes there are maybe real estate investments where they depreciated the asset to knock down the value, but that's really more of an accounting thing. So sometimes when you're making appeal and you get a little too aggressive with perhaps extraneous arguments like this, you might be opening the door to them taking a closer look at everything that you previously submitted and going over it with a fine-tooth comb and then saying, oh, OK, well, we're looking at your appeal, and we actually have a few more questions about your business. And can we take a close look at your P&L, profit and loss statement? And it doesn't happen that much, but we've seen it happen before where a couple of clients push things a little bit over the line and then actually had aid taken away from them because of their legal, but I would say aggressive accounting or sometimes bad advice. Sometimes stuff they did that was not on the up and up before we came into the picture. Like the essays, what you choose to write about and how you choose to write about it in a financial aid appeal matters. And you have to be woke to what the person on the other side, little W traditional historical woke, not nowadays last five seconds woke. Right. Juneteenth W? You have to be cognizant of what the reader and the person who you are advocating to is going to, how they're going to respond to what you're saying matters. Yeah, and it's not just the hair down in front of your nose. It's what's the relationship you're establishing. All right, so again, if you have questions and comments, you want to throw them in, we would very much appreciate them. And I see some people here. Good morning, Heidi. Good morning, Nancy, again. And Diane and Robin and Gloria and Connie said great points. Thank you. And Mita and hello to Pearl. She's watching. Oh. So everything you're saying right there is actually a good segue. Pearl's talking about persuasion and how you communicate and all that. So I want to switch to the skills that definitely are not taught so well by most colleges or families or other entities. And this is based on an experience that she's continued to have. Our daughter's doing the internship, and there's a sales component to it. And she's with kids from mostly very elite, Colleges who are business majors who got a paid internship at this firm, which is you know, it's a pretty good firm It's not it's not like Goldman Sachs or something like that, but it's a you know, it's a reputable firm I've been very impressed with with everything that you know the whole structure and the compensation scheme and seems like a very very well thought out well structured firm and during the role-playing section when they were had a script to work work off of but they were supposed to be asking their perspective client or perspective expert, indirect client, some questions. She said one of the kids from an Ivy League school just couldn't even open his mouth. He was so nervous. He couldn't even formulate a question, even though the outline was right in front of them. Whereas our daughter does not have that hang up. I mean, she's a smart kid, but she's not necessarily something like a wharton kid or something like that but she actually has a performing arts history just as a hobby which I think proves very helpful in this instance well it does and and as a segue um you know sometimes people ask me about majors and I never think theater is a bad major um because you learn how to present and how to articulate and and um you're not afraid to talk to people right so so she was struck by how And she got some positive feedback, which of course we like as parents, but what was also striking was sort of how low the bar was with all the other people that were in her little group. And that's one of these things where we have a bunch of clients who are business owners and people who are in positions to hire kids out of college. We have a bunch of human resources department heads and higher-ups. And they kind of have all said the same thing to me for years. And I just had this conversation last week with the guy who walked into our new office and we just moved our office. And the guy who owns the chocolate and coffee place down the street, but who actually really liked a lot of Terry, he walked in, did not have any samples. But we were talking about, you know, hiring people. Right. And he said the same thing that all the other people I just mentioned said, which was that, yeah, he interviewed someone recently for a job, and the kid couldn't talk at all. And what was even worse, but again, fairly commonplace, was that the kid's mom was right there, and Terry had to ask her to leave the office. Don't do that. Don't do that. Here's the emergency don't do that segment. Right. No. So anyway, the point here is that – Maybe it's because kids are so immersed in their phones and texting and snapping and communicating that way. They're losing some natural ability to be able to communicate. My hunch is that it's something more than that because that's been going on. This dynamic has been going on at least as long as we've been college advisors where I've heard about moms showing up in interviews and all that. So whatever you do, whatever your child goes into in terms of a major, I think you'd be very, very well served to address this issue of learning how to communicate and articulate and persuade Because you need that in any career. It's not just sales at all. You really need that to advance in. You can be a researcher or any type of job where you're working with other people, which is basically every job. The people who make the most money are not necessarily rewarded for their competence and expertise, but they are rewarded for that plus their ability to be able to advocate for themselves and to do their own PR and speak up. So there's numerous ways to acquire those skills. you know, there's all kinds of training classes and free stuff online and, you know, whatever, but my point is think about it. It's a learnable skill, even if these traits don't come naturally, you can learn these things and just mimic them and fake it till you make it. But these are required skills in life for success. Yeah. I mean, I'll, this is going to sound funny, but you know, I'm not particularly extroverted, you know, I recognize that I'm, I'm, these, these types of presentations and where we were costumes and all this other stuff, you know, I mean, I may not come off that way, but, um, this is not necessarily, it was not a natural thing for me. Like pro was the performing artist growing up, you know, I played sports and you know, this is, I would, I would argue this is something that would come a lot more natural to you. But I knew that in order for us to be able to, you know, do well in business and earn the income that we want to hit and have the influence, you know, and help as many people as we can help, uh, I needed to, to learn these skills of persuasion. Well, I need to get over myself. And I need to do things that were out of my comfort zone. And I have spent literally six figures worth of investment into learning how to market and persuade and articulate. And I just told you I signed up for another training. Once we actually, I guess, land that in a few weeks, I'll tell people what it is, but it's really funny. Who's actually going to be coaching me? Someone that I'm guessing everyone watching this has seen on TV or somewhere. Another example of a theater kid who is successful. Yes, who's pivoted, used his skills to be successful. Yeah, to have a career that's not a theater career. The unifying theme here isn't about that major or this major or that school. It's about the individual, the object, the operator and how, how much are you going to go for it? How much are you going to, you know, get out of your comfort zone, take risks and develop the skills that are needed and welcomed and compensated in our society. So, so last week, somehow a reporter for the Epoch times or, or the one of the sister companies of the Epoch times, I know, subscribed that they're very interesting group of people they're refugees from communist China who founded this media platform and he was asking me about you know advice to get the most bang out of your buck for college and so so because they're doing some sort of video series and the point I brought up was really just that which is that look it's okay to look at majors and and the colleges that you're applying to and there's something called college scorecard which tracks salary if starting salary information compares that to their majors because that's now in the irish database and schools are releasing information about what kids majored in and matching up with their social security number so it's a little creepy too but um it's it's interesting but what I said all of those stats and rankings and ideas overlook are kids efforts you know what are they What's the input that they're doing? Are they joining clubs? Are they showing up at job fairs? Are they going to the career centers at each of the colleges and trying to get help that way, being paired up with alumni for internships and all that? So that's the X factor that you can't really measure, and I think arguably way more important than where you go to college. I would agree. Yeah. Anyway, it's all interesting stuff, and I think it's important stuff, and it just doesn't really get talked about. So that's kind of the theme of this show. All right, so Nancy wants to know, can you appeal for dental school? Yeah, why not? I don't know why. Any place that offers money or doesn't offer money, I think you can appeal. We are going to wrap up here, but if anyone has questions, hello to Denise, Laura, Kathy, and Shakir. This is considered this last call for questions, and if you're listening to this on our podcast, The College Planning Edge, It's our public podcast. And if anyone can get in touch with us, you can check us out at lockercollegeprep.com. We have a webinar coming up on Thursday that's going to be covering the latest changes and information on the digital SAT because our head tutor, Marissa, just went to a conference where the college board spoke. And there's some stuff in there about how they're scoring the new digital SAT and how to prepare for it that she didn't know about. So she picked up a bunch of good information that she's going to be sharing that with us. It's going to be Thursday. Not this Thursday. Not this Thursday? No, it is not this Thursday. It is. Why not? Do we have a conflict? I have a conflict. Yeah, no. I'm going to be interviewing Marissa. Oh. Okay. I won't be. Yeah. She's playing golf. For charity. Yes. For the kids. It's for Play for Pink. For the boobs. For cancer research. For the boobs. Okay. That's offensive. I'm pro-poop. That's offensive? All the other stuff I said was not? Not today. I'm not trying hard enough. Anyway, so that's going to be Thursday night. without pearl it's gonna be with marissa sorry it's a webinar I hope you go low I do too to you know for cancer research not just because you want to play a bit of golf um play well golf and um yeah so if you have any questions whether you're listening on the podcast or you're listening or you're watching us on here on replay put in the comments or just reach out to us on our website localcollegeprep.com and we'll answer them pearl any Closing comments from the floor. None. Just have a great week. Pop in your questions and anything you would like us to talk about that's college related, let us know. Bring it on. Bye-bye.
