You can read the full transcript below for more details from this discussion.

[00:00:00] well thanks for being here this evening my name is kevin conover and i’m the host of educate for life radio down here in southern california we’re on k praise

[00:00:07] 12 10 a.m as well as fm 106.1 uh and of course we’re all over the uh internet all over

[00:00:14] social media and uh you know one of the big things that my students have to constantly deal with uh we talk about

[00:00:20] this all the time we talk about college because i i’m a 12th grade bible teacher christian apologetics teacher um at

[00:00:26] christian high school down here in southern california with pastor david jeremiah and the students are all you

[00:00:32] know excited for this huge big change that’s

[00:00:37] coming in their lives to graduate but they’re also a lot of them very nervous about you know what’s happening next with

[00:00:42] education what’s happening with uh you know the decisions they’re going to make am i going to pick the right career am i going to be able to make

[00:00:49] enough money to to be able to do well and to to have a family and to buy a home and and of course one of the big

[00:00:56] issues that comes up is you know getting into their colleges they’re applying to a lot of colleges and so

[00:01:01] uh they’re they’re taking their their sats and they’re also concerned about the cost of college it’s constantly an

[00:01:07] issue that comes up they’re weighing between colleges and saying can i afford to go to this college this is the one i really want to go to but on the other

[00:01:13] hand this one’s more affordable and of course this is an a very pressing issue

[00:01:19] i was doing a little bit of research on this issue before the show and i looked up how much has the price of

[00:01:25] college increased since 1970 and what i came up with it says here during the same period uh tuition and fees at

[00:01:32] private institutions jumped by similarly astronomical two thousand one hundred and seven percent from one thousand

[00:01:39] seven hundred and six dollars in nineteen seventy to thirty seven thousand six hundred fifty dollars in 2020 between 1970 and 2020 the dollar

[00:01:47] had an average inflation rate of 3.87 percent annually resulting in a cumulative price increase of about 567

[00:01:55] percent during the last 50 years and so the this is uh absolutely incredible the

[00:02:02] cost of education has gone up 567 percent average inflation has been 3.87

[00:02:10] and so um it’s pretty uh daunting for a lot of young people as they’re embarking on getting an education for that reason

[00:02:17] i have a great guest with us this evening who really speaks to this issue her name is jean burke she’s a

[00:02:22] homeschooling mom and creator of college prep genius it’s called you can check it out at

[00:02:28] collegepopgenius.com and she’s worked with thousands of high school students and their families not only helping

[00:02:34] students with the sat and prepare for the sat but also helping students attend college at

[00:02:41] little or no cost and she’s been featured on fox news cbs nbc abc and

[00:02:47] as well as many other stations and the homeschool channel also and so um she has a lot of insight after 15 years of

[00:02:55] dealing with these issues and uh gene thanks so much for being on the show this evening thanks kevin for having me absolutely uh

[00:03:03] so how did you get uh you know how did this become what you do i mean you’re traveling to this is i met you at a

[00:03:08] homeschool convention and so this is how we uh you know you’re you’re you just came from the florida convention i think

[00:03:13] that has 15 000 families or something like that um what made you decide to get involved in in this particular area and

[00:03:21] help families like this well it definitely wasn’t something i set out to do uh you know some

[00:03:26] 17 or 18 years ago when my son was in ninth grade we literally had no money for college

[00:03:32] zero because we were a one-income family homeschooling and we did want our kids to go to school

[00:03:37] but there was just no money and i was at my friend’s house one day and she happened to mention that there was free

[00:03:43] college based on a test score well i never heard that but i thought well maybe this is a way

[00:03:48] we can get some college money uh but we didn’t have any money to spend on one of those expensive schools that may or may

[00:03:54] not work and so with my son josh very helped her skelter we did a lot of

[00:03:59] different things we bought some books at the store we took some local classes we went through tons of practice questions over and over and

[00:04:06] over again and short story long he became a national marriage scholar

[00:04:11] and over about a year’s period we ended up throwing away about seven trash bags of

[00:04:16] college offers and these were offers that came in my mailbox for a whole year full ride free tuition free room and board free grad

[00:04:23] school free study abroad stipends honors dorms i mean the list went on and on

[00:04:28] and then after my daughter got scholarship money my friends were all wanting to know what how did y’all get free college how did you get all

[00:04:33] scholarship money and ultimately i wrote a book started a class at my home

[00:04:38] teaching other kids on how to beat the test because at the time i did not know that 85 percent of colleges will admit

[00:04:45] and give money just simply based on a test score and so once i created this little class that i

[00:04:51] started my home i had people from other cities wanting me to come and teach it another and school started wanting me to come to

[00:04:57] their schools other states and now i’ve taught in several other countries as well so it seems like free college is a theme

[00:05:04] all across the board no matter where you live or no matter how much money you make yeah nobody’s gonna nobody’s gonna turn that

[00:05:11] down uh it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from uh that’s a issue that all families are looking for help with

[00:05:17] and uh a lot of families are dealing with um you know trying to weigh the pros and cons of where do i

[00:05:23] put my money i’ve got a limited amount of resources here and and what do i do um you know when when a family is

[00:05:30] looking at something like this and they’re trying to make a decision about where they they should send their kid to college um you know what kind of do

[00:05:37] people come to you individually and get help or is this simply um purely through your website

[00:05:43] explain to us um how your organization works so we have been primarily a test prep

[00:05:49] company uh because of us getting free college based on test score we put together a program on how to beat

[00:05:55] the s.a.t and act and psat clt all these tests um so most of the time people just

[00:06:01] come and they too they they take advantage of our classes which are can be a virtual bootcamp it could be an

[00:06:07] online e-course self-paced or we also do live boot camps as well

[00:06:12] um bc before covid um we were all across this nation teaching classes and then we

[00:06:18] got shut down they started to resume i was in washington state just a few days ago um next week i’ll be in gainesville

[00:06:25] florida then from there i’m going to go to gaithersville maryland so we have classes resuming for a lot you know in

[00:06:31] person but you can do our self-paced or our virtual class as well but but then i started getting into just

[00:06:38] the mechanics of paying for college not just the test score definitely but also

[00:06:44] um just taking people step by step through what you should be doing every you know

[00:06:49] every grade how to pick a college how to pay for college so that’s something we definitely have incorporated into our

[00:06:55] you know into our company because there’s there’s a lot getting in the doors definitely and getting it paid for is great but there’s

[00:07:01] other steps that you need to take like applications and essays and transcripts um and so we’ve definitely started um in

[00:07:06] that area as well so uh you know um how young do you start with this sort of a thing um you know

[00:07:13] when when i i’ve got a you know i’ve got a fourth grader a sixth grader and a friend and a ninth grader um how how

[00:07:19] soon do you start that process of um you know working towards you know eliminating as much of the cost as

[00:07:25] possible for college probably yesterday yeah no so the sooner you start the more time

[00:07:32] you have to improve if you’re talking about test prep we have sixth graders seventh graders and above who do our

[00:07:37] program now doesn’t mean every sixth grader’s ready because they’re not um but here’s the thing you can’t get time

[00:07:42] back and so test taking is just like any other any other skill like like a sport or a piano

[00:07:51] um it’s debatable the great thing about learning how to take a test and unfortunately the reason why smart students even

[00:07:58] valedictorians bomb these tests all the time is because it takes a different skill set

[00:08:03] and they’re based on logic and critical thinking which is not taught in most schools and so most students will not

[00:08:10] not have a score that reflects their gpa and so once you understand that there are no

[00:08:16] new questions a standardized test has standardized questions and standardized answers and

[00:08:21] so these tests are beatable you you don’t study for the test you study the tests themselves you learn the recurring

[00:08:28] patterns and once you learn the recurring patterns and then you just practice and accuracy before speed so once you

[00:08:34] learn that you can start answering questions in 30 seconds or less because you get about a minute per question but

[00:08:40] most students are just going to spend two or three minutes and then burn the clock up um so if you have like like right now

[00:08:46] rising senior don’t think it’s it’s too late because it’s not i’ve seen amazing miracles and you still have

[00:08:52] plenty of time but you don’t want to put the pressure on those seniors or even

[00:08:57] the juniors if you don’t have to if you can start them earlier what it’s going to do is it’s going to

[00:09:03] help them lessen that chest anxiety and help them gain that chest maturity because as they get older and they get

[00:09:09] further into high school they’re going to get busier with more school more homework maybe a part-time job maybe sports friends clubs

[00:09:17] and they’re so busy that it’s very difficult to squeeze one more thing into their schedule so this is why starting

[00:09:22] test prep is so important that you do it early we do we teach in a lot of schools public school private schools even charter

[00:09:29] schools and it’s something that you can incorporate into your school or in your home if you’re homeschooled and you can

[00:09:36] call an elective so yes it because there’s no instant success and you can’t

[00:09:41] shortcut the shortcut you definitely want to start early okay and um for parents that are

[00:09:47] listening and you know families that are you know looking at the different classes they have to take and how to fit

[00:09:53] these things into their schedule um is there a recommended age to start uh you know it always cracks me up

[00:09:59] sometimes when i’m at the homeschool conventions there’ll be a family going by and i’ll say hey how are your kids and they’ll say

[00:10:05] they’ll say oh one and uh three and and i’m thinking to myself wow wow you’re here you’re really getting a head start

[00:10:11] and uh they you know they uh it’s great and and i asked them you know and they say yeah we’re just

[00:10:17] preparing we’re just starting and we want to get a head start and i think that’s really cool but you know

[00:10:23] is there such a thing as too soon to to invest this time or do you have an age at which you say yeah now is the time

[00:10:30] where you really need to dig in and make this happen well absolutely and of course there’s no one-size-fits-all but there’s a general

[00:10:36] rule um for your younger kids i would definitely incorporate logic and critical thinking into their schooling

[00:10:42] whether they’re in homeschooled or not um because since all these tests basically whether you’re taking an sat

[00:10:48] maybe a gre an lsat an mcat they’re all standardized logic tests

[00:10:54] and they’re going to test you on your ability to answer questions under pressure in a short amount of time they’re not testing you on law they’re

[00:11:00] not testing on medicine um they’re testing you on your thinking skills and so

[00:11:06] younger kids should definitely be taking you know incorporating some kind of uh logic which is is a needed

[00:11:12] skill that we that we are lacking for sure in many schools um but you know if i was

[00:11:18] gonna say ideally you know i would say probably no later than eighth grade if possible now we we’ve had a couple fifth

[00:11:25] graders which again that’s extremely rare a good you know a good amount of sixth graders but a ton of seventh

[00:11:31] graders and definitely eighth graders and above because those students um can

[00:11:36] help will have time to really solidify the information so they can apply it appropriately and the more you go over

[00:11:42] it because you’re going to retain about 10 of what you hear the first time so you really need to internalize it and that’s going to take you several times

[00:11:48] to hear the information um and get faster of answering questions quickly so um but it doesn’t but you might have

[00:11:54] someone may have a sixth grader that’s ready someone may have not they their child may not be ready until ninth or tenth grade um but what you don’t want

[00:12:01] to do is wait to the last minute because these are not like normal school tests school tests you can cram for it’s a

[00:12:07] bunch of information that you learn in the classroom and then you regurgitate it back out on the test these questions are not content-based

[00:12:15] and they are derived from all over the place so there’s no studying for them and that’s why

[00:12:20] it’s important that people realize that you know and i think this is what happens a lot of times a lot of test prep companies unfortunately

[00:12:26] will teach you families and sometimes it’s for thousands of dollars they’ll teach families like more math concepts

[00:12:33] and thousands of vocabulary words and grammar and they’re re-teaching school all over again and they’re just wasting

[00:12:38] a family’s time and money um because it’s not about how much information you can cram it’s about

[00:12:45] how to look at a question how not to be tricked by it and know that they use the same patterns and the same trick answers

[00:12:51] on every question that’s really interesting yeah i was doing a little bit of research on this and i i thought it was very interesting

[00:12:59] exactly what you’re saying is what i what i read about this was from nbc news it said um

[00:13:05] while the new s.a.t format may be less stressful for students in many ways it is this stress which colleges have

[00:13:10] historically been testing colleges have used the sat to judge a student’s adaptability and problem solving

[00:13:17] capacities the sat uncovers the student’s ability to solve problems quickly students must learn to be

[00:13:22] flexible rather than rigid in a hurried environment successful sat problem solving has historically depended on

[00:13:28] emotional self-management um and that was so interesting to me that like you’re saying it’s not about

[00:13:34] facts and memorizing a bunch of facts or anything it’s really about um

[00:13:39] answering questions and uh under pressure in that environment um

[00:13:45] explain that to us a little bit more when you say the focus of the test is on logic it’s on um you know problem

[00:13:52] solving what does that mean as far as how does that play out in the test uh um you know

[00:13:59] are they asking people riddles or you know what’s going on here exactly no i know and i’ll break down the different

[00:14:05] sections for you uh and just as you were saying about that article which is a really good article i i’d love to see

[00:14:11] that because that was great and here’s another reason why colleges use sats and acts and that’s because

[00:14:17] they know that a 4.0 at one high school is not the same at another every school calculates their scores differently so

[00:14:24] the only fair way to compare all students equally whether you live in california or texas or florida or your

[00:14:30] home school or public school is a test like an sha because it levels the playing field because some kids might

[00:14:35] take hard classes hard school and another kid has easy school easy teacher easy classes and they have the same gpa

[00:14:43] so on paper they look the same so there has to be some numerical element that’s common to all applicants

[00:14:49] is why they use these these tests but so for example in the reading portion and we’re not talking sat i’m

[00:14:55] also talking acg as well and even psat and even clt and that is because

[00:15:00] um the every college takes sh or act does not matter they’re accepted by a hundred

[00:15:05] percent ecologist and they’re about 99 the same test so there’s a crossover

[00:15:11] information that you can use on both so there’s no need to study for two different things same thing with the psat

[00:15:16] um so for example what about when it comes to um to higher level tests like the lsat or the mcat is

[00:15:23] that the same principle there is that yeah completely okay if you think about it if my son’s an attorney

[00:15:30] if you if you think about it if you’re going to go to law school you don’t know anything about law they’re not going to

[00:15:35] test your law because you know nothing that’s the whole premise of you going to law school so they’re going to test you

[00:15:40] on your critical thinking skills so yes i i show a lot lsat questions and quite

[00:15:45] mcat they’re not going to test you on medicine grad school these these tests are all the same they’re all the same

[00:15:52] they a standardized test is written in a way that there’s one objective indisputable

[00:15:57] answer and several distractors and once you learn that you can attack the test completely different than you

[00:16:04] would if you would like cramming for a bunch of information so same premise uh but let me let me

[00:16:10] explain a little bit about like you talking about are they riddles so for example the reading portion of the s80 and act

[00:16:16] english class you would read a passage and then you would answer questions that go with the passage

[00:16:22] if you do that to the essay or act you’re going to do terrible because there’s five different types of questions and they’re all answered

[00:16:29] differently and the answers are found in the exact same place every time so you can skip 75 of the passage and still get

[00:16:36] every answer right so you learn the five types of questions and you put them in the right order and then you go exactly

[00:16:42] to where the answer is and by the time that you get to the last questions your answers are already were already found

[00:16:48] in the previous answers so again it’s very it’s a very quick way to find the answers um the math instead of working

[00:16:55] out the long way and showing your work and crunching a bunch of numbers

[00:17:00] every math problem can be answered without a calculator in 30 seconds or less wow um the writing language english part

[00:17:08] now get this on the s.a.t you get four passages 44 questions and 35 minutes to

[00:17:13] do it in so that’s 47 seconds per question plus the four passages

[00:17:19] there’s logistically no way to do it yeah acg has five passages and they only give you 36 seconds per question

[00:17:26] um so there’s no way but here’s the cool thing about the writing portion again you can skip most of the passage

[00:17:32] and they only use 13 recurring problems on the test and there’s

[00:17:37] a pattern that occurs as much as 75 percent of time where you can answer the questions in 10 seconds or less

[00:17:44] so again it’s about you understanding the patterns and the logic and when

[00:17:49] you’re looking at these answers for example what do i not like about these answers what you know if you learn to

[00:17:54] scrutinize the answers because of the they use the same wrong patterns and challenge every answer choice and you

[00:18:00] can be able to eliminate the wrong answers first which will leave you with the right answers wow interesting so um when you you know

[00:18:07] when you’re um college prep genius and you have families engaging in this taking the

[00:18:12] courses and doing this is is there something uh this is incredibly valuable for families uh

[00:18:18] and i’m i’m curious to know about this too how how the increase in score begins to

[00:18:23] impact uh the decrease in the cost that a student has to pay i’m very interested in that um but

[00:18:30] um my question is uh beyond beyond the sat the the the lsat these

[00:18:36] other things are there other parts of life where you where when a student goes to this course it actually helps them in

[00:18:42] areas beyond this this test taken or is it strictly with these tests to get into you know

[00:18:48] college and so forth no what’s been really cool is that over the years um

[00:18:54] many of our families and we have lots of testimonials on our website have used these same skills not just for sats and

[00:19:01] acts and uh getting into college and getting scholarship money um and i’ll come back to that point of your point in

[00:19:07] a moment about the the points and how that can impact your money um but

[00:19:12] our kids are going to be tested all their life not just getting to college and scholarships um or if they’re going

[00:19:18] to grad school law school med school but also at their job someday i i’ve had people who say oh i use your strategies

[00:19:24] on the cpa test or the real estate test or the test to get into to work at hobby lobby who knew

[00:19:31] i met an engineer recently excuse me who said you know what after you heard

[00:19:37] me speak he said you’re 100 right he said we get tested every six months

[00:19:42] for certifications and they don’t test us on our engineering ability because everybody at my company are

[00:19:48] all different ages from different backgrounds he said they test us on our critical thinking skills so yes this will follow you

[00:19:54] long beyond your your sats and get into college and all that but to your point about the how it

[00:20:01] affects um the the money so colleges are ranked

[00:20:07] nationally based on test scores so the higher the score the more scholarship money they give you because you make

[00:20:12] them look good and what happens is when you make a college look good with your high test score and they go up in the rankings

[00:20:18] they get more funding they can attract students who ha who can pay full sticker price um they can attract athletes uh

[00:20:25] who are very talented but only need the minimum to get in which is going to drop their their rankings down so the kids

[00:20:31] with the high score scores are so desirable to these colleges because it’s going to make them look better

[00:20:38] and this is why you know sometimes one or two more points on your act or another 100 points on your sat will

[00:20:45] get you another 10 20 000 a year most college websites will list

[00:20:50] their scores they might say for example to get into my school you need this score but to get a partial scholarship

[00:20:56] you need this score and a half and a full ride for example i think it’s the um

[00:21:02] university of alabama uh you can get the uh i think it’s a presidential scholarship on a 26 a.c.t

[00:21:08] or 1240 s.a.t um i i have a long list of you know of i

[00:21:13] didn’t have that in front of me but colleges that will be just based on your test score this is this is where we’ll give you a anywhere from full tuition

[00:21:21] all the way up to a full ride plus and when they say plus that means they not only pay for your full ride but

[00:21:27] they’ll give you you know maybe grad school money maybe they’ll give you 5 000 spending cash maybe they’ll pay for

[00:21:32] your you to study abroad in another country um but they’re trying to entice you to come to their school to bring

[00:21:39] their rankings up and you know we just got past this um coven

[00:21:44] um and the you know a lot of schools said well we’ll still taste state test option until 2023 well then about a month ago

[00:21:52] mit made a big announcement and they said guess what we’re going back to testing because it’s the it’s the only fair way

[00:22:00] to compare students equally and it’s the only fair way to help students and under underserved communities because they

[00:22:06] don’t have that luxury to go into expensive school or a prep school a high school but they they can all take the

[00:22:13] same chance everybody else takes and that was mit and of course what happened was everybody started following suit

[00:22:18] once mit said that yeah wow that’s really interesting um for those of you just tuning in my guest

[00:22:25] today is jean burke she’s with collegeprepgenius.com you can check it out and uh it’s a

[00:22:30] fantastic way to improve your test scores uh for these standardized tests for college but um

[00:22:37] even more than that of course that standardized test affects the scholarship money that you’re able to get from a college and i’ll just read

[00:22:43] some of these stats again student loan debt in the united states currently totals somewhere around 1.762 trillion 15 of all american adults

[00:22:51] report they have outstanding under undergraduate student debt seven percent report outstanding postgraduate student

[00:22:57] loans 34 percent of adults age 18 to 29 years have student loan debt making them more than twice as likely as adults in

[00:23:04] any other age group to have student debt the average public university student borrows 30 000 to obtain a bachelor’s

[00:23:10] degree and the average federal student loan debt balance is 37 000. um so you know uh what are your thoughts

[00:23:18] when speaking to a family and you know talking to them about the importance of what what you’re doing and the

[00:23:24] importance of their kids doing this i mean the the amount of debt that these uh people these these young people are loaded with uh coming out of college is

[00:23:33] you know huge it’s it’s greater than it’s ever been as far as i uh what i’ve researched um what are your thoughts

[00:23:40] about that well yeah first of all college is a lousy investment if you have to spend

[00:23:45] years paying for something you did in four years and the average student spends 20 years paying off college debt

[00:23:52] which means they’re not able to get a mortgage you know a lot of them are delaying marriage having kids and the statistics show that 70 of believers

[00:23:59] don’t tithe because of college debt so it is a snowball effect uh and the great thing

[00:24:06] is is that you know every time we are in this sort of election year every four years there’s always people

[00:24:12] who always promise you know free college here and there but here’s the good news there’s already free college there’s so

[00:24:18] many ways to go for free and it doesn’t matter your income and one of the things that i tell families is

[00:24:24] that it doesn’t matter whether you’re low income you are low to middle middle middle to high income it doesn’t matter um because

[00:24:32] here’s here’s the key and i have a lot of inside secrets that i share

[00:24:37] um but one of the things is no matter where you are in your at your income level right now um is that

[00:24:44] uh if you’re in the low income bracket you know and what is what is considered low income well some colleges will consider 40 to 60 000 low income

[00:24:51] but stanford and princeton consider 140 000 low income so

[00:24:57] that’s kind of crazy yeah but if your middle here’s the thing it doesn’t matter what your income is you

[00:25:03] can get free college at low income but you can also get it based on what’s called needs needs based programs um but

[00:25:09] merit based if you are above what they would consider low income or stuck in the middle like most of us

[00:25:15] are then you want to chase a marriage now how do you find the colleges the free

[00:25:20] college and here’s just one secret and that is you can google common data set or cds

[00:25:29] or common data set in a school that you’re looking for looking into and you want to find the schools where

[00:25:35] your students stats are above the 75th percentile so in

[00:25:40] other words their sat for example um let’s say they’re their 75th percentile is 1150 but you’ve

[00:25:46] got like a 1300 sat that is well above the 75th percentile that’s where the

[00:25:51] free rides start happening oh wow so interesting and there’s nearly 5 000 colleges when you when you add up all

[00:25:58] the colleges and the junior colleges and the trade schools not bad you’re looking about 5 000 schools and so

[00:26:04] you can it may not be your dream school but you know what is a dream school a dream school is one you don’t have to pay for yeah exactly and so you can find

[00:26:13] and that’s just one one way but you want to get your test scores up because you open you open up so many opportunities

[00:26:19] um for for you know amazing scholarships all across this nation another thing that people can look at

[00:26:25] too is go to the department of education of your state a lot of people don’t know that there’s

[00:26:31] actual money available in most states for state residents for example i just got back from florida

[00:26:38] and they have what’s called bright future and bright future is a program that

[00:26:43] um if you’re sat school i think it’s 13 30 uh or a ct is like 29 um you can get

[00:26:49] their top scholar award which is called uh academic scholar and which will give you basically a full

[00:26:55] ride to any school in florida wow and there’s three levels uh bright

[00:27:00] missouri has what’s called bright flight south carolina has uh palmetto fellows

[00:27:06] georgia has the hope scholarship alaska has lasting performance scholarship and these are based on test scores so go to

[00:27:13] your state uh department of education and see what’s on there because you may not have any idea what’s what’s available for you being a resident there

[00:27:20] yeah that’s really interesting i you know i i also was looking up some stats here it said one of the articles i was

[00:27:25] reading said in 2022 so far minnesota has the highest average s.a.t score with

[00:27:32] 1263 california is in the 31st spot with new york with an average sat score of 10.57

[00:27:39] i thought that was interesting do you notice any trends from state to

[00:27:45] state as far as sat scores are concerned or is there is there a certain

[00:27:50] uh cultures or communities that place a heavier emphasis on doing well in in sat scores oh absolutely you’re going

[00:27:57] to find that the very competitive stat like washington dc will probably because

[00:28:04] i’m based on their psat scores i know that they’re pretty high but if you look at states like uh washington dc or

[00:28:09] maryland or virginia they’re going to have higher scores because of if you think about who lives there you know congress it’s very

[00:28:16] competitive and so yes i think it’s i think it’s it’s it’s what’s uh

[00:28:22] how many kids are taking the test and how well they do and so yeah you’re gonna find certainly higher scores but

[00:28:27] then you might find something like west virginia that’s a smaller state that is maybe not they don’t necessarily put a lot of emphasis on it they may have a

[00:28:33] lower score but it definitely comes down to the high

[00:28:38] schools themselves like for example some of the middle states in the country as we now call them the flyover states

[00:28:45] they tend to only promote the act and not the s.a.t which really does a disservice to students because when you

[00:28:52] don’t promote the sat you don’t promote the psat and that’s the national merit scholarship contest a.c.t does not have

[00:28:59] a scholarship contest and so uh the schools there don’t realize that number one every single college takes

[00:29:06] sat acts so it doesn’t matter makes no difference if they if they prefer one over the other they’ll just convert the

[00:29:12] score so that’s not a big deal uh but unfortunately people people don’t know

[00:29:17] they’ll you don’t know what you don’t know yeah and so people all the time will tell me well we only do the acg

[00:29:23] here and i’m like well no that’s not true that’s what the schools say but the school’s not even talking about i can

[00:29:28] tell you right now that every it’s a simple google search to look up to see if that every college takes either s or

[00:29:35] acg so and they were written by the same people so uh there’s two different companies

[00:29:41] but they’re written but act right writers rewrote the sat back in 2016. so

[00:29:46] so you this is why you have two similar tests that are pretty much the same okay and and then um you know for christian

[00:29:53] families you know we’re who are you know concerned about college and so forth and so on um does this have any impact for them as

[00:30:00] as they’re deliberating you know obviously there’s a huge fear right now about colleges uh indoctrinating

[00:30:06] students i know many families i’ve talked to who talk about how uh

[00:30:12] college completely uh took their kids in a in a direction they didn’t want them to go so a lot of

[00:30:18] christian parents are trying to be very very careful about where their kids go to college and making sure that that

[00:30:23] college supports um you know their views and so forth um is there any advice or guidance that you

[00:30:30] give in in regards to that oh yeah absolutely number number one um sets acts apply to christian schools as

[00:30:36] well private schools that’s where my kids went um that was a problem but here’s a deeper thing that i wanted to

[00:30:41] say um people ask me all the time weren’t you worried about your kids going to college

[00:30:48] and losing their faith and here’s here’s what i say i say that

[00:30:54] it if you’re worried if your kids are going to lose their faith or go the wrong direction in college they’re going

[00:31:00] to go in the wrong direction at home they’re going to go in the wrong direction at junior college at a part-time job it’s a heart issue

[00:31:07] and we have to have if the heart’s not right it doesn’t matter where they go and i think we have to

[00:31:14] um train our kids to be a joseph and a joseph was someone who by the age of 17

[00:31:21] everything he knew about god and life was cut off at 17. he had no more bible

[00:31:28] study he had no more youth group he had no more devotionals he was thrown in a pit sold in slavery thrown

[00:31:35] into prison accused and ultimately came second in command and so i think his

[00:31:40] parents we don’t need to worry we shouldn’t worry about whether our kids go to a christian college or a secular college because that may be where the

[00:31:45] lord’s taking them um but because because not everybody at a christian college is a christian

[00:31:51] not every professor at a christian college is a christian so what we as parents need to worry about is you know

[00:31:58] the issues of the heart for our kids and and not every child is ready to go to college at 18 or maybe never i mean

[00:32:05] today i you know i i don’t think college is is is the the plan for every child or

[00:32:10] maybe they need to take a gap year or two um to get a little bit more mature or to study for the sat and get more

[00:32:15] scholarship money um but i think that’s where we as parents need to to um

[00:32:20] put our focus yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense i mean i mean there’s you know books written on

[00:32:26] these subjects that you know if if it if they’re walking away in college then that process started a long time

[00:32:32] ago um i always talk to parents about that that the questions start happening in middle school and you’ve got to start

[00:32:39] preparing them you know in elementary school you’ve got to start um you know uh

[00:32:45] planting those seeds and and teaching them biblical truths and and actually teaching them a lot of logic um and how

[00:32:51] to think things through thoroughly um when it comes to spiritual matters which uh you know impact everything so

[00:32:57] um yeah that’s absolutely that makes a ton of sense so i appreciate that and um

[00:33:03] and then when it comes to um let’s see here uh

[00:33:09] when it comes to kids who aren’t going to go to college um and you’re is there a reason for them to be

[00:33:14] involved in this course or is that pretty much you know there’s it’s not something that they need to be involved with you know if they are

[00:33:20] considering trade schools or something like that right and that’s a great plan for a lot of students here’s my take on

[00:33:26] it you nobody knows what they’re going to do it’s nobody has their life planned out at 16 17 or even 18 and most people who go to

[00:33:33] college probably most change their degree several times um so what but my suggestion is this is

[00:33:40] that you should still always take your sets while you’re in high school um because if let’s say you get out of high

[00:33:46] school two or three years and you decided to finally go to college and if you hadn’t taken your sats you forgot

[00:33:51] some basic geometries and basic algebra but what they do is they archive your score scores indefinitely

[00:33:57] so it’s a good backup plan take the test shelf it don’t worry about it most colleges will take old sat scores

[00:34:04] i’ve had lots of my students who’ve been out of high school several years come take my course and still get a full ride

[00:34:10] to college um so yeah it’s a it’s a great backup plan because honestly teenagers change

[00:34:16] their mind we change our mind yeah um and it’s better just to have it there and say look this is just there if you

[00:34:23] never use it you never use it and plus you’ve learned basic critical thinking skills that can help you at your job

[00:34:29] someday because if they test you at your job it’s not probably going to be about your job

[00:34:34] yeah absolutely um for those of you just tuning in my guest today is gene burke and we’re talking about the s.a.t and

[00:34:40] we’re talking about free college how do you get how do you get college for free and the sat was actually founded in 1926

[00:34:47] i looked this up as an adaptation of what’s called the army alpha it was an iq test

[00:34:53] which was checking the intelligence of recruits to the us army um and originally was only taken by a few

[00:34:59] thousand college applicants but uh eventually became what we have as the modern s.a.t and uh gene i was going to

[00:35:06] ask you about this one of the things i stumbled on when i was um you know reading on the sat is that it

[00:35:12] sounds like they’re moving towards a digital format um for the sat is that is that true and and is that going to

[00:35:18] change things at all or is it is it going to be just pretty much the same so yes that is true in 2024 they’re going to go to digital

[00:35:26] but the reason they’re going to go to digital um actually we knew that was we knew that was coming um eventually um

[00:35:33] but what happened when the world shut down in 2020 and all the sats acts were

[00:35:39] canceled um there was no way they would have people come and

[00:35:45] person so they tried to roll out something digital it failed miserably

[00:35:50] and um they knew that eventually you know what if we get to another you know pandemic scam dimmick whatever you wanna

[00:35:56] call it or pandemic some people in australia you call it um but if that ever happens you know we’re we’re going

[00:36:03] to lose a ton of money um but to be totally honest you know who they’re following they’re following the clt i don’t know if you know about the

[00:36:10] clt the classic learning test i’ve been around about six and a half years it’s the alternative to the set and act it’s

[00:36:16] the perfect david and goliath story um we are their official test prep we love we love the clt but when they came out

[00:36:23] against the big guys you know sct has been around the 20s 1920s act has been around since the 1950s um they said

[00:36:29] there’s no way that’s going to work well guess what happened nobody foresaw 2020 when everything shut down but clt was

[00:36:36] already remotely proctored oh wow and so yes so every college took the clt their

[00:36:43] enrollment went at five thousand percent so and it was only two hours long so yeah so the sdt decided well we better

[00:36:50] we better follow suit because if something like that ever happens again we’re going to lose a ton of money yeah yeah

[00:36:56] wow that’s that’s really cool and you’re the the primary uh preparer for that the clt yep yes we are the official test

[00:37:02] prep and we’ve had a lot of our kids get the top one percent on their test because again going back to the fact

[00:37:09] that the strategies that work on one test pretty much work on most tests because that crossover information and

[00:37:15] just learning the test taking techniques um can can be applied and that and that’s the key so anytime a company

[00:37:21] wants to sell you an sat prayer program and an acg prep program and a psag that

[00:37:26] is a red flag they just want your money oh wow um so i was uh so according to the uh

[00:37:34] scholarship institute it says a score of 1520 or above on the sat puts a student

[00:37:39] in the 99th percentile a score of 1350 or above puts a student in the 90th

[00:37:45] percentile so in your experience gene um what

[00:37:50] when when do the scholarships start kicking in i know you mentioned that the seven uh i think you said

[00:37:56] the 75th based on the college you know um you were referring to but but when uh

[00:38:02] when a family is looking at this and going okay we really want to get free college or let’s say they’re like we want to get 50

[00:38:09] off at least in scholarships or whatever um is there a target they should be shooting for as far as a score on sat or

[00:38:16] so forth is that or how does that work and you’re right it does very precaut like for college like i was saying i

[00:38:22] think the university of alabama was like a 26 a.c.t or 1240 s.a.t um you know

[00:38:29] if i was going to give a sweet spot i would say 1400 would be a sweet spot for

[00:38:34] numerous colleges i’m certainly not ivy leagues or top tier because those are over the 15 20 15 40 mark um but you

[00:38:42] know what if you can if you can get around 1400 but you may only need a 1300 to get above the 75th percentile on the

[00:38:48] school you want to go to um so yeah and the great thing is most colleges will super score

[00:38:54] so they’ll take the highest test from different uh uh highest scores from different tests so if you take the sat

[00:39:00] one time and get a better math score and then the next time you take it your reading’s better they’ll cherry pick the highest scores to give you an overall

[00:39:05] better score which is why you should keep taking it over and over again to keep getting a higher score

[00:39:10] oh wow um and then is this something there where you know um

[00:39:17] obviously different kids are gifted in different places different people are gifted in different areas uh is this the

[00:39:23] kind of thing where it’s something that universally somebody can can work at it and eventually get good at it you know

[00:39:29] you always hear kids say or parents say my my child is not a good test taker they do well and all these other things

[00:39:35] but they’re not a good test taker and is that something that they can actually grow in or is that kind of an innate

[00:39:42] ability that has to do with the way the mind thinks where there are some kids that that’s just where they’re at and

[00:39:47] this isn’t going to be the path for them no that’s such a good question so

[00:39:54] several thoughts on that number one you’ve got your kids who would consider themselves a good test taker and what they are they are

[00:40:00] very logically minded naturally so it’s very intuitive to them and they see

[00:40:05] patterns naturally they’re kind of bent that way and for those students one in a few more strategies can really put them

[00:40:10] over the top um then you have your other students who what we call the rule followers those are the kids who second guess themselves

[00:40:17] overthink everything stress over every question and spend way too much time on every problem now the great thing is is

[00:40:24] logic is not a personality trait logic is a trained skill so anybody can

[00:40:29] become a better test taker i’ve had kids raise their score 700 points on the

[00:40:34] s.a.t and nine points on the acg had severe dyslexia and dysgraphia or

[00:40:41] autism that are national merit scholars so yes these are learnable tests they’re

[00:40:47] beatable tests it’s it’s like how do you do well in piano you learn the chords

[00:40:52] you learn the keys and then you practice how do you do better at sports you know you learn the moves the techniques the

[00:40:58] plays and then you practice well how do you do how do you beat a standardized test you learn the patterns you learn

[00:41:04] the you learn the the tricks um and and then and and you um you prac you

[00:41:10] practice with real test questions these questions are purposely misleading and the wrong answers can be very

[00:41:15] appealing and so this is why you have really smart kids who bomb this test all the time because it’s it’s

[00:41:22] it’s designed for carelessness um they know that you’ve got about a minute per question and so kids are going to rush

[00:41:28] really hard and really fast to try to answer questions and they’re going to make mistakes but when you’ve made a

[00:41:34] mistake you’ve actually made two mistakes number one you picked the wrong answer uh number two you failed to see

[00:41:40] the correct answer but the more you start seeing the patterns the they kind of just start jumping out

[00:41:46] after a while to where you know what’s what’s right what’s wrong that’s fantastic well i’m sure that’s

[00:41:51] encouraging to a lot of families uh to know that that is something that their child can improve on and grow in and get

[00:41:58] better on and so um what a huge blessing uh to have that opportunity to not be

[00:42:04] burdened with this incredible debt when they get out of school i mean it’s so tragic to me because i think about these

[00:42:09] young couples they get out of college and they’re already struggling to find a job that’s able to cover the bills uh

[00:42:16] the real estate is through the roof you know the and what we’re dealing with with all the inflation currently and then they’re

[00:42:22] they’re starting a young marriage where there’s a lot of stress on them financially too so if there’s anything

[00:42:28] we can do to help those young kids get a head start in life and not be burdened

[00:42:33] with all that extra stress and pressure that’s a wonderful opportunity so thank you for all that you do in that

[00:42:40] regard we’re just about out of time here and my guest today uh is gene burke with

[00:42:45] collegeprepgenius.com a wonderful resource for you to be able to help your children and start preparing

[00:42:52] them early so uh getting them ready so uh thank you thank you very much gene

[00:42:58] thank you so much kevin for having me absolutely okay and we’ll be back again um in a in a week we’re also going to be

[00:43:05] having on a gentleman by the name of john storm who is going around to high schools in a bus

[00:43:13] and using release time education with public high schools to give a christian

[00:43:18] education class in the public high schools and the kids are getting credit for it so if you haven’t heard about this it’s something

[00:43:24] that’s going to really encourage you another great opportunity where we can impact the next generation uh for good

[00:43:31] and for christ so thanks for being here and we’ll see you next time

[00:43:48] you