Ready for the Ivy League Challenge?

 

Transcript

 

SPEAKER A

Welcome back to season two of the Ivy League Prep Academy Podcast. Equipping you to successfully pursue the college of your dreams. We believe everyone deserves to reach their full potential, and the admissions process shouldn't hold you back. Hello, everyone. I am so excited about this. I actually have with us Janice Kim, who is the mother of a student who just finished the Ivy League Challenge, who just finished one of our cohorts. And Janice is not only wonderful, you're going to learn that in just a minute as we get started talking, but she also is very, very much she's deep into the college prep and college application process. She understands this better than a lot of parents, who better than a lot of people, period, a lot of college counselors. And so we had a great conversation a couple of weeks ago. And towards the end of that conversation, I remember telling her, oh, my goodness, I really wish we had recorded this and just captured this conversation because there's so much value here that would be so helpful for so many. Of my parents and so many of my teens. Because, Janice, you just understand this process so well, and it was such a gift. And I'm hoping that we can somehow duplicate that conversation. But thank you so much for joining us here today.

SPEAKER B

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER A

Oh, it's so fun. Can we begin, actually, with a question that I didn't ask a couple of weeks ago because we got right into your family and the success that your children have had with college. But I'm curious how you discovered me in the first place. I believe that your daughter said that you found my podcast somewhere. But can you start off with just how this all began for you as far as the Ivy League Challenge is concerned?

SPEAKER B

Sure. So what happened was, because Isabella is my fourth child, and by a lot, the difference between the age difference between Isabella and my third child is nine years. And so I felt like I needed to kind of brush up again.

SPEAKER A

Okay.

SPEAKER B

But during that time, in the nine years, I had been helping other students who just came and sought me out or heard about me through a friend of theirs or through their parents or something like that or through somebody at my church. And so I started to look for more information. And between the time, I would say, when I was really actively involved in looking for information, when my other kids were in high school, things had changed. The world has turned upside down because of COVID and lockdowns and test policies had changed. And I had heard that and seen it and read a lot about it. And so now that Isabella is now a 9th grader in high school in a new city that I wasn't familiar with, I decided to do a little bit of research myself and also trying to see what the most up to date information was. And somehow I stumbled across some podcasts that I was kind of I wasn't really searching for it, but it came up in my feed, and so, as I was looking through it, there's a whole college admissions sort of podcast genre, I guess, and I didn't have that before. I used to read books and magazines and search online and things, and so when I looked at it, there's different podcasts that came up. And then somehow I stumbled across yours. And when I saw yours, I thought, well, catchy name. And I kind of clicked on it. I was hooked from the very beginning. I loved your concept. I loved your take on it was a little different than everybody else. Some people, I think they focus on test prep and some people focus on getting the package done and some people focus on different things. And I think everyone has different strengths. But yours was a little different in that it really was a holistic process. The way I would interpret the holistic process, it really started with the person and core values and drinking water, getting enough sleep, finding your passion. And I had heard the term passion project before, but I thought it was just another sort of a way to find a hook that seemed a little manufactured. But when I was listening to your podcast, I realized, first of all, I just liked the way that you treated people. And I wanted my daughter to have another influence from another adult that might be saying the same thing, but differently than what I was telling her. And so I discovered you through that process and I don't regret it at all. I think it's a wonderful program that you have put together. And I think the kids that are in the cohorts, they've all gotten something out of it. Even if they haven't started a project or if they haven't found that one thing that they want to sink their teeth into, I think they know that college and where you get in is now a byproduct of the person that you are or will become.

SPEAKER A

Right. Let's do it the right way. I love it. That is so meaningful to me. Of course, I love to hear that from any parent that their child has more self assurance, that their child is no longer desperate about any one college, that college admissions is the kind of reward that you get for just being a good person and living a good life and making good choices. And it's not the lottery that you win if you sacrifice what you care most about to create the facade of becoming like someone else. So I love love that when any parent says, thank you for getting through to my child or helping them understand this, but for you that means a little bit extra because you mentioned she's the fourth and your three older children went to MIT yale and then Harvard in that order, before that nine year gap. And then you mentioned just briefly in the call that you also worked with a lot of other people to help them go to these also, generally speaking, more selective colleges. Although you help out whoever wants your help, you and I discussed your goal is not to generate a whole bunch of attention. You don't want to be in this field. You're just helping friends and helping people out as you go. But can you speak just a little bit about from someone who has I mean, it's hard to think of a more successful three college group there than what your children decided to go to MIT, Yale, and Harvard. From the perspective of a mother who's seen three children get into and excel at those three colleges and then has one more child left and also helps other children as you know them, can you just speak to your decision to enroll Isabella in the Ivy League Challenge? Having that experience, is that something that you felt like, oh, this is going to make my life easier, or is it just something above and beyond what you're going to do? Just what was the context for you as someone with that kind of a background and that kind of experience?

SPEAKER B

Well, I think what a lot of people don't understand about this process is that it can be a great way to enhance your relationship with your child, or it can be a really stressful time with your child.

SPEAKER A

Wow.

SPEAKER B

And once they leave the home, you're sort of at the mercy of whatever they are learning on their own, what they're getting out of college and their friends and their professors and whatnot. So I felt that with Isabella, I didn't want to make the same mistakes that I did with my older children. And there were times when things were really rough with the older children. I mean, I'm not going to lie about it. There were some tears and some heartbreaks and, of course, joys at the end, but it was really hard to get them where they are today. And so with Isabella, I just felt that maybe I need to do things a little differently. Maybe I need to be a little bit hands off, and maybe I need her to sort of take her own life into her own hands, if you will. And if it works out, great. If not, we'll find something else. I'm actually sort of an actions oriented person, and I always think that the harder you work, the luckier you get.

SPEAKER A

Yes.

SPEAKER B

And if your intentions are good, I think things do work out. And I had a child, my 9th grader, who had always kind of grown up with that college talk, because when she was in kindergarten, I had three. In high school, I had a 9th grader, 10th grader, and a 12th grader. And so we were really just all hands were on deck. And so she had heard a lot of this talk and unfortunately a lot of the times that college talk was invited to our dinner tables and little adult get togethers and things. And so I didn't want her to burn out when she really needed to be at her best. And being a 9th grader, I think she was feeling a little bit of this not pressure from us per se, but just I think everyone around her was saying, oh, you've got some big shoes to fill. Where are you going to go? On the one hand, I thought, well, that might be a good motivator for her, but on the other hand, I was a little worried that she would feel undue pressure. So when I found the Ivy League Challenge, I really felt that it would be a good way to spend twelve weeks at the end of her week, which was Sundays, her cohorts were on Sundays. Or she can get together with other highly motivated kids who might feel that same sense of that anxiety plus excitement, I guess you can say, of trying something that they've never tried before. And so when I signed her up for it, I was very hands off. If she came out of her room talking about it, bursting with excitement, then I listened to her. But if she didn't want to talk because she was tired, I just kind of left her alone. And so I think it comes from a little bit of experience having done what I had done. But I think as a whole, when I think about the Ivy League challenge, I think of it as sort of an avenue to expand her mind, get her to thinking about bigger things. Maybe one of the things I think that you had talked about in one of the weeks that you had was about just reaching out to people, reaching out to experts who are already doing what you think you want to do. And I know I had to kind of mentioned that to her before, but I think when you said it and people got excited about it, it meant something to her and it started to give her a little bit more courage to go out and do that. And I have seen her now deal with adults, and when I see her dealing with adults, she is very poised with just extemporaneously. She just does it, and if it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out. She's not so petrified by these big adults. I think she just goes out there and says, I'll just try it. And that only came because of being in the Ivy League Challenge with you.

SPEAKER A

Wow, what a great example. And I love the focus on your relationship with your daughter and how this can help kind of preserve that, so you don't have to be the disciplinarian and the parent and the college counselor and everything else. Yeah, I love that. I love that. So thank you so much, because that perspective is just so valuable for me in so many ways. Let's talk straight to the parents and the teens who might have the opportunity to listen in. Here's a couple of kind of hot topics that I think we get wrong in college prep in this industry overall, that I'm trying to correct, that I'm curious to hear your take on as someone who's had as much success as you've had. And also someone who's apparently listened to a fair number of my podcasts and kind of understands my take as well. And so the first of those is this idea that starting from the very beginning, like elementary school, when you're in second grade, your friend or your neighbor who's in third grade is telling you, oh, man, I wish I could go back to second grade because third grade is so much harder. You better work hard because third grade is coming. And that just keeps going every year of your life, and then you better work really hard because middle school is coming. You better work really, really hard because high school is coming. And then all throughout high school and middle school, it's this you better work really hard because college is coming. And I don't think that we realize it's like that Einstein quote that fish don't understand, that they're in water. We just don't realize that this mindset of you better work really hard because the next step is coming. What that means what that means is you better work really hard because life is about to begin. Like the important stuff is about to start. So prepare now, because you can't prepare once you've begun. And we don't realize that life has already begun. And so I teach my students that life begins once you discover your core values. And it doesn't matter if you're in your 30s, if you're 13, you're 30, you're 93 or beyond. You can live your whole life and not really live, or you can figure out your core values at 13 and make choices aligned with your core values early on and have your whole life to live in an aligned way. One of the big things that this college prep industry the missed opportunity.

SPEAKER B

Exactly.

SPEAKER A

For those of us who are involved in guiding teens, whether that's parents or college counselors teachers, we often miss the opportunity because we emphasize the preparation rather than emphasizing the fact that life has already begun. And college, like you said, is a reward for a life well lived rather than an expectation that your preparation is going to pay off once you get here.

SPEAKER B

Exactly. I mean, I just think that a lot of the times when I'm helping students that come to me, I'm always trying to find what makes them awesome, what makes you memorable. Are you who you say you are? Are you authentic? Are you genuine? Do you really, really love what you're doing. And it also helps if you write well, of course, but I think that in order to tell what makes interesting stories is a very interesting life. And a lot of these kids, they do school like they're doing school, and they go through all of these things that you are expected to do in 9th grade and 10th grade and so forth, and the SATS and acts and all this other stuff without really thinking about why they're doing it. And I think a lot of it is because they're distracted, but also because they have been told this is a path, but there's so many different paths to this place that they want to get to. And so I think your program really it's almost like a paradigm shift for a lot of these kids. I've noticed that when I was listening to your podcast, some of them came to you very late in the process, and all of them say the same thing I didn't know what I was doing. I was all over the place. I didn't have a real narrative. I didn't have any hooks. They were just lost. But they were doing really well in school. They just didn't know why they were doing it. And then they realized, wow, I need to put this together. And now I don't have a story. And so I think if you start early in this process, knowing why you do what you do, what makes you tick, why you do it, because I care about this. Then they don't get tired doing it, because they love doing that and because that's what they were designed to do. I mean, I look at my life sometimes, my husband looks at me. It's like, why are you up until the wee hours of the morning reading these things? I love what I do. I think I was meant to do this. And so that euphoria that you get when you've hit that sweet spot of your core values in line with your work, there's just nothing better. And I think the earlier you find out what you're all about, the easier everything becomes. And then this college process is just an add on. It's not the main course. And so I think when parents miss this opportunity to kind of mold that child into what that child was supposed to be, it's so sad to me. And so they get to college, and, yeah, they got in, but they don't even know what they want to do. They're trying to figure it out, and they're in their 20s. There's all this pressure. But if you can do this in high school or middle school, I think that's just a gift. I feel very lucky and blessed that I found this way to support my daughter in a different way. And she may come up nothing. I mean, maybe she doesn't come up with a project that she really wants to do, but I know she's helping her other friends really think about this in a different way, too. And that's another component of this. I really think that parents should be helping each other out instead of seeing each other as competition. I think once you've done this process, you've got so much advice. So if somebody asks, I'm going to offer, because I think it's a really stressful time for a lot of families, and it's a really great way to help your friends and your people in your community, because this can be very stressful for many, many families. And I've seen it, I've heard about it, and I feel it sometimes just in my own orbit.

SPEAKER A

Absolutely. I want to just pull out something that you mentioned. Once your core values align with the work that you're engaged in, then it drives you instead of drains you. Right?

SPEAKER B

Exactly.

SPEAKER A

Your husband asks, how do you stay up so late? Why are you doing this? You're pushing yourself too hard. And you're saying, I'm not pushing myself. This is feeding me. Yeah, I know I need to sleep. I'll get there. But this is so exciting. How could you not be excited? Anyway, the idea here is, again, a big key point in what I teach, which is, if you're going to try to compete using willpower and self discipline to compete against someone else who is aligned with their core values and you think that ignoring your core values, but duplicating. What looks impressive to an admissions officer and using willpower and self discipline to do that thing that you think looks impressive, you're ignoring the fact because you don't realize, right? You just don't know that some people actually love what you're doing. So you're trying to use willpower and self discipline to do it, but someone else actually loves it. Someone else actually feels mastery or they feel like, man, every time I do this, I get a little bit better. And there's something that just charges them about that process. It's just not a fair fight. And what ends up happening for the teenager is they end up because inevitably, your willpower and your self discipline can't get you to the same levels of greatness of competency as someone else who is charged internally to do this.

SPEAKER B

Yeah.

SPEAKER A

And so the inevitable conclusion for the teenager is, well, that person's clearly good enough, but I'm not. I've tried my best and my best wasn't good enough, and clearly I'm not good enough. That's an indictment on me. And again, a very common mistake and missed opportunity for parents, guidance counselors, teachers, all the adults who help teens through this critical, these formative years in high school is when we say, well, look at look at your cousin who did get into the school you want to go to. She did these things, so why don't.
SPEAKER B

You do what she did and then.

SPEAKER A

You can get in too? And we don't realize just how frustrating that can be to try to duplicate someone else's journey. But to be missing, have different core values, have different strengths, and then try to use willpower to make up the difference. And the inevitable conclusion is well, I guess I'm not good enough. And at some point there's burnout and at some point there's I want to disengage from my life, from school. I just want to be done with it all. Who cares? It's over. And what a horrible cost.

SPEAKER B

It's a horrible cost because at the end of the day, if you don't care about it, then it's meaningless, whatever you're doing. So if you don't really care about the project, I'm sorry, if you don't care about any of the things that's going on that you're doing on a daily basis, that your day becomes very drawn out and very long and meaningless. And so sometimes when I'm talking to these students and they talk about this thing that they've been doing for, I don't know, twelve years or whatever, I can clearly sense even through a phone conversation, whether they care about it or not. And so if I can do that through one conversation, then what is the admissions officer going to feel when they're looking at your entire application? So aside from just the college thing alone, it's not a good way to go through life.

SPEAKER A

Thank you.

SPEAKER B

It's not a good way to go through life. And you don't have to wait until you're an adult to do that, ah, to do anything meaningful. So I think that it's just a great opportunity right now while they're young and they have a lot of energy and they can get right back up even after they've only slept 3 hours, I can't do that anymore. But they still have all of the physical attributes that allows them to do that because they've been giving this youth this time when they can really make a difference and they've got all the energy and they've got all the support too. So if you've got parents who are supportive, goodness, you can use it, can do great things.

SPEAKER A

I will say the longer I've been involved in this field and the longer I've worked with this age group, the more optimistic I am for the future of our planet. I've become a true optimist because of just how amazing these teenagers are. And here's the thing. They're going to feel like little aliens that are disrespectful and entitled and whatever else because they're fully I mean, as long as they're disengaged from their values, as long as they don't see any purpose to the schoolwork that they're doing, as long as they don't feel like they're growing as a human being and they're not doing what they're called to do or whatever, however they see this alignment with their own core values, as long as that's how they are operating their entire day. And as parents, just for a second, let's have a tiny ounce of empathy. Because how long do you work at your full time job, are you working 50, 60 hours and impressing everyone because you're outworking everyone? Well, your teen is working about 80 hours at a job that they didn't choose that has fewer breaks than you have. They are literally, I mean, just from morning until late night they are doing schoolwork and if they happen to love what they're learning, awesome. Then they're lucky and they can have some joy in that process. If they don't, if it's just a big massive stress ball, then it's a really long lasting day in and day out stressful experience anyway. If they disengage in a job that pulls them out of what they would be doing for 90 hours a week, can we really blame them? And if we don't do everything that we can to help them understand how what's happening in high school should align, can align with their core values, can give them the mastery that they seek in order to be motivated to go out and do great things. It can attach to what they hope to be doing long term in their lives. If we can't help them make those connections, then I don't think we can blame them for disengaging. But then once we do help them make those connections, once the teen does see how their daily activities align with who they want to become, look out. Because that's what I get to see. I get to see teenagers who are on fire who are absolutely, absolutely beaming with motivation and excitement for the difference that they can make on a small scale and they're willing to go out and stumble and fall and get back up and go through the friction and everything. And I just feel like, my goodness, these are the world. These are the leaders of the planet moving forward and the planet is in good hands. Like we are going to be better off years down the line with these people leading. And so I've just become far more optimistic as I've worked in this field.

SPEAKER B

Well, that's a good place to be. I mean, it's a good time to be alive. There's so much out there that they can learn and you can't even say, I don't know how to do this anymore. You can get that information somewhere if you really want to do it. And so I think whenever I talk to parents, I always say, your children will tell you exactly what they're into. They'll give you strong signals of what they like, what they dislike. You can walk into a room with your child and immediately they fixate on something. Pay attention to that because your children give you clues of what they care about and especially if it's something like those virtuous signals, like compassion, empathy, that kind of thing, pay attention to that and find that thing that they can get into because use that as a clue, as a starting point. I found out very early on that Isabella likes volunteering. She likes volunteering, she likes taking projects, she likes helping people. And I know that sounds cliche, but she really does. And so when I saw that, I started to look for things while she was in school, I started to look for ways that she can volunteer. And she does it now. Yeah. And I think that if you are a very observant parent, you'll be able to find those things even if your child doesn't know yet, because they've been giving you signals all along. My oldest one can't draw at all, but my second one is an artist. And those clues were evident very early on. And so now that I look back and I think, wow, these are the strengths of my older kids. And they ultimately ended up they are at where I thought they would be. Even though I thought my second one was really into art and writing, I thought, oh my goodness, my son's going to be a starving artist. Yeah, he's not a starving artist. He's doing the art thing and the writing thing in a different platform.

SPEAKER A

Right.

SPEAKER B

So we need those people in the world. Absolutely. And I think it's when you keep telling the kids, well, that's not going to get you anywhere, so do this. That's when I think the friction happens because they're meant to do this one other thing, but you keep telling them to try this thing. And so with my daughter right now, she goes to a magnet school that's Stem focused, but she's more of a humanities kid. And I tell her, just keep doing the humanities, keep reading, keep writing, keep doing poetry, keep doing the art. You just happen to be in a Stem program right now. But that doesn't mean you don't do what you like doing. In fact, now that I look at her just this year, what she's been doing, I see that, wow, she looks different now just because naturally that's what she likes. And so I think that's the one thing, I think parents sometimes we ourselves are too distracted or we don't see it, or we don't want to see it. But your children will give you clues, so pay attention to them.

SPEAKER A

So good. So one other question that I have that I think a lot of parents listening and might have, so those parents who do have ambitions for their kids to be more competitive for some of the more selective colleges right. And the teens that have ambitions to go there, so oftentimes that's the case. We want to go there willing to work hard, and yet there are 24 hours in a day, and some of that time needs to be spent sleeping, and some time needs to be spent doing things that don't necessarily move you, inch you towards a better college application. And so we have things that we do. We have a finite amount of time in high school. And for you, how. Do you recommend that these teens and parents find that balance between academic rigor, taking enough hard classes and getting the homework done so that you can do well in those classes, and yet still finding time for what I call the Impact Project? Or for your community impact? Or for however you align your life with your core values? How do you recommend that families listening in find that balance? At what point do you feel like, okay, we've gone too far with APS or too far with difficult classes, let's scale back and focus on the human? And at what point do you say, okay, we can push a little harder because we could be doing we could be more efficient, and it's in our best interest to be more efficient and more effective with this. So kind of what's your advice around that never ending battle that so many parents and teens struggle with?

SPEAKER B

I think that is a really good question. It's very challenging, especially if you have many kids like I did. I had four kids. If you have a five year old, right, going into kindergarten, that kid needs you as much as your senior in high school. And that's what I had, and so I would say it's case by case basis, but there are certain things you have to do as a family, and I think I feel very blessed that I have the kind of family that we all work together, and I know not everybody has that. And I think that's why I decided to be useful for those kinds of families where that was missing. So I would have students whose parents didn't even speak English, single parent moms working all the time, and that's where I felt like I came in. And so I think when you have that tug and pull with having to be challenged, but then you've got all this other stuff going on, I think you have to create the environment as well as you can.

SPEAKER A

Yes.

SPEAKER B

Where you are working at the optimal level when you're at home, because at school, there's nothing you can do as a parent. Right. School is school. They have their policies. There's things that you have to do because it's school, it's what they do. But you can control the things that happen at home. So if it means less I remember when my kids were very young, my older kids were very young, we didn't do TV, we just got rid of it. I just knew that TV was going to be the imagination killer, you know? And so what it's worth, we don't.

SPEAKER A

Have a TV in our home either. So at least for those who are listening in, you and I both align on that completely, even though I didn't know that before and you didn't know that about me. But yes, we don't have a TV in our home as well. Okay, go ahead. Sorry.

SPEAKER B

But with that being said, I know that technology has gone crazy these days. I mean, little kids know how to use iPads now, and so I think that distraction is going to be even stronger. And so as a parent, I think you just have to make the decision that certain things are not going to be allowed in your home.

SPEAKER A

Okay?

SPEAKER B

Now, if you don't have a relationship with your children to start with where you can enforce those things and then keep those things enforced, I think that's where the challenge comes in. But every family is different. And so in our family, we put a high priority in education. And my kids knew that very early on. And so because of that, I think the expectations were already sort of implicit. And so that's what happened in our family. Now, I know that sometimes when I go to other people's homes to talk to their students about whatever is college related, I don't see that sometimes. I do see that there's a lot more going on in their family, and that's going to affect the outcome of how this student performs. And so one of the things that I did as sort of an offshoot to what I was doing for the college thing is we lived in Korea for a year when my children were young.

SPEAKER A

Okay?

SPEAKER B

My oldest turned five years old there. So I had a five year old, a three year old, and a one year old newborn. This is way before Isabella was born. And so one of the things that I learned when I was there is that the homes were all very small. A large home was about 2600, most at the right. But every child had a desk, a very clean, orderly, organized desk. And then we came back to America, and I see kids strip doing their homework on the kitchen countertop, and I thought, maybe that's the secret. And so I actually started talking to very younger parents, mostly moms, and I would go into the homes and I would tell them, you need to create a study space for your children. And so I helped them organize those study spaces. No distraction, clean, orderly, all the tools were there because I think that children know what you care about.

SPEAKER A

Yeah.

SPEAKER B

And so if your parents are organizing that room for you to have a good study environment, they put a high priority in that.

SPEAKER A

Wow.

SPEAKER B

And so that's one of the things that I started doing in one phase during that time when I was kind of helping parents, because I really felt like that was one of the big missing links. I still feel very strongly that children don't have that study space in America, that you just do it in the kitchen table or whatever it is. And if that's what's happening, because that's what you have, then just do it. Absolutely. Whatever works for your family. But I think that having an environment where it's conducive to performing at a high level is very helpful for the student.

SPEAKER A

Wow. Yeah. I am blown away. This is such great advice, and you're spot on. I live in Singapore now, as you know, and have lived in China and visited even Korea, where you lived for a year all those years ago. And I've seen exactly what you're describing tiny homes in Singapore. The real estate is more expensive than in San Francisco, like per square foot. And so for families to fit a desk in is a big deal. And that's what you're describing in Korea. That's what they decided was the priority. I love that, and it never dawned on me before this moment when you described that, and I think that's absolutely brilliant.

SPEAKER B

So.

SPEAKER A

Those are some of the things that you did to create this environment where the children grew up feeling like, okay, academics is really important in this family, and I'm part of this family, and so it's important to me. And that was just understood once they get to high school. Did you ever run into a situation where you and the child or was the child always able to make the decision about how hard to push academically, to fit one more AP in or to remove that AP and have a little bit more time to focus on your community impact or your sports? Because I know your children were also athletes and musicians or artists and writers, like you said. And so once they do get to high school so you've described beautifully the environment in the home and how big of an impact that has on them once they get to those high school years. How did that work in your family? How did you decide to remove classes or add classes? Do take the hardest teacher who, you know, never gives a's or do you take the easier teacher? How did you guys make those decisions in your home?

SPEAKER B

Well, I was very involved. I remember being very involved with their school, both internally and externally. I was involved in the PTA. I was team varsity parent. I knew what was happening in their school. So my kids were lucky in the fact that I had the wherewithal and time to do that, and not everybody does have that. So that's one aspect when you're asking me what I did that early on, emphasis on creating the environment didn't end when they were in high school. I didn't say, oh, well, you're in high school now, so you can do it on your own. So once they got into high school, what we would do to balance those APS and things like that, what you're asking is we created a four year plan. The four year plan. So the five core subjects math, English, history, all of that. So we created kind of a pretty solid but flexible schedule.

SPEAKER A

Okay.

SPEAKER B

So that my children knew, oh, junior year, I'm going to have these classes, so I better cut back in this. I can add that my senior year, because by my senior year, I'm going to already probably know where I'm going to go to college. And so I remember kind of working with them to load up their junior year, because I think by the end of your junior year, you're sort of kind of wrapping things up to present yourself to college, because by the fall of your senior year, things get very busy. I mean, you are now a leader of your high school. You're a senior. So I think one of the things that high schoolers don't really understand is that they think their senior year they're going to be applying to college and doing all this stuff. But that's when things get really heavy handed, just socially and mentally, and expectations are really high. Because you are now a senior in your school, expected to lead.

SPEAKER A

Yes.

SPEAKER B

So I tried to plan that out with them. So that's what we did. We designed a four year plan so they sort of knew what was expected, what can be added, and what can be deleted from their flexible application, I mean, of the flexible schedule. And so with that being said, of course, there was proms and homecomings and social events and the unexpected. Some things happened, and we just had to make some alterations. But at least they have a roadmap. So that's one of the things that we had done with our older children. And that's why when I saw this opportunity to have Isabella take your Ivy League Challenge, I thought, well, she's in 9th grade. She can make her own plan because she can start this early. I don't think we started this kind of process with my older children until probably the end of their sophomore year because we just didn't know any better. So with her, we just decided to do it a little bit differently.

SPEAKER A

Beautiful. Well, and on the one hand, you didn't start until sophomore year, but on the other hand, you started when they were five and three. And one, realizing that we create an environment in the home that leads to a kind of human being that comes out so absolutely beautiful. I just am so appreciative of your time and your expertise. I'm curious if you just have any last thoughts or any in all the work that you've done inside your home and outside your home. You've referenced you've mentioned that you've helped a number of people in a number of communities from a number of different backgrounds. And you also are familiar with my audience a little bit because a lot of the people who listen to me well, you listen to the podcast, so you kind of know the experience. And you've also had a daughter in the program. So understanding the audience and your experience and the things that perhaps maybe would round out the understanding that my audience might have and just help them in some way, do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to share with me and with the rest of the group that's listening in?

SPEAKER B

Well, I would just say just to share your knowledge, build a community around this college process, because it's a very lonely process if you make it that way. But if you share what you have and you share what you've learned, and you can always help somebody who needs to hear it. Because for Isabella, I mean, she's my fourth one, but for some of her French, they're the first in their family to experience this. And so while they are still peers and the same age and the same grade, totally different starting process, right?

SPEAKER A

Absolutely.

SPEAKER B

And so I think that if parents have already gone through this with their older children and they've learned something, it's really nice to share with your community. And so that would be my final thing, because I think that this is a four year process that can turn into a very long process drawn out, and it can be laborious and stressful, but you don't have to make it that way. Thank you. It doesn't have to be that way. It can be a very joyful process.

SPEAKER A

Yes.

SPEAKER B

And things are not always perfect in my home either. I mean, sometimes we have our issues, too, but I share those, too. I tell people that it's not always hunky dory, and sometimes Isabella doesn't want to do what I think is good for her, and that's okay. That's how we all learn. And so I think when we support one another, I think it will just make this process a lot more seamless.

SPEAKER A

I think so. Beautifully said. I cannot thank you enough, Janice. Thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom with us. Honestly, those of you who are listening in, we've just I mean, I'm so grateful to you, Janice. I think that this conversation can be so helpful to so many families, not just the parents, who I'm sure have a million ideas now about how they can help create a better environment, starting early and late, but also teens listening in and understanding how we do need to take ownership of our learning and prioritize academics and then prioritize core values. Like, this balance can be inspiring, it can be wonderful, and it can lead to a human being who is just prepared to go out and lead in this world and have an incredible life. Or it can turn into the most stressful, overwhelming, anxiety inducing four or five years of your life. And neither of these outcomes is predetermined. It's up to us to determine if we're going to be completely stressed out through these formative years or if they're going to be very inspiring, very uplifting, and just amazing. And so I really think that you've been a gift to the audience. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER B

Thank you for having me.