It came to me like a bolt of lightening after I’d sat with the second group of college bound families at high schools in as many weeks. I should create a service for high schools where I come in and facilitate a persistent and consistent scholarship application program. In this week’s podcast I outline two versions of this service:
- A week long one called “DEA-Days” (Drop Everything and Apply Days)
- A 6-week long one called SCHOLARSHIP-A-THON
You can LISTEN, WATCH, or READ the transcript below!
PS. Get access to the #DebtFreeDegree community, where you get a step by step system that’ll show you how to get your kid into college and DEBT FREE!
“Good people I’m driving at ten and two; both hands on the wheel. I am not looking into this as I do this video. This is very very safe so if there’s anyone who is uncomfortable right now send me good healing thoughts and un accident free thoughts. I really wanted to come to you today to talk about how your high school can help your college bound teen apply for a lot of scholarships and this is something that came to me after last night. I gave a scholarship
presentation for the second time in about two weeks, as you know, this is October, the FAFSA opened so lots of high schools have been having different activities in order to help parents of college bound seniors complete the FAFSA and this was called a FAFSA frenzy and this is the second one I had been to over the last couple of weeks giving a presentation to teach college bound families how to apply for scholarships. So I’ve met some incredible parents last night some incredible teens and what I discovered is that the piece that I offer, there just isn’t enough time to to really zone in on it during the school day.
Roxanne did it! And when I say the piece that I offer I mean consistent and persistent scholarship application programs. So my name is Treasure Shields Redmond and I am known as the #DebtFreeDegree expert. I help busy parents of college-bound teens secure top-tier education without massive debt, and I do that at www.gettheacceptanceletter.online. As part of my business where I you know operate an online community where I help college bound families get their kids into college and do it debt free. I also go around and give various presentations in high schools and you know what the parents tell me over and over again? They feel overwhelmed. They feel mystified. The say we try google searches, but when the google search comes back with three million responses. we don’t know where to begin looking for scholarships.
They need an advocate and a guide to navigate through that with clarity and ease and that’s what I realized. If I offer my service and high schools that it will be very valuable and then I could serve a lot more families than are able to find out about me through my internet marketing and my in-person or webinar trainings.
So I have developed two offers, two services for high schools. One is called “DEA-days.” D-E-A means drop everything and apply days. They would be a week long consistent and persistent scholarship application program where kids would interact with me for the equivalent of five days, and I understand how high school schedules work; I probably wouldn’t be able to get five straight days, but an hour and a half over five straight days with a group of seniors (but even if I got one day over five weeks) is still; the program stands. It’s five five days and I can guarantee that they will apply for three scholarships every time we meet; the equivalent of 15 scholarships per person.
The DEA days starts with a kickoff rally and what the school would need is three basic things: (1) they would need access to devices larger than phones like tablets laptops or desktop computers, (2) they would need internet access, (3) and they would need buy-in from the school to kind of fast-track items that they’re going to need to apply for scholarships.
And those items are: copies of their transcripts, recommendation letters, and those I think those are the only things that the school has to provide the people from the school. We have to provide and also to have various teachers that grade writing and that includes the history teachers and the English teachers to, you know, glance over essays, provide a second set of eyes for essays and that’s so those sort of three things that the high school would need.
Access to the electronic devices larger than phones, internet access, and buy-in from the infrastructure from the administration and the teachers and the counseling department in school in order to fast-track those key items that kids are gonna need over and over again to help them get, you know pdf copies into a google environment so that they can apply for scholarships.
That’s what DEA days would involve because it’s only five meetings it involves a little bit of frontloading on the school’s part beforehand. So I think the school would be responsible for making sure that kids had transcripts, recommendation letters, a college resume, essays, copies of their standardized tests, and then I come in and just do scholarship applications.
Now the other service, the SCHOLARSHIP-A-THON, is one that’s more and it would last six weeks or one grading period whichever is shortest and so there wouldn’t have to be any front-loading before I got there. When I get there the first week we’re going to get those tight essays written, right? We’re gonna work together to make sure they have a conservative email address. We’re gonna help them put together their google drive environments. We’re going to you know, give them some checklists so there wouldn’t be any extra instruction on the part of teachers because I would handle all the instruction over six weeks or one grading period whichever is shortest.
They basically would just come to me for all things scholarship and maybe about 2/3 of things how to get into college because so much of it crosses in each other. For instance, if you respond to one of the essays on the common app then you can use that essay to apply to colleges that require essays as well as use that essay to apply to scholarships. So bringing me in will push those kids who are self-starters who don’t have the information at home. They usually only have one or two senior counselors. I will come in and be support in the school basically, but my zone of genius, my target is helping kids apply for scholarships so the SCHOLARSHIP-A-THON of course will come at a larger investment on the school’s part but it’s more comprehensive. There are webinars in which I come in and you know introduce each module. Each each of the six modules over six weeks and items that kids complete that are gonna at the end result in them having applied to at least 100 scholarships.
Now if you think that your school would like to move forward with me helping in this way you can contact me at www.gettheacceptanceletter.online or you can email me at ProfessorRedmond@gettheacceptanceletter.online. I have really enjoyed sharing this with you. I really think this could be a game changer for schools. You know, lots of schools have counselors who come in and help people apply to college but their scholarship piece is often seen as an extra and it’s just something that happens to the the lucky the people with extraordinary test scores and extraordinary grades. But there are so many opportunities that kids could apply for if there was somebody shepherding that process and somebody who was an expert in the area. I am a former teacher. I will talk to you next time. I’m Treasure Shields Redmond, the #DebtFreeDegree expert. Have a great rest of your week!”