Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 3 - Exposed! Lies of the test prep industry and how to prepare your kids for the SAT & ACT // Jean Burk

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Ep. 3 - Exposed! Lies of the test prep industry and how to prepare your kids for the SAT & ACT // Jean Burk · The Christy-Faith Show

• What are some shady practices that test prep companies do that drive you absolutely nuts give kids a diagnostic test in the beginning it's a test that would mimic the real test except that they made it up and it's really really hard on purpose welcome to the Christy Faith show where we share gamechanging ideas with intentional parents like you I'm your host Christy Faith experienced educational adviser and homeschool Enthusiast together we'll explore with ways to enrich and transform both your life and the lives of your children I am so happy to have our guest today Jean Burke is the author of The award-winning College Prep genius program and has has had numerous articles published about the SAT and the PSAT Tech High School prep college prep and how to get free college she is a Fox News contributor and has been featured as a test prep expert on ABC NBC CBS and more she homeschooled both of her children and they each earned free college and incredible scholarships because of their PSAT and SAT scores with her guidance tens of thousands of students have achieved remarkable results including SAT score increases of up to 700 points act improvements of 11 points ranking in the top 1% on the CLT and students earning National Merit Scholarships and even securing admission to ivy league universities with full scholarships she is the real deal when it comes to getting kids into college and it's an honor to have her on the show today where this will be one episode where you will get so many takeaways that will change and up level setting your kids up for college thank you so much for joining me today Jean I got to ask you and I am coming out of the gate hot because I was in the test prep business for many years and boy do some of these companies rip parents parents off let's talk shop for a minute what are some shady practices that test prep companies do that drive you absolutely nuts well and what's sad is they play on the ignorance of families because they don't know one of the biggest things that um I discovered years ago was most companies and this is even the big name brand companies uh they give kids a diagnostic test in the beginning before they do their program it's it's a a a test that would mimic the real test except that they made it up and it's really really hard on purpose so a student will take it get a terrible score then they go through their program uh whatever it may be and it can be really really expensive and then in the end they give them a completely different test uh that's really easy that they made up and so the kids may go up two or 300 points on the SAT four or five on the ACT and so they'll be excited they'll be like oh my gosh this is great you know parents are all happy because their money was worth it but then the kids go take the actual test and it doesn't change it might even go down uh the score and so what happens is so parents don't know was a totally different test or not even a real test and so if they confront the company the company will be like well your kid just didn't study enough or the student will think I just didn't study enough and so they have no idea that that they were uh deceived from the very beginning and so even their quotee unquote guarantees have to a lot to do with the fact that well if you don't raise a certain you know Point by a certain time you know it's not like they're going to give your money back they'll say you can retake the program again if it didn't work in the first place you know why would you do that um that's one of them another one that that just hit me really hard just a couple days ago because I was looking online there's a very very expensive Prep Prep School like in the Dallas Forth area and they brag about having so many national marit Scholars um but here's actually the the truth um anybody can buy PSAT scores of sophomores of any zip code and so what they do is they'll find they'll go to some of the nicer parts of town you know the a little bit uh uh bigger uh income families and um they'll buy the zip code and they'll of that City that area and then they will um find the students who took the sophomore PSAT who did real really really well kind of naturally and so what they'll do is they'll offer those students free classes and so what happens the next year when those kids become National Merit because they were already a pretty good test taker then they take the credit for it they'll have the kids do videos and say oh we got National Merit and all that in reality those kids probably would have done really well anyways um and my thought is always if you're such a good program why don't you find the kids who have the least scores and offer and offer them free classes so you know it's um it's very deceptive parents don't know that this is just interest interesting things that you just kind of learn along the way and in Los Angeles we ran our test prep with Integrity but it was extremely frustrating going up against these powerful companies and I knew they were writing their own tests they were doing a hard test in the beginning an easier test at the end oh my goodness what an incredible Point increase when in reality what all the parents need to hear today especially with the College Board is that if you are in a test prep program that is not giving you actual college board right and you can clarify this the actual tests from the College Board it's probably bogus and they're probably manipulating you would you agree with that 100% that's what we do we always have the kids take a actual free test from the College Board you can download it we give you a link to it um and then once you go through the program you retake the same test again so there's there's no variation at all and so that's why we can get Fair assessments on when a student does go up 300 points 400 points or more they actually did go up that much and so it gives the kids confidence it really encourages the parents to say hey my money was worth it and so yeah I'm I'm with you we don't we don't play that game we that's that's not who we are exactly I'd love for you to share your journey in this field of test preparation and what inspired you to start College Prep genius well like a lot of homeschooling families were one income and we always sort of in the back of our mind knew that we wanted our kids to go to college but it was one of those things that you think about but you don't think about and you definitely don't have the money to save and so when my son got to be sort of in later in the ninth grade year um I had a friend of mine mentioned to me one day I was in her kitchen and she said did you know that there is free college available on a test like a PSAT and and uh I was thinking to myself no I didn't know that that's interesting so the kind of the little wheels in my head started turnning thinking this could possibly be a way how we can get some scholarship money I I don't know don't know much about it but so what we did was very help their Skelter and we didn't know what we're doing we didn't have any money so we bought some books at the store took some couple local classes went through lots of practice questions lots of college board questions over and over again trying to figure out the patterns trying to figure out what's what works what doesn't work and short story long my son Josh became a national marriage scholar and we ended up throwing away seven trash bags of college offers and this is what happened over a year time my mailbox filled up every day full of letters all from colleges all across this nation just saying hey Josh if you'll come to my school I'll I'll give you a free ride or I'll give you free honors dorms or study abroad stiens grad school money I mean the the offers were crazy and so our decision went from oh my gosh how in the world are we going to pay for college to where in the world should he go to because we had so many offers then my daughter started getting college offers and scholarship money and people were on the phone calling us going how did how' youall get free college and so I was like oh well you know it wasn't anything pretty but you know ultimately I put together a program and um started uh out of my home just kind of in my kitchen my living room kind of started filling up with kids just teaching them stuff and then school started calling me saying hey will you come and teach us at my school and I said okay and people from other cities would say you know I don't live in your area but if I get a few kids together will you come over to my city and I said okay and then I had people come and call me from other states going hey I'd like you to come to my state would you you know if I get x amount of kids together will you come here and teach and I said okay um and then I started having other countries call me so that's kind of how it's sort of snowballed to where it's at now I love that just or an organic beginning and I think that a lot of homeschooled parents probably when you were homeschooling there weren't a lot of options you kind of had to go to Barnes & Noble and get a test prep book probably in those days right I I exactly and and even then I didn't even know that there was a difference like most parents you you walk into the books and no uh Noble store and there's just rows and rows of chest prep books with from a bunch of different companies and you know most people you know it's like what do you buy the biggest one the smallest one the prettiest one so it's really it's really difficult I mean I learned that long way I didn't know back then but I I definitely know now to only use actual real test questions exactly and I want you guys to hear that only use real test questions if you're enjoying the show and don't want to miss out on future episodes hit that like And subscribe button and show us some love with your reviews those five star reviews really do help us reach more people I want to ask you about something that I hear a lot about both with home homeschooled kids and also kids in conventional schools and this is about testing anxiety what advice would you give a student or a parent of a student who has incredible anxiety when it comes to taking tests how would you suggest that they manage their stress effectively and help them with these tests where the stakes feel really high yeah you know test test anxiety is a real thing it's something because a lot of times students you know they know that my scholarship or the college I want to go to rides all on this test and if I could say one thing start early you you can't get time back and one of the biggest things that people will say to me at conferences is you know I wish I would have started earlier and um just like at any whether it's sport whether it's a musical instrument you know the center you start the more time you have to improve but if you can start your kids in middle school it would change everything now I know there's a lot of people listening that that have older kids juniors are probably the average student that come to our class even if you have a senior it's not too late at all I've seen amazing things happen even seniors going up like 300 points in a week but when you start early you have the ability to self-correct your mistakes the test what's great about the standardized test is that it has standardized questions and standardized answers so they're going to do the same thing on every single test there's no new questions so the earlier you get familiar with the test itself because you can't study for these tests but you study the test itself and the sooner you start doing that you start to see the patterns and they start to recur over and over again and you become you gain that confidence and the fact that you can take it many many times unlimited amounts of time on the SAT and 12 times on the ACT and unlimited on the on the CT is that if you go in there and you don't get the best score it's okay you still got plenty of time there's so many times it's offered throughout the year that you can just keep going back and most colleges will take the high scores from different tests so but if you wait till later or you listen to people who don't know they're talking about and and and tell them to wait till after the junior year when they have all the math they need which is not true that's not it's not about that then you shorten the the ACT actual times you get to take it between the time that you are in school and and you apply for college so start early it's it's probably my battlecry I've got even sixth and seventh graders who do our program and those are the ones who tend to go on and you know raise up their SATs for 500 points or more or their these 89 10 or more so that's what that's all that's what I'm all about but now if you do have a older student don't despair the only thing the problem is it just puts more pressure on them and by the time that you get to high school you're so busy these kids of today are so maxed out with school homework part-time job Sports church friends and so they have such a shorter window to really work on these tests and it's basically piling on another school subject and I want to get into this because people people often when they hear that I start test prep in my own home in junior high people automatically assume I'm tiger mom it's actually the opposite I want this process to be just so regular by the time my kids go in and take those tests that not a single question is really a surprise if they see something they don't know they know exactly what to do and this is what is the value of starting so early it's just exposure exposure lessening that anxiety and I couldn't agree with you more on that kids when they get to high school they are so stressed out and really test prep is an additional subject and that's how it needs to be viewed and I want to talk about that because people will often say oh my daughter gets straight A she's going to do fine on the SATs but you and I both know because I had the moms crying across my desk saying what are we going to do I thought he was going to do great and he just bombed the ACT what do I do and here we are crunch time so I want to talk a little bit about why school does not actually prepare our kids for the standardized test for college admissions like the Act and the SAT so test taking is a different skill set that's not taught in most schools and not in most home schools either and the problem is why you get valy torans why you get kids who have 4.0 4. 94. .5 crazy gpas why they do horrible on these tests is because they are logic test the questions are written in a way to purposely mislead a student and so the the wrong answers can be very appealing so it's easy to fall for the trick answers because it's not testing IQ it's not testing how smart you are or what school you go to and so I'm a big believer that test taking should be a class in every school definitely every home school and you can use it as an elective on your train transcript for your students and call it test prep or test skills and so the the problem is is that most people have that same mentality the calls I get the phone the emails parents saying you know you know my child is an honor student AP student has this GPA the number one kid in the school and yet they keep bombing this test and it has nothing to do with their you know how smart they are they just don't understand this is a different different test and so when you study or when you study for a history test you know you're going to study history itself but if you were approaching a logic test you have to understand how to look at the questions how not to be tricked by them because a 4.0 at one high school is not the same at another every school weighs and calculates their scores differently and so colleges know that so the only fair way to compare all students equally is based on an SAT or act because it levels the planing field absolutely I couldn't agree more and what's fascinating to me is when you get parents say well they do great in science why did they bomb the science section of the act and it's kind of misleading that it's called science section because what actually is that science section of the ACT well it's not about science it's very similar to the reading section on the SAT you don't even have to know one iota of scientific knowledge to beat the science section yeah they're going to give you sciency type questions like you you know scientist one experiments about Broiler birds and scientist to you know wants to know X Y and Z but that's just the the format of the questions um it's not it's the same thing as the SAT reading it's all about knowing that there are six types of questions they're purposely out of order you put them in the right order and then by the time that you to the last questions you already know the answers so it's just about your your critical thinking and your reasoning skills that's what they're testing they they can't test you on science because what we learn here in Texas our science classes that the schools aren't what someone in California or Florida or Alabama are going to have the same kind of uh curriculum home every homeschooler has a different science curriculum so it's not about content it cannot be about that it wouldn't it wouldn't be fair and so in many ways that can validate a homeschool transcript as well it actually validates all transcripts because Across the Nation the standards are different for each States what is taught to kids is different and so what are colleges is actually looking for when they look at SAT and ACT scores well they're looking for them for what makes them look good colleges are a business and they you know it's what's in it for me and because they get their national rankings based on test scores the higher the scores the high the more money they get the more funding they get the better they look and when you can go up on a ranking not only do you become a better brand but you can now attract students who can pay full sticker price uh or you you can attract students who uh are athletic and very talented but you only need the very minimum to get in so if we if they want to build their sports teams they want the very best students but those students don't have to have you know a high score they just need a minimum but what that does is that lowers their rankings so now they're out looking for students with higher test scores to bring them back up to where they were at exactly what's your favorite test prep strategy that you could share in about 30 seconds that will forever change the way kids take any test starting today so if you're taking the uh the next two paper tests on the SAT which I highly recommend the November and the December one uh before it turns digital in March which means it could very possibly have a lot of tech issues U I recommend that when you get to the writing section what's called writing language on the SAT it's called gramar grammar on the CLT and um English on the ACT what's a really fun strategy is that up to 75% of the time the shortest answer is the correct answer and what I mean by that is when you read it when you read it linear the one that's the shortest in length is correct and that's as much as 75% of time so what that means is always check out the shortest answer first I love that now a big source of confusion for so many parents and I was asked this on a daily basis back when we did test prep is which test do I take well we have the choice between the SAT and the ACT but now also the CLT is gaining prominence particularly in The Homeschool world could you first explain what the CLT test is and then let's discuss the difference between the Act and the SAT and which one should parents choose and kids choose oh 100% the CLT is taking the testing World by storm uh it it's really a David and Goliath story when they first came out they said no way you can compete against the big guys you know the sat's been around since the 1920s in the ACT since the 1950s no way but nobody foresaw 2020 when the whole world shut down and the CLT was already remotely proctored so every College accepted the CLT if they knew about it and their enrollment went at 5,000% so the CLT is the classic learning test it's not classical doesn't mean you have to have a classical education it just means classic like it relies on the great authors the great classic books anywhere from CS Lewis to Augustine to you know so you know Plato it just you you get the whole gamut of the authors from in modern influencers to ancient authors and so we have the official test prep for the CLT which is such a humbling and you know I'm honored always honored by that and a lot of our kids have been in the top 1% on the CLT so it's another option for families and they just passed in Florida for that the CLT can be used for bright future scholarship along with the act and act so as a homeschooling family you can definitely take it I would highly recommend taking it but you it's it's remotely proctored so you do it at your own home that lessens the anxiety of the surrounding students the the environment that you don't know about and being able just to be in your own home um in your own room doing it is that itself probably lessens that anxiety and just the stress in itself and particularly I think for homeschooled students where I'm sure yeah all of them have been to high schools but um I remember when I took the SAT when I was in high school it was at a different school and I had a lot of nerves just navigating the halls and finding the right room and and all of that's not actually it probably hindered my performance a little bit but has no had nothing to do with my knowledge and my ability to actually take the test it was just this layer of anxiety that's not necessary and if anything truthfully if a kid really struggles with anxiety they can underperform on the test just because of their environment and their nerves with that and I'm not saying baby your kids give them the CLT I'm acknowledging a very real anxiety testing anxiety is really big in our culture right now a lot of kids have performance anxiety they suffer from perfectionism and that's a whole another ball game but if you are a homeschool parent and you are considering colleges definitely look at is see if those colleges take the CLT test because it is a really cool option and I'm I'm excited for that I did not know you were the official test prep company for the CLT that's a pretty great honor Jean that's awesome before we continue I want to share with you a program that has been a game changer for our homeschool at our Learning Center we instructed and taught pretty much every math program out there on the market so we know firsthand how important a solid math Foundation is for our kids Futures finding the right homeschool math program that didn't compromise academic Excellence but also one that didn't put me in my my kids through the ringer was a challenge till one day I tried CTC math you guys the rest was history first off it's a Mastery based program which means your kid gets a solid grasp of the material it's also loaded with mixed reviews ensuring kids never forget what they've learned and the questions are adaptive which keep students confident and progressing at their own pace but the best part all the teaching and Grading done for you with CTC math there is no compromise on Excellence your child gets a top-notch education and you just made your homeschool life easier visit CTC math for your free trial today now I want to ask you how exactly this was one of the questions I first asked you when I first met you what exactly do you do to get kids free college well 85% of colleges will admit and give money based on test scores alone so definitely your test score is the main thing now there are lots of outside scholarships private scholarships um and we have a really cool free tool free degree tool coming up that's has collected hundreds of millions of dollars of scholarships all in one spot and that's really cool and that'll be out soon but focus on where who gives the most money and that is the schools yes you can do outside scholarships there's a lot of scams um one of the things you got to be really careful on is these scholarship companies online as soon as you go on there and click and you pretty much uh sign away your life you pretty Prett much have sold all your data to them and it says that in the fine print and so that's why you'll get inundated with Loan offers and scholarships that have nothing to do with your student and a lot of them are just lottery so you got to be really careful but here's the thing this is the the exciting thing about why it doesn't matter your income because um there's a really cool um site called the common data set or the CDs and on it it's a they've collected uh these are thousands of colleges that have collected data from thousands of colleges of like not only the attendance and the retention rate and the average scholarship but also it shows the the SAT and ACT scores of the colleges and so when you find colleges you and you use the common data set and we've we've done all the work so we've done that for every college so you which would take you hours uh to find just a few colleges we we spent years on working on this but um you could go to the common data set yourself and when you find schools that where your students stats are in the 75th percentile or above that's where you start getting free college because those are colleges based on Merit now if you're in the low income bracket then you can get free college based on grants uh or even low interest loans uh even Ivy Leagues all the top 25% schools give uh what's do what's called Cost Containment programs where they replace their loans with grants and students can get that paid for but you know what's interesting what what is low income that is it it it's so relative because Princeton and Stanford for example consider $140,000 low income so if you're in that bracket and you can get into Stanford or Princeton then you can get it completely free so I've heard you talk I love this analogy and I just want you to share it with our listeners today you I want you to talk about the six-pack analogy do you remember no you've said it so many times that you can't go to the gym one day and get a six-pack oh okay okay we can back it up I'm sorry yeah we we'll just delete I we'll stop at the question and then you because I love it it's really powerful so here's the thing I think we live in such a a drop- down menu instant success you know we ask Google something and we have a a reply quickly and I think people use that same sort of mentality when it comes to test prep they think that there's some kind of instant success that you you know automatically you just take a test prep program one time and then you're going to raise your score hundreds of points Point um it's like going to the gym though you know what I mean you do 10 10 situps and and then you're expecting a six-pack and I don't know in what world that happens because it doesn't but that's but people think that's the way it is with testing anything that you want to do whether it's playing an instrument or you know excelling at some kind of sport it you these people who are professionals have worked on that for months and months and in many cases years to get to a certain level and so for students to do well in test prep you know you can't shortcut the shortcut you know the it's accuracy before speed you know you get good then you get fast and so it's learning the patterns it's learning the shortcuts and then it's practicing and putting that into into play and that's the beauty of knowing that you can do this as a classroom that you could do it over a period of time and get credit for it because a lot of times as you were saying these colleg justs could say well how do I know that transcript is just not made up these are a bunch of grades you know that that trans that that uh SAT score AC ACT score or even CLT score validates it and gives that credibility exactly I want to hear what is your favorite test prep success story I know you have so many and you have testimonials like crazy you are such a reputable test prep company I want to hear what one of your favorite success stories is yeah you know what's what I love to hear back too is when people say you know what we were in the same boat we had no money and now we got you know free college you know our decision now becomes the institution and not the finances and so over the years i' i' I've been really blessed to hear so many Amazing Stories back one story in particular that kind of stands out was I got a call from a lady and she said hey my I have a son who's autistic he was told he would never write much less go to college and I hear that you're coming to Florence South Carolina to teach a class do you think I should put him in your class well having no experience and not even understanding the the situation and or even being in that situation I remember thinking well it wouldn't hurt cuz I really didn't know and so I Tau this huge class there and a few months later this lady called me back I used to answer my own my own office phone so uh she called and she said you probably don't remember me I called you about a year ago about coming to your class and my son was autistic I sat in the very back with my son you probably you know it was a huge class she said I just want you to know that my son is a National Merit scholar and has got unbelievable full rides offered to him and I remember thinking oh my goodness wow if this young man could do it with all the limitations that he has and that he's been thrown in his life anybody can do it it it's a matter of really just putting the effort in learning the information practicing correctly and then and and just keep working on it until until you get to the point and the score that you want so that it always encourages me when I often think about that story because I'm thinking if I'm getting ready to do something and I'm like wow I have I have no excuse you know it's a matter of you know you know what to do just do it so I mean I think the difference be between who you want to be and who you are now is what you do and you know that's for for me that was such a blessing and I I I think about that often you know I get kids with severe dyslexia disg graphia who done really well and so those are so encouraging but I but I love all my testimonials because I know what it I know what it did for us and I know what it does for them and when people tell me listen I my school went up 400 points and I got into the College of my choice and they they paid me a monthly check not only did I get it free every month they send me money just to stay at their college because I make them look good I absolutely love that and I want to ask you when I when parents would ask me our our Center was in a very the parents that we served were quite typ a let's just put it that way and I would have parents sitting down across my desk and their kid would be in sixth grade and they'd say all right let's make the plan for Stamford and I'd be like all right let's do it and one thing that I noticed over and over again and I think this is a way that homeschoolers have the edge well there's two ways the first way that homeschoolers I think have the edge and I have done extensive research on this is that homeschoolers tend to be Avid readers and they're not reading crap they're reading Classics and I want to talk about that because I would have parents and they they'd be like my kid needs to do 10,000 vocabulary flashcards and I would ask well is your kid a reader and they say no he's just never loved reading she's just never loved reading and I would tell them don't waste your time you're going to get banged for your buck if we focus on strategies instead and I want to talk a little bit about this vocabulary building piece because there is high vocabulary and reading comprehension high level skills on these tests and it's so much easier if you start younger and I want to talk a little bit about what moms and dads can do maybe even in elementary school just to set their kids up to have an easier road down the line for College admission right no you're absolutely right the the statistics show that a student who reads maybe a minute a day and that means that means outside of school or outside of reading something on their phone they they score in the 10 percentile on their test at school the kids who read about five minutes a day again you know these are reading for pleasure they score in the 50 percentile and a student who reads at least 10 20 minutes a day scores in the 90 percentile in school so the evidence is clear uh that's been around for a long time and so the thing about reading is and you know I I you know we hear a lot of statistics about you know when I do a lot of radio and stuff they they'll talk about the school systems and you know you know their kids are failing in reading and all that but I think it's kind of like church you know you can't expect your child to be a solid Believer by going to three hours of church a week you know that yes they go they may get they get hopefully they get fed and they learn some stuff but the majority of the time they're at home and so you may learn how to read at school but if you're not reading at home and if parents aren't reading and they're putting their phones down and they're reading and they're you know they're giving an example for their kids and don't expect your kids to read obviously it's different more so in the homeschooling world and I get my reading list for my kids because they're such voracious readers but reading is important because you're you're learning you know even reading over your your little kids reading over their head they're picking up words that you don't even realize they're getting and so the reading is going to help them not only standardized test but also just in life because when you're you know when you get to College all you do is write papers and at that point you don't have time to learn vocabulary you better already have an arsenal of words that you've learned and that can definitely come through reading now the thing about the reading on the SATs and acts is even if it's a word you don't know the great thing about it is you you don't even necessarily have to know the word if you if you're familiar with it like the suffixes and the prefixes or some of the Latin roots um and and process of elimination is a great way to find an answer even if you don't know what a a word is because there's over 171,000 words in the dictionary and so there's no way that we can learn all these words but what we can do is we can learn basics of a of of a a word structure and I'm a big believer in like incorporating some kind of Latin into your school and then in in the back of my textbook we have a list of the prefixes the suffixes and the are they negative are they positive you know what's what are root words and and I I you should definitely spend your time on that because that's going to help you in lots of different classes and I love what you mention about reading over your kids head because it's one thing for you to give them books that they fall in love with and then they enjoy right at their level but reading out loud a little bit above their grade level is such a it's really a superpower that we have as homeschooled parents because not only can we stop at a word and explain what it means have them say it back I did this yesterday it was a long word and I'm like okay let's pronounce this correctly but the other thing is we can stop and check for understanding because it's not just reading fluency that's important being able to sound out the words eventually our kids need to they learn to read and then they read to learn and so and reading comprehension does not always come naturally to kids and that's something that mam can and dads can catch really early if their kids are struggling with comprehension because that is a huge component to success on these later tests and the other thing too because I mentioned I think we have two superpowers being homeschooled parents setting our kids up for success and you briefly mentioned this and and I want to make sure that we punctuate it here on today's episode and that is make test prep a class in your home school we can we have the time and do it not just one year not just the junior year we start in junior high and it's really casual it's one day a week for us this year but it's that early exposure and we're just going to go through it then go back start from the beginning do it again keep taking those practice tests in just a really low pressure way and I think that's something really special about being a homeschooler and a way that you serve the community so well a lot of people say homeschooling is easy and I just flat out disagree I think at times homeschool can feel really hard and part of it is the weight of the responsibility to not mess up our kids we are often riddled with self-doubt second guessing and feeling overwhelmed with excessive amounts of information out there in all of the options and at the same time we love our kids we don't want to mess this up so how do we build a home school that our kids will thank us for later on down the years when they are adults well the first step is joining Thrive homeschool Community where you find The eight-step Homeschool success framework this helps you build an undeniably successful homeschool that gives your kids what they need now that also prepares them for their future and helps you in the daytoday as well each year and each kid presents us with Uncharted Territory but with the right plan you can rest in the security and confidence that you are doing a great job the path is easy join Thrive say a quick hello to all your new friends start right away The eight-step Homeschool success framework and kiss anxiety goodbye it's risk-free no contracts you can cancel any time no questions asked can you describe a little bit about what your courses are we are in kind of the self-paced online one right now but what else do you do so we have the on demand videos that you can do at your own pace for self you know self-directed which is what you're doing um we also have virtual boot camps where for the students who want a teacher in front of their face where they can interact and ask questions we also do live classes that that's how I've been able to travel into almost every state and five other countries teaching because people will host the class they they'll get a hold of us and they'll say listen I'd love you to come to my city or my state if I get together you know a minimum of 10 kids and find some place to teach at my church or a local school or wherever then then we come and so that's been what we've been able to do for years and so but every student learns differently and that's the thing is you know some kids do better in front of a just a you know at their own slow pace and some prefers you know an actual teacher so we have we have all that available the thing too that as you were saying to your point about the incorporating test prep is and I think if parents knew this one thing it would change everything about putting in uh test as a as a class and that is that your kids will be tested all their life not just getting into college and getting scholarship money which is you know what SATs and acts and clts do but if they go on to postgrad school law school med school these are also standardized tests that are beat I've got many students who've got free college including my own uh grad school and law school offers Galore based on a test but then also standardized tests fall under like the not only Jerry's and all that but real estate test CPA test the the military test at your job someday your if you go into the trades there's going to be certification tests um if you are already a nurse or an engineer I I get told this uh by them all the time that every six months the the company that they work for will test them on not on not on their degree but on their critical thinking thinking skills because you can't test someone on their degree because everybody at your job is all different ages different backgrounds and so testing is a part of just a part of life and so we're almost doing a disservice to our kids if we're not incorporating test taking skills which is which is what's really interesting about people who've told me all these things that oh I use your program you know to beat the Hobby Lobby test or one gentleman in Arizona told me that his um his company gave every employee what was called the professional performance security test and he had been going along doing the self-paced program with his daughter and he said the entire company failed the test but him because somehow this the college pep genius strategies worked because it was the same thing there's one objective indisputable answer and several distractors when I was in Dallas a few years ago I had a young girl at a at a conference a young girl she came into my booth and her testimony is on my website and she said Mrs Burke I've got I was doing your program I did well in the SAT but I really have a fun story to tell you and I said Okay and she said she goes I had taken Mandarin 1 and I wanted to test into Mandarin 2 and when I did I did not know most of the words but I just used College Prep genius strategies and I tested out as a native Mandarin speaker and so who knew but because the the standardized test companies all kind of do the same thing so it's not like you have to take a you know a real estate class and a you know CPA test and a civil service class you know if you understand that that all the standardized tests pretty much follow the same patterns it could go a long way for your kids and I think it's really going to it could change everything for them imagine you know my son was offered tons of full rides to law school all across this nation because of his elsat score my daughter on her GRE or um her grad school um so you can not only just get your college paid for because you're making the colleges look good but you could you know go on to even postgrad school and and get that paid for and not be strapped with all that debt I love that yeah and we we don't have time to go into that but just the debt that many kids graduate with after they've gone to their four-year College it's it's a heavy burden this has been such a value packed episode I cannot wait for my listeners to hear it and I know parents are going to be asking after this where do I find Jean where do I find her test prep program can you please share with us where we can find you so you can go to college prep genius.com um we are in the course of finishing up our CLT program which is very specific for it we still have the the paper test on the SAT is still going on so you our program covers that it also covers the act as well and then we're going to be updating for the digital sat and P which is going to happen in March of 2024 but anybody who does get our program or does take our class we have one more class this year in November one more boot camp but then we have the eour but if you get our program uh you will get all the free updates for the digital program which is a huge value because right now you're getting the SAT and the act and you'll get the digital PSAT and sat the new people that don't have the program we're we're going to split it up SAT and ACT because of the the formatting so different in the for the future um so now you get all that so um so you can still use the the Christy50 code, we'll put that we'll put your website in the show notes we'll put that coupon and I love that you always have our back you understand that a lot of us make financial sacrifices in order to homeschool our kids so the fact that you always make your programs affordable and you think about like what we actually need and you really give us what we need I appreciate that so much about you I happen to know you personally so I know you're such an incredible woman of Integrity but um I just want the audience to know that as well and I just think you are doing a fantastic job you have already taken the homeschool World by storm with your test prep programs and you have the results to prove it and the awards and all of that thank you so much for coming on the show today and I cannot wait for the listeners to hear this and check out your website well thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it.