## Intro....What Is Merit Aid and Who Actually Qualifies [00:00] All right, welcome everyone. All right, uh my name is Coach David. I'm going to be your kind of guide on this financial aid journey today. Right. Today we will be talking about merit scholarships. I call them the unicorns of financial aid because they don't really exist all that much. Okay. Now a lot of people might be thinking what does he mean by that and I'll kind of explain it a little bit further right but uh we will kind of be discussing merit scholarships today kind of what they are kind of like how colleges might trick you into thinking that is what it is right all those different pieces of the puzzle okay um now as we go through obviously it's really nice for me to kind of have an idea of kind of who is here right so if you can go ahead and put your child's grade in the chat that would be Awesome, right? Uh it really helps me out a lot. And if you have any questions as we're going through our kind of, you know, our presentation today, please let me know so that I can kind of uh you know, answer those questions either in line if that if we're still talking about that topic or later at the end of the call. Okay, but let's go straight into it. Right, it is 5:00 5:01 actually on June 11th, 2025. It's a beautiful day outside. I'm inside my air conditioned office. It's very hot outside where I am. And today we're going to be talking about merit scholarships. Now just a little bit more about MIS and kind of what we're going to do today. Right? So as far as our agenda, we're going to talk about merit scholarships. What are they? Do they exist? Can you target them? Right? And we'll also talk about how to increase your chances, right? But I'll also kind of give you the downside of that as well, right? But we have to figure out what this best strategy is for your student, what the best strategy is for your family. Okay? Now, just a ## Why Families Over 200K Can Still Get Financial Help [03:00] little bit about me if you haven't been around, right? I am a former law school and college admissions reader, right? I'm a former lawyer turned college admissions expert, right? And I'm ready to make sure to save your family money. Okay, so that is why I'm here. Uh I've been doing this for, you know, college admissions for the past uh 16 years now. Financial aid for the last 15, so about a decade and a half. Okay. So, uh, I'm going to try to kind of give you guys all the information you guys need to understand the process, to understand kind of the different pieces of the puzzle so that you guys can make the best and informed decisions for your family. Okay? I will have a link to a consultation later on. Our consultations are always free, right? There's no charge, right? All we ask is that you come with an open mind. Make sure that you have information that we're going to need. If we don't have the exact information, that's fine, too. You can go ahead and, you know, have rough figures, okay? But I'll talk about that later on when we get to the end. Okay. But for right now, let's kind of move on a little bit. Now, one of the pieces I always like to share with our families is what is going on in financial aid world. Okay. Now, again, most of the times I'm bringing up kind of things that have happened, right? More recently, things about the US Department of Education, uh, cuts to proposed budgets, right? Um, colleges losing funding from the federal government. All these different pieces I've been talking about. Today I want to kind of change the focus a little bit and kind of talk about another piece of the puzzle, right? And again, it's another uh oh, unfortunately I can't there's no like really big um how do I put it? There's no there there's no like a lot of good news. I think last week was the first time I talked good news ever. Usually it's always kind of like bad news or like just neutral news, right? Um but I will say this, this is another bad news situation. AI, right, which has infiltrated a lot of parts of our life, right, has also infiltrated financial aid. So, scammers are using AI to basically take people's personal information, apply to schools, and then receive the funding, right? Whatever whe whether it's loans or grants or whatever it is, and then basically pull that money from accounts or actually have the money sent to their account. Okay, so now again, I tried to make light of this, but it, you know, it's it's not easy, right? uh they obviously never attend the classes, right? Uh whether they're online or in person or wherever, right? The silver lining could have been that you got some college credits, but unfortunately that's not what what is happening. They just take the money and they run, right? Um and so be careful, right? There are a lot of websites out there that that try to mimic what the FAFSA looks like. There's a lot of scholarship websites that ask for a lot of information, but with the advent or like kind of like the opening up of the internet, a lot of people have actually fallen victim uh to having their personal data compromised. Okay? And this is one of the ways that it's starting to be compromised, right? Uh most recently, I know that there was like a 70-year-old uh grandmother, right? Uh that lives, I believe it was like uh in the Midwest, right? and she was signed up for classes at some community college and then she got a bill to start repaying her loans because ## The Difference Between Merit Need and Hybrid Scholarships [06:00] she wasn't in college and she's like what are you talking about? I never took out any loans and I haven't been in college for, you know, uh 50 years, right? Um and then they realized that she had been hacked, right? Um and so again, please be careful out there, right? Um a lot of bad people trying to do bad things. Okay? Again, I'll try to keep you guys as updated as possible on things on new developments that are happening with the US Department of Education, uh, federal aid, things like that, right? Uh, but as of right now, um, I've talked about everything, right? There should be some new developments as the new kind of budget proposal, um, either gets accepted or there's changes to that, okay? But I will try to keep you guys updated there. Okay? Now, one of the things I always say to families is don't be scared, get prepared. Okay? Um, and again, a lot of families are disheartened by what they have heard out there, right? Oh, your family makes a little too much money, right? Your family's not eligible. You own a home, so you can't get anything, right? You have rental properties. I've helped people in every single situation get money, right? Now, of course, there are people that I cannot help or there's people where even if I do help them, I can't get more than they're already going to get. Right? So, if you are a lower income family, right, and I'd probably say like, you know, lower than $50 or $60,000 a year, there's not much more I can do to get you more, right? And if your income is over like I'd probably say 7 $800,000 a year, there's probably nothing I can do and nothing I can change to get your money aid for college. But if you're somewhere in the middle, right? That's where I can help you, right? So for families that make you know you know 70 80 90 $100,000 a year to 200 3000 400 500 $600,000 a year those are the families that I am usually helping to get money for college. Okay so keep that in mind. Now before we get into our training for today which we're going to talk about merit scholarships I did want to kind of put out a quick message out there right because we are running our kind of Eagle Lock College uh application intensives. Okay. Now, for those of you that do know, financial aid secrets is part of Eagle, right? Uh it is a uh is one of the companies under our Eagle umbrella, right? But our college application intensives have started. They started actually in April. So, what this is is for rising seniors. So, our juniors this year, starting in April and and all throughout May and then all throughout June right now, have been doing the Kickstart event. The Kickstart event is a oneday Saturday event. It runs from 9:00 to 4:00. We help students get to kind of their first drafts of their pi UCPs and their common app personal statements. Okay, if you are interested, there's only two weekends left in uh in June, right, that you could possibly sign up for. Right now, the more important piece of this puzzle is this, right? There is a 2day accelerator event, right? That is virtual or in person in July, September, and or July, August, and September, right? In order to come to that event, you need to have gone through our kickstart event. Okay? So, if you are thinking about our college application intensive, you need to make sure that you come to a kickstart event, whether it's this weekend or the following weekend, right? Or actually this weekend, I think we closed off, but the following weekend or the weekend after that. There's only two weekends left if you want to be take part in our college app intensive. Okay? But in the accelerator, we're trying to get your students to final draft of their main essays and even some of their early action or early decision essays. So again, getting into college is the first step. Paying forward is the second one. Okay? So we need to make sure that we put our efforts into step one first. Okay? So keep that in mind. You can go visit our website. It's collegeappensive.com or I will have a QR code or phone number that you can reach out on later so that you can ask our team more about it. Okay? But spots are very limited. We're sold out at a lot of different locations. We might only have some virtual ones left, right? Um I think there's a couple inerson ones left in Northern California, couple in Southern California, and then a couple in San Diego. Okay, but there's not a lot of spots left. So, please make sure to reach out to us ASAP if you are looking for a spot. Okay, now let us get back into our training now. Okay. Now, thank you guys for going ahead and putting in, you know, your students grade level here, right? I see a lot of 10th graders. I see a lot of 11th graders. I see uh I even see some 12th graders right now, right? Uh for 12th graders, again, they're well, I guess I'm well, I ## College Examples....UC USC LMU and Arizona State [10:30] guess some people are saying 12th grader because their student has now left 11th grade and they're rising 12th graders, right? Some people might be saying 12th grade, their student just graduated. Okay, but either way, uh I think this is a good kind of way for people to understand financial aid. So, let's kind of get straight into it. Okay, so when it comes to merit scholarships, I think the first question that a lot of people don't ask and so they think they know is what are they, right? But merit scholarships, this is what you have to understand. Merit scholarships are scholarships that are given based solely on your academic achievements. That's it. Okay, that's all that they consider for it to be considered a pure merit scholarship. Right? A lot of people think that merit scholarships exist at every single college, but they actually don't. Right? You have to understand, look at the underlying foundation of the scholarship to understand if it is a true merit scholarship or not. Right? Now, these merit scholarships will normally be given to you by the college that you're going to attend. Okay? So again it's sometimes there are things extra things that you have to do but mostly they're given to you by the colleges right now where to look there's obviously outside scholarships that do take your academic achievement into kind of as one of the factors that they're looking into right but that's usually one part of the puzzle there there might be they might be looking for a certain like a student from a certain background or that has a certain kind of commitment to uh a certain community whatever it is right um but the academic achievement is one part of that puzzle. Okay, so again, not a true merit scholarship, right? There's other things that are being factored in right now. Again, for the merit scholarships, just like I was saying a little while ago, you don't necessarily need to look for them. Instead, the colleges, right? If they think that you are in that top tier of students that is applying that year, they will provide them to you, right? Usually, there's no need to apply unless there's like an honors program that you might need to apply to and then they have scholarships if you get into that honors program, right? So just an example of that might be like Boston College has an honors program, right? They ask you to apply for it. If you do get it, get in, then obviously they will give you something. Okay? So again, there's different pieces of the puzzle like that. Okay? Um I think there's a question here. Uh I I will try to answer it later at the end. Okay. Now, again, I kind of alluded to this when we were talking a little bit earlier, but let me talk about why merit scholarships aren't just necessarily about the students merit. Okay, here is the first thing. Okay, you need to understand how merit scholarships work and the under like I said the underlying foundation behind them, right? Many times people come to me and they're like, "Oh, I got a merit scholarship for this." But they don't necessarily really understand it, right? So again, a pure merit scholarship is solely based on your academic achievement, nothing else. Okay, that is a unicorn type of scholarship. Okay, unicorn, right? And what I what do I mean by unicorn? It's very hard to find or maybe doesn't even exist, right? Then there is a merit/ne scholarship. Your merit qualifies you but your need dictates how much you get. And then there are need-based scholarships, right? And this is based purely on your family's financial need. Okay, so this is the way that you should understand how scholarships are. Okay, now moving on, you need to look at the fine print, right? Not all scholarships are like created equal. I'm not sure why this is in here. It's not supposed to be in here, but um let's talk about some examples of scholarships and like where people think that it is a merit scholarship, but it's actually not. Okay, so the first one that I'm going to talk about is the University of California. The University of California is a system that a lot of our families are applying to, right? I'm based in California myself. I'm in the San Francisco Bay area, right? And so I will talk about two of the scholarships that they give out. One is like the chancellor like again every school has like a different name for it but mostly most schools call it the regent scholarship but there are a few UC's that call it the chancellor scholarship. All right. This is one that is often way misunderstood. Right? A lot of people think oh because my student did well academically they are getting this scholarship. Right? That's a halftruth. Right? It's not a pure merit scholarship. Right? So, this is actually a merit slashne scholarship. Your academic achievement qualifies you, right? But the scholarship that you actually get can be anywhere between $2,000 and $20,000 depending on your family's need compared to the rest of the people that qualified for that scholarship. Okay? So, let me give you a very simple example to help you guys understand this. Let's say that your academics and kind of what you've done over the course of high school has qualified you for a region scholarship. Wonderful, right? It means that you were in that top 1% of 1% of students that was applying. That's great, right? Now, let's say that your family made $150,000 a year, right? But let's say that everyone else that was applying, their family made a million dollar a year. Okay? That means that you would get 20,000 because you are kind of lower on the totem pole as far as family ## Why Ivy League Schools Give 0 in Merit Aid [15:45] resources. Okay, but let's say that you made the same $150,000 a year, but let's say that everyone else that got the award made $149,000. That means that you're the top person income-wise, right? Top family, that means you would only get $2,000. Okay? So, while your merit does qualify you here, right? Depending on your family's situation, they will and that's why they have a range there. So whenever you have a range of scholarships, you know that is not a pure merit scholarship because they will be looking at your family's financial situation to decide how much to give you in comparison to everybody else. Okay? So this is one that is often misunderstood. But I also wanted to bring up other schools that a lot of our students are applying to so that you can understand as well. Right? So another one that a lot of our California students apply to is USC. Okay? Now USC they have they don't even call it merit scholarship they call it nonnade need-based gift aid okay so they have various grants scholarships again it can be called whatever it doesn't matter what it's called you have to understand what it is actually doing right now these nonnebased gift aid right they a lot of people understand this to be merit scholarships but that's not necessarily the case again on their website they say that it can be for academic athletic ability community service or leadership So we don't know if it's just based on the merit right it's impossible to differentiate between why the the scholarship was given right now another thing is this right they say that the non-need-based gift aid is given to families right but it's only given after consideration of need-based aid right so to say that your financial situation doesn't matter here would be incorrect as well because let's say that based on your need-based aid. You had a bunch of stuff like you you got a bunch of grants, a bunch of scholarships, need-based, right? And you didn't need any non-nebased. Even if you were academically like meritorious, right? Uh and you deserved something, they wouldn't give it to you because well, you don't need it. Okay, so again, a lot of people think that merit aid just exists and it just like it just ## How to Know If a Scholarship Is Real or Just Marketing [18:00] comes out of thin air. It doesn't. There is a pattern that's that colleges go through. There's a process that they go through to determine if they're going to give you anything or not. Okay. Another school is LMU. Okay. LMU Loyola Marry Mount in LA, right? Again, while they say they have different things for academic achievements, community involvement, whatever it is, again, this is based on your family situation. Okay? The key phrase on the website that you should be looking at is LMU grants may be cancelled or reduced if student receives other resources that contribute to their total cost of attendance including employer tuition benefits, Cal Grant, veterans yellow ribbon benefits. Right? So the grants here and awards for academic achievement are tied to your family's financial situation. Okay? So again, this is not a pure merit scholarship. They again I feel like a lot of colleges do this to make students like feel good about kind of like the offer that they've been given. Oh, they gave me something. They they recognized my efforts, right? But you have to understand these colleges at the end of the day are businesses, right? And we have to approach it like that and we have to understand it that way as well. Okay, another one, right? ASU is probably ASU probably gets like half its students from California, right? And so I put here ASU a big giver, right? But the kind of caveat I have here is it is not for your academic merit. Okay. So, one of the things that you can do is you can go to the ASU website into like their their like scholarship calculator and you can actually see that if you went to high school in California with a 3.01 like GPA, right? And that's what you graduate with, they will provide you the same scholarship. It doesn't matter if you have a 3.01 or if you have a 4.5. The merit scholarship, right, is an incentive to get outofstate students to come to ASU, right? Even if they give you $10,000 off, they're still making double what they would on an Arizona student, right? Because you're paying out of state tuition, right? Again, a lot of people are going to argue with me that it is a merit scholarship, but it's very hard for me to say that it's a merit scholarship when a 3.01 01 student and a 4.7 student would get the exact same amount of money, which usually what I've seen is around $125,000, right? It's very hard for me to see it as a merit scholarship, right? I feel like it's just like an automatic incentive. Like it's when you go to the car dealership and they say, "Oh yeah, well across the board we're taking $2,000 off of all our 2025 models, right?" Well, it's like, "Okay, well then is it really based on me as a customer?" No, it's not. It's just across the board, right? So again, that is something that you take into your into consideration when you're choosing a college though because it's like, well, they're going to give me money. But again, it is not based on the merit, right? It is based on just a calculation of how much the money how much money the college is going to make after you pay your out of state tuition. Okay? So keep that in mind. Okay? Now, another college, another question I'm going to get is how about elite colleges, right? Ivy League, Ivy Plus schools, right? So let's talk about those, right? Ivy League and Ivy Plus colleges, right? It is also not for your academic merit. They do not have merit aid. Okay? Now, I know a lot of people are going to be in uproar. Oh my god. Right? Like, uh, you know, Princeton doesn't have it. Harvard doesn't have it. They don't have merit aid. Right? Let's really think about this situation. Okay? So, Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown, right? Upen, Colombia, right? These are some of the schools that are in that kind of top 20 category, right? Carnegie Melon, right? Which one of the students going to one of those colleges is not deserving of an academic merit scholarship? Right? I'll just let that sink in a little bit. Right? Every single student at Stanford that's getting in as a as a as a incoming freshman, every student that's getting into Cornell, every student that's getting into Colombia, every student that's getting into UPEN, Princeton, Brown, every single one of those kids should be getting an academic merit scholarship. And so the colleges give none because they cannot give merit scholarships to every single freshman that is joining their campus. It's just not financially possible. Okay? So they literally say on their website, "We do not have merit aid." Right? I have these kids over here. They're kind of trying to decide who's taller, who's who's better, who's quicker, who's faster, right? But the but the answer at the Ivy Leagues and Ivy Plus top 20 colleges is that every student is deserving. And so they give it to no one, right? It is ## How to Build a Financially Smart College List [22:30] only based on your need. Okay? So, keep that in mind there. Now, you guys might be thinking, well, then why did we have this presentation today? Is there a way? There is, right? I told you before there is a way, but is it the best for your student? That's not something that I can I can fully kind of tell you if it is or not. But I'm going to tell you what you need to do if you are thinking about merit scholarships. Okay? You have to be strategic when you do this, right? So for students that where financial considerations are a very very large factor when it comes to choosing a college right you are going to have to apply to a wide range of schools right you'll have reach reaches you'll have targets and you'll have safeties but when it comes to a student that has financial considerations you should be applying to more stu schools in your low target range and safety range because those are the schools where you're going to be more competitive. Okay, so keep that in mind. Okay, now the downside of that is this, right? The colleges that we know are going to give you the most money might not be the schools that your student wants to actually go to, right? So there does need to be a balance between the financial considerations and where the student actually wants to go. Right now, one of the kind of cautions that I've always had about kind of like other companies is that they're going to try to force you or like kind of like manipulate you into applying to colleges that don't really fit your student, but we know that are going to give huge financial aid awards. Okay? But right um what we say is choose the ones that you guys are comfortable with, right? And then we will try to get you money on the back end, right? But the one thing that you have to make sure that you are doing if kind of like scholarships and kind of financial aid money is a very like again I'd probably say like an 80% factor in your college admissions or like in your college admissions journey then you do need to be more flexible with the types of colleges that you are looking at. Okay. So the bigger the name the less incentive the school has to give those types of scholarships. Okay. It's just it's just a matter of kind of like you know business right and kind of like uh the way economics works right the more students that are applying to a certain school well the less incentive they have to try to entice students to come okay so keep that in mind there okay now again like I said be careful right um a lot of students a lot of other financial a companies might say hey let's apply to ASU because they know that there's like an exact formula I know I can get you $10,000 a year are you happy with $10,000 sure let's apply to ASU and get you in, right? ASU has a 82% acceptance rate. Your student might not want to go there, right? Um, but we know that we know that we can get you money, right? But that's not how it works with us. Again, for us, it's apply to the schools you want. We're going to try to get you money from them. And if we're successful, great. If not, we do have a money back guarantee. Okay? So, quick takeaways here, right? Merit aid does exist, but it doesn't exist everywhere. So, you need to be careful, right? A lot of parents come into our consultation saying, "Oh, yeah, my kid is going to get merit aid." And I tell them, "No, they're not." Right? If you're thinking that's the way you're going to pay for college, then you're going to be rudely awakened when you get your financial aid awards. Right? The second is that most of the aid you receive will be about the need you are able to show. Okay? Even with the merit/ne scholarships, yes, your merit qualifies you, but your need will tell you how much they're going to give you. Okay? The third is that if ## Case Studies....Families Saving 30K+ with the Right Strategy [26:00] financial considerations are larger in you choosing a college, you will have to be more flexible. Okay. And the last thing that I want to point out here is make sure to understand the aid that you might get, right? What it is and how you qualify to fully understand the picture. I I tell families this all the time. The biggest problem with financial aid is that the information is not readily available on the websites on this, right? Because again, colleges are businesses. They want you to come to their school. They want you to pay for their dorms. They want you to pay for the meal plan, this and that and so on and so forth. So they make it look nice, right? But it's different after you have signed up, right? And said, "I'm going to go there." Right? Because a lot of pe a lot of colleges do change their tune. So you do need to make sure you know exactly what aid you're getting, what is free money, what are loans, what are things that you have to pay back later so that you have a full picture of what your college journey is going to cost. Okay. Now, I like to share some of our results, right? Uh, and in all honesty, it's to brag, right? But let me show you some of the results that we've been able to get, right? So, this family made $350,000, right? They have assets 1.4. They own their own house. They have rental properties. I was able to get them 30, 35, $37,000 from various schools, uh, various kind of smaller private schools like Forom, Chapman, and University of San Diego. Right. This family, I was able to get them $42,000 a year. Their income is even higher at around 440, right? They have business. They have other properties as well. Okay. And this family, right, they make $230,000 a year. I was able to save them over $32,000 at UC Davis. Okay. So, again, the the opportunities are out there for your family. You just have to reach out and grab them. Know what you're looking for. Okay. So, I want to make sure that we open it up for Q&A. I did see some questions like in the chat and in the Q&A. So, we we'll definitely get to those. But before we get there, I want to implore you. If you have a junior right now and you have not talked to me, I'm not sure what you're doing. If you've been here more than once, right, you've probably seen this screen before. You need to talk to me, right? I I don't bite, right? All I'm going to do is talk about your financial situation, tell you if I can help you. And if I can, right, I'll tell you about our program. If I can't help you, I'll probably figure that out in the first five minutes, and I'll be like, I can't really help in your situation. Here are some things that you should think about, though. And then, you know what? you know, go and use some strategies that I've I've just told you, right? Um but again, I don't like having meetings for no reason. So again, um if I feel like, hey, I can help, we'll we'll we'll continue the conversation. If I feel like I can't, I'll tell you right right then and there. Okay? But if you are interested in talking to us, right, there's two different ways that you can sign up for a consultation here. The first one, use the QR codes that are on this page. The one on the left is for financial aid. The one on the right is to talk to our team about our coaching programs, our college application intensive or our college application service, which is a shortterm kind of service for seniors that are applying to colleges this fall. Okay. You can also ## Action Steps and Where to Book a Call for Custom Help [29:00] text money to 949775865 or you can text college to the same phone number 949-775865 to get more information on our coaching programs. But I did want to make sure that we had time for questions. So for those that might want to kind of sign up for something later, right? If well, first off, if you're if you're a junior and you haven't talked to me already, uh you need to cuz our program is basically starting up in July, that's when I'm going to start having meetings with families, okay? Um and if you are younger than that, well, I always tell I always tell families this, right? If you sign up later next year, the following year, the year after that, the price the price of our program is only going to continually going up, right? So, it's better to sign up now, lock in your price, right? There's no renewal fees in between, right? You're what if your student's in fourth grade right now, that locks you into this price now and then we do the work when they're a senior. Okay? So, keep that in mind. Okay? But again, I do want to answer some questions and I'll go over and help you guys out there. Okay? So, let's go ahead. Let's look at some of the questions that we have here. Okay. So the first one it says uh will merit scholarships be awarded to students on visa without a SSN or international students for undergrad degree uh who have done their entire schooling in the USA? Maybe is the answer. I wish I had a more like for sure answer for you but the answer is maybe. Okay. Now there are there are colleges in the United States that say that they do have international financial aid, right? And so if you're a student that's on a visa, right? Um or you're a visa dependent, right? then you'll you'll you will be considered an international for um for admissions purposes and financial aid purposes even the even if you've lived your whole life here and have like gone to school here unfortunately right and so as far as getting financial aid there are some schools like even even the elite schools like you know um like like Colombia like UPUP like Brown like Princeton uh they they say they have international financial aid and that you can turn in a CSS profile okay so if you are kind of like applying to colleges, you're an you're considered international for financial aid purposes and they say that you can turn in a CSS profile, you probably should, right? The probability that you will actually get anything not very high. Okay. Um but again, you always want to chase opportunities if you can. Okay. Um and then we have another question here. It says, I am a high income earnner over, you know, 800K, right? Does this mean that you cannot help me? So this is a little bit different, right? because the compensation structures have changed over like the last two or three decades, right? But I live in the I live in the like San Francisco Bay area and so I deal with a lot of families that are in tech, right? And so if you tell me that your income is $800,000, my question to you is it 800, sorry, let me let me talk a little slower, right? My question to those families is, is it actually $800,000 in cash flow? Right? And the answer is usually no. Now, if your if your cash flow is $800,000, I can't I probably can't help you, right? But if your compensation package is over $800,000, then what I ask families is what is your base income or like your base compensation, right? Because your bonus is not guaranteed every year. Your stocks are not guaranteed every year. So, what I want the number on is your actual base compensation, your base salary. Okay? Now again, if you are cash flowing $800,000, like you're getting roughly $70,000 a month, right? Then yes, I cannot help you, right? Um but if it if part of that is like bonuses, part of that is well bonuses are are kind of cash too, but again, it's a little iffy, right? Because it's never guaranteed, right? Um but stocks that is part of your income, but it's not actual cash flow that you realize. Okay? Um so in those situations, we should have a conversation. But again, I'm not opposed to having conversations, right? That's the way that we can find out, you know, like what your situation is, figure out the creative strategies that that you have. Okay, we have another question here says, "What do you mean by cash flow?" So, when I mean by actual cash flow is when you say your income is like, let's say that you say your income is $1.2 million, right? Does that mean that you're actually in your bank account getting like $100,000 every single month? Right? Because there are a lot of people that get their get compensated in different ways. Some people get compensated base pay and with stocks, but the stocks is not cash flow. That's just stocks, right? The only time it ever is a liquid cash asset is if you sell those stocks. But a lot of the times there are vesting periods on your stocks where you cannot sell them, right? And that they don't have any cash value because well, they haven't invested, right? So that's what I'm talking about there. So when I'm talking about cash flow, I'm talking about what actually hits your kind of account, right? Gross and kind of net, right? Each and every month. Okay. All right. So, good questions. Again, thank you guys for asking them. I always love having questions at the end, right? Uh so I can make sure that because there's probably other people that are asking the same exact questions, right? But make sure to sign up, right? Sign up for that, you know, the financial aid call. talked to our team about the coaching programs that we still have available in our college app intensive, right? We have so many students that have gone to the college app intensive and left with four solid drafts of their PIQs, right? They're basically just working on polishing and then working on polishing their common app personal statement. They're basically done, right? They're ahead of 99% of their peers, right? That's where we want our students to be so that they don't have to struggle in the fall. Okay? and our financial aid program is there to make sure that parents, you guys are not struggling in the fall. Okay? So, make sure you guys do sign up for that. Okay? Now, I don't see any other questions here. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave the screen up just for a couple minutes so that families can take a screenshot, you know, uh use their phone to go ahead and, you know, get to the QR code or or dial the phone or kind of like, you know, get the phone number into their text messages. Okay. But thank you guys for being here with me today. I will be back next week with new topics, right? Hopefully I have better news on the financial aid news front, right? But if you ever have questions, please reach out by text, reach out by email, right? And just so that you guys can reach out to me. I'm going to put my email in here for financial aid, right? If you have any questions, reach out here, okay? Uh you can reach out on Facebook, you can reach out on Discord if you're one of our coaching families already, okay? But wherever, make sure that you're asking the questions so that you're not blindsided by what college could cost and what it could cost your family later on. Okay? But I'll leave this up for a couple minutes. Thanks for joining me and I'll talk to you guys again next week. Bye-bye.