SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. What if free college wasn't a dream but a reality? And it was actually a strategy. Jean Berg figured out how to get her own kids full ride scholarships by cracking the code on standardized testing. Then she spent 20 years teaching other families how to do the same. And that's what we're unpacking today. Welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Sebastian. Families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college prep without wasting thousands of dollars or years of time. And the answer usually involves finding the people that have figured out the rules of the game that the schools aren't telling you. And that's why I'm thrilled to welcome Jean Burke here today. Jean is the founder of College Prep Genius, an award-winning SAT and ACT preparation program that's been featured on Fox, MBC, and CBS. She spent 20 years plus helping families decode standardized tests and turn high scores into full ride scholarships. We're going to dive into why the SAT is really a logic puzzle, what most families get wrong about test prep, and how free college is more achievable than most families think. Jean, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Absolutely. So you're the mom who figured out how to do all this. Tell us kind of like where it all started. I know it started with your kids, but take me back to when you were homeschooling them and just kind of like thinking about there has to be a better way to all this.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Absolutely. When you homeschool, you're generally one income. You know, my husband worked and I was home with the kids, and we literally had no money for college. And it's something we always wanted them to do, to uh go. Um, and I was at my friend's house one day, and uh I was in her kitchen, and my son at that point was at the end of ninth grade, and she kind of just mentioned to me in passing something along the lines of, did you know there's free college based on a test score? And I thought, no, I I didn't know that. I didn't tell me that. And my the little wheels in my head started spinning around, and I got to thinking, well, maybe this is some way we can get some college money. Uh and we certainly didn't have any money to spend on thousands of dollars for maybe some prep school that may or may not work. Uh so we kind of had to do things on our own. I mean, it was very health or skelter. It was, you know, we bought some books at the store, we took a couple local classes, we went through many, many practice tests, you know, trying to figure out what worked, what didn't work. And short story long, uh, he became a national mayor scholar on his PSAT as a junior, which basically meant he was in the top 1% of the nation. And we just started getting tons and tons of offers uh in our mailbox. Every day my mailbox was filling up with letters from colleges all across this nation saying to my son, hey, Josh, you know, if you come here, I'll give you a full ride. And Josh, if you come here, I'll pay for your grad school or give you money to study abroad. Um, and so probably over the course of a year after he took his PSAT, you know, I think ultimately we threw away about seven trash bikes full of offers. And so then after that, my daughter got amazing scholarship offers and free college offers. And everybody wanted to know, how'd y'all get free college? And I was like, well, um, wasn't something I set out to do. But I I I sit down and wrote a book and start teaching a class at my home. Uh, and then that kind of grew to where my my living room and my kitchen were filled with people. Um, then schools started calling me to ask me to come and teach at their school. And then some people said, hey, listen, you know, I don't live in your city, but if if I get a few kids together, will you come over here and to my, you know, my part of town or to my state? And so I started doing that. So I've I've been able to teach in probably most states and five other countries. So it's been, it's been a wild ride, but it's been pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

So that's that's a really incredible journey. And that seems like it's just kind of like blown up since then. And what is what is your secret to the success of your students going through the program? How do you approach the SAT A C T that's that's different than um thanks?

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Well, the key is I think test taking is a different skill set. And it's not taught in most schools, it's not taught in most homes. And what happens is a lot of you know even companies, maybe even some big brand name companies, they teach the wrong stuff. They teach your your students more content, like more math concepts and thousands of vocabulary words. And they're basically just reteaching high school over again. But you can't study for these tests. They're not about content, they are on logic tests. And so if you approach it correctly and you understand how the test is written, then anybody can do really well. Now it it does take work. I mean, there is no instant success. You know, you can't shortcut the shortcut, but you can learn and practice and you know, you get good and then you get fast.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

So what was it when you started getting results of like you're literally getting thousands of dollars of scholarships and actually like your kids are going to college or other kids are going to college for practically nothing? Like what walk us through how that works for you and how you leverage the strategies you teach into that. Like, how does it how does that actually happen for families?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

So the way our program, we teach our program is we have self-paced courses, we have virtual classes, and then we even teach in person. And so when families come uh and and they hear about us and and they want to do our program, they have several different you know options that they can do, whichever fits their schedule uh for them. And how their student learns. Because some one might learn very self-directed on a self-paced on-demand videos, but there's some students who prefer a teacher or a live person. Um, but the first thing we do with all of our kids is we make sure that they take a diagnostic test first. It's an actual diagnostic test from the college board. And they take that, they have their starting point, they have their baseline score. And then once they go through the program and then they do the follow-up homework, they do the quizzes and the practice tests and all that, then they can retake that same exact test again and see how much they've improved. And that really gives them that confidence and motivation of, wow, this really works. Mom and dad are like, wow, this really works. And and the kids get excited. And and they've only retained about 10% of what you hear the first time. So they more, the more they go back through it, then the more that they pick up something they missed the first time.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

So you develop what you call the aces and pattern strategy without giving away the whole playbook. Walk me through this concept and how it supports students learning to see what they weren't seeing before.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Most students approach the these types of tests like normal tests at school. When you're taking a test at school, it's not a time test generally, and it's more about knowledge, what you've learned in that classroom. And so students are going to probably read the entire passage. Uh, they're gonna you know read through the questions and answers maybe more than once, or the math, they're gonna work out everything the long way. And so if you're spending two or three minutes per question and they only give you a little over a minute per question, on the ACT, you even get less than that, 42 seconds in one section. Um, but if you're spending that kind of time, you're going to just burn the clock up and not be able to answer the questions quickly and get through the test and do well. But all the questions can be answered very quickly. Uh, it's designed that way. When the test makers write these tasks, they write them in a way that there's the, of course, the normal long way that most students might take the test. And then there's a fast way to answer every question: 30, 30 seconds or less.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

And so, you know, we share a philosophy of skills over content. So, like obviously, you said knowing the content is not enough. It's actually skills that leverage. But there's another factor of this too, is test anxiety. I call it just a lack of preparation, although I acknowledge test anxiety exists. I do think a majority of kids' anxiety is just they've never done it before. So therefore, we don't know how to do this, right? So kids freeze up on test day and they actually don't know what to do. What's your specific take on it? Like, how do you coach kids through that? Um, because you know, we've had kids in our program experience the same things. They're just like they just get so they make it so much bigger than it needs to be.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Oh, a hundred percent. One of the main things I think that students have test anxiety is because they are not familiar with the environment of testing, they haven't gained that maturity and less than anxiety by just going in there, kind of make it almost like a one-shot deal, you know. But that's that's why it's important to start early. When you start early, the students begin to get more comfortable with the testing. You know, you may not get rid of all the anxiety, but you can learn to manage it. And once you're familiar with the test, then your only goal really is to go in there and just to beat the test. You're not you're not competing against everybody else in the room, you're competing against this test and against yourself. And so uh I think the biggest issue that I hear from most parents is I wish I would have started early because now they're at the last minute, they're stressed out, they're scrambling, and they're out of time. You you can't get time back. And that's why, you know, unfortunately, a lot of times at school, they're told to wait to, you know, later on in the junior year to start thinking about this kind of stuff. And so uh it's it's you're going to be more nervous if you don't know what you're doing and you're not familiar with how the whole test is.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

So let's talk about money. You your tagline is free college can happen for anyone or happen to you. Sorry. To free tag, free college can happen to you. How do test scores translate into scholarships? And walk me through the math for a family.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Oh, totally. So colleges get their national rankings based on test scores. So the higher the score, the more money they're going to give you because when they go up higher on their rankings, they get more funding, they can attract students who can pay full price, they can bring in very talented athletes that only need a minimum to get in, which ultimately is going to drop their score down. So they need more high scores to bring their rankings back up. Colleges are a business and they subscribe to WIFM, what's in it for me? So if you come in and you make them look good, they're willing to pay your way. Uh and it becomes a win-win situation.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, for parents listening right now, like walk me through like if they're a if their kid is a sophomore or a junior, what should they be doing today to position themselves for that's for those scholarships? And what's the timeline?

SPEAKER_01 11:08

So if you're a sophomore right now, you have got around six months until the PSAT. The PSAT slash NMSQT or the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test is a money magnet. And it's most people are told that the PSAT is a practice PSAT, it's a practice SAT, but the P stands for preliminary and not practice. And so families of sophomores right now, if they would take the next six months and treat test prep like a part-time job, then somewhere, you know, in October when they take the test and they they hit that cop score for their state, they can literally write their own ticket to numerous colleges and not only get a full ride, uh, but the perks that are willing that come along with National Merit from many schools are things like not only full rides, but it could be study abroad stipends, it could be spending cash, it could be honors dorms, it could be a new computer, grad school money. And so if you have a sophomore right now, that's what I would be concentrating on, is that PSAT. Don't listen to anybody tells you any different. You know, when I tell people who are given wrong information all the time, unless those people are willing to pay for your child's college, if they're wrong, you know, don't trust them. You know, talk to people who are in the business every single day. If you have a junior, and you if you're meaning like the we're about to end the junior year right now, if this is almost May, um, and if you haven't taken your test or you've taken it and you haven't quite got the score that you want, then don't worry because there's still one more upcoming, there's a there's a May and a June. So two more upcoming SATs this year. Both SAT and ACT are offered seven times a year, and every college takes either one. But then you have this, if you don't quite get the score that you want, then again, use the summer um to really raise that score because again, you still have seven more opportunities next year. And most colleges will take up until the June test, but there are even some colleges that will take a test up until the day before you start college. So you still have time, but you have to make it a priority. I mean, sometimes our high school kids are so busy with school and a part-time job and sports and volunteering and clubs and church. It's hard to squeeze something in later on in high school. That's why I'm such a big proponent of why kids, even in middle school, should start test prep.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

This episode is brought to you by Supported Tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focused on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. When's the very latest a kid in their senior year could take the SAT and for it to still count?

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Well, it's very college college specific because again, like a lot you the last one of the of the school year is in June or May. There's a May test, but then there's also the June, and then there's also starts back over in August. And so even if you have already done your FASF and you fill out your applications and you've sent in an initial score, most colleges will let you keep raising that score and keep sending in a better score. So they still have more time. If you haven't started college yet, you you probably still have several more opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

You've come from the homeschool world and you know, a lot of there's been a lot of changes. I think the homeschool movement has grown significantly in the last couple of years, especially through COVID. But what do homeschool families get right about test prep that traditional families could learn from?

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Well, what they get right is that they don't have a guidance counselor. And so they're kind of left on their own to figure it out. So they do a lot of research. I think what's unfortunate for a lot of parents whose kids are in like public or private school or parochial school is they rely very heavily on the counselor to walk them through the steps of getting to college and hopefully getting it paid for. Unfortunately, most counselors are very overwhelmed. I've got family and friends, friends that are counselors and they have they have a lot on their plate. And there might be 500 kids to every one counselor. So most students never even go in their office. And in reality, it's not their job so much to get your child into college. It's really to get them out of high school. And so as a homeschooler, because we don't quote unquote have a counselor, then it's a matter of we got we got to get out there and we got to pound the pound the pavement to figure out what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

And you know, sometimes families spend thousands of dollars on test prep and the score barely moves. So you've probably seen this over the course of your you know 20 years doing this. What's going wrong? What are what are kids missing here or in traditional prep processes?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Well, in many cases, a lot of a lot of the prep companies simply teach the wrong stuff. And they're filling their kids full of knowledge, more knowledge, more words, more math, more grammar, and they don't need that. They're you pretty much have everything that you need to know to take the test. They're not teaching them that these are logic questions, and they are the questions are purposely misleading, and the wrong answers can be very appealing. They're teaching them just stuff. Many companies, unfortunately, have very deceptive practices, very unethical. They uh they often, and this is not everybody, but there's a lot of companies that do this, they give, they create a very hard diagnostic test that they made up and give it to the students first thing, and then the students will do terrible on it because it's pretty bad. And then once you've gone through their program, then they give them a completely different test in the end. Again, they made it up, and it's very easy. So it might show that the student went up two to three hundred points on the SAT, but they really didn't. And then they go take the actual test and their score doesn't change or maybe even goes down a bit. And so the kids are upset, the parents are frustrated, they're saying, Well, you know, I didn't study enough. Mom and dad's like, you didn't study enough. The company's like, you didn't study enough. And so they think it's them. When reality, it was not them. It was the company using these very deceptive practices. We I would never done that. When I talked about our, you know, kids taking a diagnostic test, they take an actual test from the college board.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

That's the blue book. That's what they're testing.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yes, the blue book. It's a blue book. You've got several tests online, and we've got 16 practice tests in our program that are actual College Board tests. So, yes, as long as it's from the College Board and it's the updated, you know, the new digital test.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, how have you adapted to the new digital test?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

So, what we teach is both module one and module two. Uh, the the way when when it changed to be adaptive testing, you're going to get so many questions in the first module, a mixture of questions, whether it's easy, medium, and hard. And depending on how well you do, is going to depend on what kind of questions you get in the second module. So it's not so much about getting all the questions right, it's getting the right questions right. Um, about 30% of the questions are easy, about 50% are medium, and about 20% are hard. Um, and so if you can understand that's, and and it's getting able to get a lot of questions right. A lot of students don't realize that there's a lot of easy questions at the very end. So most students do what they do at school and they work till they get question one done, and then they move on to get question two done, and then they go into three and so forth. And what they're doing is uh they're burning the clock up and not being able to get to a lot of easier questions. So we teach them, you know, a strategy of, you know, if you don't if you give it a good 10-second glance and you don't know, you don't have a 30-second solution for it, then you want to just flag it and move on to the next question and then come back to it later.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

All right. Well, let's switch gears for a minute and let's move into lightning rounds. So just rapid fire questions. So you give first thing that comes to mind. Does that sound good?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

All right. Most overrated SAT prep strategy right now.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

The most overrated SAT prep strategy, I think learning a bunch of stuff. Because it you know, I live in Texas and it's not about content because what we learn in Texas is not what somebody learned somewhere else. So it's not about content.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

One thing parents overthink about college emissions.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

I think a lot of parents think that uh they're colleges are looking for well-rounded students. And that isn't necessarily the truth. It is it is somewhat, but colleges are looking really for well-rounded classrooms. They they they're looking for diversity and they're looking for a a uh a classroom where everybody stands out on their own. They could be well-rounded in their own right.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

One thing parents underthink that they have lots of time.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

And especially if they have a really smart student, like a you know, I I I teach valedictorings all the time who have bombed the SAT because they're smart kids, but they haven't learned the skill set, and so they approach it the wrong way. So, yes, if you have a smart kid, you would not believe the phone calls and the emails that I get from parents who will give me the same story of their smart child and how they bomb the test.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

What about one resource every family should know about?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

One resource, um, I that's a really good question. I think adding logic into your child's life at school, at home, just get them to thinking because the thing about standardized tests are this whether you're taking your SAT or your ACT or even the CLT or you're going on to post-grad school, law school, med school, these are all standardized tests. And standardized tests have standardized questions and standardized answers. That's how come, that's why you can figure them out. And you know, there are some students who are very logically minded, it's intuitive to them. And so there are some students who are more the rule followers and they second guess and overthink everything. And so getting logic in with its games and puzzles, sneaking that in somewhere can really help them with their critical thinking skills.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Best question a family should ask every college they visit.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

That's a really good question. Best the best question is how does my child fit your metrics? Because, you know, and your optics, you know, how does your college fit with my child? How does my child fit into your mold? And and what is it that they can bring to the table that you can't live without my child? That you there's many, many applicants, but what is it that's going to make that that you want about my child that nobody else has?

SPEAKER_00 22:13

All right, Gene, this has been incredibly valuable for people who want to go deeper with you, learn about what you offer, where can they find you and where should they check out first?

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Collegeprepgenius.com is a great place to start. I would go to my testimonial page. We have students who raise their SATs as much as 700 points, ACT 11 points, and CLT 26 points. But go hear from real people. I always tell everyone don't just take my wood for it. Read independent reviews about us. Go on and listen to testimonials. We've these are all unsolicited, never paid for one single testimonial, which some people do that, done that, and just see what other people say. And I think you'll probably find a testimonial that probably maybe fits your scenario as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

And we'll put all of that in the show notes and in the YouTube description. Um, and then I guess, you know, what's one thing you want listeners to remember from this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 23:15

You can't get time back. Timing is the killer of opportunities. And you might think you have a lot of time, but you don't. And we have a three-step uh plan that we give to people completely free. If you email me and tell ask for the three-step program, I will show you how you can know today that if your child will be accepted to the college of their choice. And so love to send it to you. Email me, gene, at collegecrepgenius.com. Say I want that three-step uh free document, and I'll send it to you.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

All right. Gene, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for being on the show. Appreciate it. Stay safe out in Texas during tornado season.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

And we'll see you next time on the Supported Learning Podcast. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.