The JYLP 0105 w Tutor and Educational Consultant Matt McGee - How To Stand Out In College Admissions

[00:00:01] Intro: Hello and welcome to the junkyard love podcast listeners welcome to the junkyard love podcast today I'm here with Matt McGee hello Matt welcome to the podcast

[00:00:13] Matt: Hey Jacob how's it going

[00:00:15] Jacob: It's good man I'm happy to uh I'm happy to make this happen I actually last minute rescheduled on you so I do appreciate you working with me on there man just we're just humans right just humans doing this podcast thing

[00:00:27] Matt: Absolutely happy to be here yeah

[00:00:30] Jacob: Um well so everybody will see from the title and a little bit of a bio down below check that out but um for those who want to know a little bit more in depth I would love to know kind of your elevator pitch of who you are what you're doing what you're here to talk about uh what's what's guiding your life basically um who are you Matt

[00:00:49] Matt: The hardest question for sure uh so I mean I guess to boil it down to the Bare Bones I am an educational consultant so I work with uh family who are kind of across the board um whether they're looking for tutoring whether they're looking to try and get into college uh whether they're already in college and they need support sort of uh developing their course load figuring out what internships to take um and yeah so my essential job is to take families who are very anxious about uh a process in an educational system which is very difficult to navigate and I alleviate that anxiety and that's kind of the view from like 30,000 ft

[00:01:31] Jacob: Nice yeah excellent yeah because I imagine it I mean for me I didn't do much College myself but it's just such a daunting thing you don't even know where to start so even just being able to have someone who goes hey I got you let's work through this together is probably huge for people I imagine So I guess why do you think that it is so anxiety written like why is it so stressful and I guess why is it stressful we're in 2024 right now what's different today than it was maybe 10 20 years ago that's a really good question um I don't even think we could probably cover that in the hour that we have today um you need yeah because by the time this conversation finishes AI or chat GPT has released another new version that changes yeah exactly um and it's only gotten it's only just gotten more complex through the pandemic right I mean you know when we were in high school the

[00:01:45] Matt: Absolutely and that's the funny thing right so you know you say you didn't really go to college I went to Michigan State which you know for anybody who's in the sort of college search knows that's not really like a competitive school and I sit here in my industry with a number of other people who are like you know I went to Harvard and I have two degrees from Harvard or I went to Yale and then MIT for grad school uh and I'm like you know I don't know I don't know that's what people want to work with I think they think well that's you know that's where I want to go so that's a great thing but what I've come to realize is that it's just it's just a very anxious time for people they don't they don't know what they're getting into and they just want somebody who kind of understands the system understands what people are looking for and they just want to guide in that way yeah I

[00:02:33] Jacob: Yeah I mean makes a ton of sense I would be in the same boat myself um well I mean so I guess why do you think that it is so anxiety written like why is it so stressful and I guess why is it stressful we're in 2024 right now what's different today than it was maybe 10 20 years ago that's a really good question um I

[00:02:51] Matt: That's a really good question um I don't even think we could probably cover that in the hour that we have today um you need yeah because by the time this conversation finishes AI or chat GPT has released another new version that changes yeah exactly um and it's only gotten it's only just gotten more complex through the pandemic right I mean you know when we were in high school the Formula was pretty simple get good grades get a decent score on the SAT you write a personal statement that you know isn't terrible um and then you kind of know your r of schools that you can apply to um but it really changed during the pandemic there were a number of things that happened one they sort of went test optional so anybody who had sort of you didn't have to have an SAT score right normally you'd have to say I need like a 1500 or 1550 to even have a shot at Harvard then they said well you don't need that and so everyone said well maybe I have a shot at Harvard so their application numbers and this wasn't just obviously at Harvard it was across the board you'd see application numbers that were like 12,000 applications all of a sudden in one year shot up to like 30,000 applications wow so it just became a much more competitive process and I think when you couple that with um Rising prices where you're looking you know when we were when we were doing this process again a state school was like5 $10,000 the high-end schools were $40,000 now you're looking at USC and it's $100,000 a year to go there right um You got the issues with FAFSA and people not knowing how to fill out about that form and so it's just becoming it's becoming more and more complicated and there is very there is

[00:04:35] Jacob: Very little explanation as to why right

[00:04:39] Matt: It's a very opaque process you don't really come across people who work in admissions right when was the last time you were at a party and you talk to somebody who was like oh yeah I'm a Stanford admissions officer or I'm an admissions officer at any you don't meet these people and so you go like what is what is the criteria to get in what are the standards that you're looking for and people don't know and so you have these students who are hyper qualified you're talking about people who have you know a 4.0 GPA in the most difficult

[00:05:07] Jacob: Classes that you could imagine uh with you know they're part of this club and they're part of that club and they're leaders and they built their uh nonprofit organization and they apply to all these schools and they don't get in and they're going why I don't you I don't know why um and I

[00:05:26] Matt: Think when you start to add all these questions on top of each other people just start to go I have no idea I can't figure it out and that makes people very anxious especially when you couple it with the fact that it's a huge part of your life right if you go to this school it's going to open up these opportunities if you go to that school it's going to open up those opportunities if you don't go to school that's a huge decision and then you boil in social media to the equation where you see these people who are going I did all these things and that's how I got into Harvard and I did all these things that's how I got into Stanford and you have these kids you know Doom scrolling through Instagram going I got to get into Harvard I got to get into Stanford because I want this job I want that job and it just it's like a positive feedback loop of anxiety and stress and destruction and whatnot and so here I am trying to go let's take a step back let's take some of the stress and the anxiety off this and figure out how we can best move forward and kind of address the mental health aspect as well as the academic aspect yeah I feel like you serve a great role of a med like H let's just relax you know come calm down we could figure this out and then and then you guide them so what is the you know that person who does have you know they were leaders and they were you know the senior class president and they were maybe Val victorium they've got four 4.0 those people who do think that they have a good chance and then they end up they're not able to get in or whatever so what is their when they come to you curious about what to get in or how to get in I mean what is your answer for that

[00:07:01] Jacob: When they have trouble getting in so you said all these people we have more and more applications and then we have more and more people who are obviously very much qualified I mean how are we deciphering between these people who are not qualified and are qualified how are the how are the big schools even making these decisions nowadays that's another great question

[00:07:19] Matt: Uh it is an extremely opaque process because nobody has insight into it I mean it essentially comes down to I think a lot of people don't know what the admissions process looks like right so you're going to submit an application that has all the things on it and if I'm your admissions officer right you're in the kind of region that I've been assigned to I'm GNA get your application I'm GNA look at it and I'm GNA go I'm gonna say one of three things I'm gonna either say uh you know Jacob is great and I think he'll do great in the next round and we'll we're definitely going to advance him uh there's going to be a I think Jacob could meet you know the criteria to get in and I'm gonna I'm gonna advocate for him in the next round and then there's uh you know Jacob doesn't quite meet the requirements here we don't think he's going to fit in here and then you know we'll move you and you won't really move on to the next round and they have a number of scoring systems generally they'll kind of rate you between like a one and a six uh for kind of putting you in that criteria but then after the admissions officer after I've looked at that and said hey I'm going to move you to the next round now I'm going to sit in a committee with all the admissions officers who did that from the first round and I'm going to say I've got Jacob and he is excellent

[00:08:30] Jacob: Candidate or I've got Jacob and his

[00:08:33] Matt: Grades aren't great his SAT score is really good but I think he's really great for X Y and Z and I think he'll really you know Vibe with the campus life and I think we should really give him a shake and everybody in the committee is going to have those students of their own and they're all going to ask each other questions you know what is it about Jacob's temperament that you really think is going to fit in with this campus Jacob said this in his essay and I'm not entirely sure that fits with our values what makes you think that it does right and so it's going to become a conversation like that and I think what people fail to realize is they treat it

[00:09:10] Jacob: Like they treat it in a more um objective way than it is it's a very subjective process right when you think about the kind of like debate that I'm describing uh the kind of uh philosophical discussion that's going on there whereas I think people tend to look at it as I got a 4.0 and I got a

[00:09:28] Matt: 1600 which means that inherently I am a higher qualified candidate than the kid who got a three and a 1500 and that's not exactly what it is right so there's other factors that they're going in there so you'll have situations in which the kid with the four point and the 1600 doesn't get into the number one rank school but he gets into the three and four rank school and the kid with the 38 GPA and the 1500 he gets into the top school but he doesn't get into the third and the fourth school why could be something that they wrote about in their essay that reflected the values could be that one of them was doing a project uh you know outside of school and extracurricular that really excited the admissions officer could be that they were just trying to fill some sort of a quota and get uh you know somebody from a different part of the country or a different part of the world to fit in there so there's a million things that go into these decisions and we don't see

[00:10:28] Jacob: Those and so I think for these kids

[00:10:32] Matt: They're going like why wasn't I

[00:10:35] Jacob: Chosen you know what's wrong with me so

[00:10:37] Matt: So my kind of My Philosophy is look let's get narrow let's be specific about who we are who are you what are you interested in what do you want to major in what do you love to do and go pursue those things be proactive be interesting be a three-dimensional student don't just focus on you know academics and test scores because there's so much to that and then let's not be committed to Harvard or Stanford or the University of Chicago because if you are a good enough student you are that excellent High achiever we're going to apply to 10 15

[00:11:08] Jacob: Maybe 20 schools and the ones who are right for you will come find you at that

[00:11:15] Matt: Point okay so we're here in 2024 again what are the benefits of the more Ivy leak schools I mean seems pretty obvious like we've all grown up and we know these big names you know everybody knows the obvious of course the connections and the education that you get these places is going to be next level but here in 2024 what are the benefits of really actually wanting to get into one of these Ivy League schools and you know are the second third fourth tier are they so bad you know are they equally as good too uh you know I'm biting my tongue as I say this but I'm going to share this story I was on a call with uh an admissions officer and a um guy who worked in the finance office at a university that costs between $90,000 and $100,000 a year to go to not ivy league not Ivy plus but kind of in that next level there and uh one of the questions that was posed to this guy uh or I was suppos to both of them was um you know your University costs $100,000 there is another University down the street offering the same degree program

[00:12:18] Jacob: For $115,000 the state school

[00:12:21] Matt: Essentially he said you know can you can you pitch me on why you're University you know what the $85,000 difference is there and there

[00:12:31] Jacob: Was about a 5-second pause and then they said we're going to decline to answer that question and it was a very telling response I thought in so far this guy basically said um or I took it to mean and I think this is a legitimate interpretation I took it to mean um we we can charge that price tag because we have the value you know it's like a luxury item right you know uh Hugo Boss

[00:13:00] Matt: Can charge more than you know the brand or the non-brand name just because they have the name on there is that to say that there's no benefit to going to Harvard or you know an IV leak school no I mean you look at um I'm gonna I'm gonna fumble the numbers in front of me but there is there is a significantly higher percentage of senators uh Representatives people in federal government who went to an ivy Le School than those who didn't um and so what the the large or like the top universities are able to offer you in terms of uh

[00:13:34] Jacob: Specialization opportunity uh smaller

[00:13:37] Matt: Class size in a lot of situations you are able to get a lot of opportunity there that being said whether you go to Harvard or Penn or Duke or Stanford seems to make a little bit less difference in that you're still going to get those opportunities at the same time

[00:13:54] Jacob: State schools uh smaller universities

[00:13:59] Matt: These are great options for people you can still get a lot done a school like Michigan State it's not well known for its academics but it's one of the top research institutions in the country so for the right person it's a great place to go uh and so yes there is a lot of benefit to that but the idea of like marrying yourself or trying to get that because you know for the status or whatnot I think people are maybe going in the wrong direction there right yeah yeah it might be evolving I do kind of I weirdly kind of like that answer that answer they gave it's partially gangster

[00:14:33] Jacob: A little bit the ball the thought I had was the balls the balls say that of just you know what we charge this because we can yeah that's

[00:14:45] Matt: That's pretty crazy um okay uh we've got I've got a lot of notes that I want to cover but um something that was that's kind of just Whispering at me that I want to bring up here is H we talked on the phone as well um we talked about like you know students entering into this world uh with neurode Divergence um we talked about I mean you've already mentioned mental health and having confidence and all the anxieties that come with this um I guess I kind of want to know like I'm not close to that I'm not close you know as someone who is who is you're a mentor you talk to these people who are coming out of high school you know they're around the ages of 17 18 19 whatever it is I imagine um what does that look like why is there

[00:15:27] Jacob: Anxiousness um what is

[00:15:30] Matt: The what's the mental health view of all this like is this another thing that's different than 10 to 20 years ago does it look way different is are you experiencing things that you never thought you would when you first started I know that's so many questions packed into one M but if you can find an answer it's a lot there but I know that's good um you know I'm a straight white guy that grew up in the like '90s and early 2000s so like mental health is not ever anything that I thought would be on my radar you know what I mean yeah like I feel like guys like you and me were just like yeah you know we're here like you know this is just like I just showed up and like life was pretty good um so mental health yeah it never really it never really crossed my mind at all but I think you know since then we've had the Advent of social media like I spoke about and that's like you know we all I guess we all participate in social media but I think we're also aware of the kind of like mental health disaster F that it creates uh especially for young people who are like comparing themselves to each other and I think one of the reasons why you get this highly competitive admissions process that wasn't so competitive before um but I would say mental health aspect I think that's one of the chief aspects that I operate from in what you know if somebody came to me and said so you know there's a million College counselors out there's a million uh tutoring companies out there what sets you like why I why should I hire you I would I would go well look you know there's a number of people who are going to tell you uh you know I'll get you a 4.0 GPA or there's a number of people who tell you know I'll get you into an IV League school for me that's not really my Approach my Approach is we're going to maximize your opportunity to get to where you want to go whether that's talking about like improving your grades whether that's talking about getting into the best school you can get into But ultimately I'm going to do it and I'm going to keep you in a place where you don't hate your while you do it um so we specifically have a program that is like a tutoring program and we partner with other College counselors so students who aren't using me for College counseling they will come to us for tutoring because you got to keep your grades up right and when you think about what you're going through now for me applying to college was like I'm going to look at a couple schools I'm going to download some applications write a personal statement I talk to my history teacher he wrote me a letter of recommendation now these kids are starting nonprofits they're doing research opportunities during the summer um I had a student who discovered a species of fish I had another student who started a um who started a scrunchie business for her volleyball team when they like went to the state championship uh in addition to the fact that they are taking all these APS and they are doing a ton of test prep right so like it's a much more significant workload now so one of the things that our two ing does is that we like we we specifically hire people who are highly charismatic highly relatable young individuals who can not only tutor you in calculus or you know uh AP Bio but also be somebody Who You're not responsible to be somebody who a 17 18 yearold kid can just be like okay like how's it going man and they're like it's good like you ready to do some C yeah you know like let's crush this let's get this out of the way like how are you doing you know um and so to have somebody who can kind of walk both sides of that where they're not just your teacher they're not just somebody who's like trying to you know be another academic Force but somebody who's just your buddy somebody who's your boy somebody who can yeah somebody who can kind of let you breathe um because these kids are like spinning

[00:19:27] Jacob: Themselves crazy trying to trying to do something that is it's not impossible but it's very difficult um yeah I imagine the pressure to you know you see people on Tik Tok or whatever you're scrolling and you're like okay well this person's 16 and they already have this successful business and so uh I need to now dedicate my life to starting my own business so I can get into this school you know I'm sure it is very stressful for them to think like I don't have a chance unless I you know start my own scrunchie business or discover a new species like that's just that's insane I mean I imagine those people would have a higher you know a higher chance a higher opportunity because they've done those impressive things but um yeah that

[00:20:10] Matt: That's pretty cool you know I think back to me when I was um right after high school I went to my I went to um I'm from Washington State originally there's a community college called Lower Columbia College and I just I went there because I just didn't know I was like I don't really have any plans for what I'm doing in my life and I don't really have anybody to tell me what or not to do or to do so I just started going there and man I remember it would have been so great to have someone uh like a mentor or a tutor to help be my buddy cuz I felt so confused and I felt like everybody who I went to like they didn't have time to help me they just had so many other things going on just being able to have a conversation with someone who was down to Earth but also not you know too shirt and tie you know you're 17 18 years old you want to connect with someone you know so that's probably huge do you find that uh it's very disarming once people meet you like you probably I imagine within the first meeting you probably relieve a lot of anxiety huh the amount of the amount of first meetings that I have been on where someone cries the percentage is like disproportionately High um I've even had Parents call me it's funny like the breadth of my job because it will go at times where I'm having a very kind of astute conversation about uh major choice and school choice and then I'll get a call from a parent who's just like you know my kid's got this dog and he's not you know taking he's not taking care of it and I just don't know what else I can do because he's not doing the work right and they're breaking down so I'm dealing with all that type of stuff um but yeah it is it is and that's that's one of the rewarding Parts about the job is that people you can almost see them immediately go like yeah oh okay because they come with like a million questions that any lay person would have excuse me and so

[00:21:54] Jacob: For me it's easy to go like oh yeah that's a yes that's a no that's you know X Y and Z that's a b and c and we'll talk about the other question you have and they go like oh that's like 80% of the questions that I had in five minutes um but yeah it's so it's so true

[00:22:11] Matt: And there's so many there's so many students especially male students who at 17 18 right like men are behind at 17 and 18 girls are f are maturing so much faster than we are so you know guys are looking at like speak for yourself here speak for yourself just kidding

[00:22:29] Jacob: Um you know they're looking at these girls going like yeah like you said they're founding two companies and they're you know they're volunteering and I'm over here like trying to beat the next level on Call of Duty and I can't do that uh and so it like yeah it creates this like trying to catch up and just to have somebody say like yeah this is normal this is where you should be somebody to say that

[00:22:52] Matt: Community College is a totally acceptable if not highly intelligent decision to make if you don't necessarily know where you're going to go I know College counselors who will push people to for your universities because you know they're able to charge money for the hourly that goes into that application where I'm like if you don't know what you want to do go to a two-year University you're going to save 50 Grand a year and you're probably going to come out more mature and in the end give yourself a better shot at a better college and ultimately a better career better understanding of yourself you'll have the time to figure it out because you won't be in this you know Cutthroat environment where you're comparing yourself to everybody else you know right yeah how much how much would you say the journey into just entering the world of college you know we turn 18 and we have these we've just done the whole thing for 12 years we followed the carrot on the stick and now it's time to go out into the big world you know I oh I mean

[00:23:54] Jacob: What level of this is um

[00:24:01] Matt: I mean what do I want to say so like when we're ready for I mean I mean how much how much are you helping people like start their own Heroes journey into themselves like not even just College I feel like you probably show up as some sort of it sounds like you're basically a counselor in a lot of ways too right like a you know maybe not necessar therapist but like friend extended for sure you know these people are starting those life it's a big deal you know yeah absolutely and then you know and like I said there is a reason why in The Tuning program we specifically aim for like young charismatic people who know the journey that these kids are going under because it is like highly relatable and there is there is science approve you will talk to teachers that like the learning process accelerates dramatically when the student feels comfortable with the person who is offering that information so I might have like some old like you said suit and tii teacher who's teaching me Cal or whatever it is and I'm going like uh you know I'm not getting any of this I don't feel free to fail I don't feel free to ask questions but then you put me in the room with the like 25-year-old who gets it who is who is cool who's relating to me who's like telling you know and then all a sudden I have the freedom to fail I have the freedom to ask these questions I have the freedom to look stupid because I'm building a relationship so many of my students because I'm a relatively young guy uh that I work with you know there are students who I'll start with them when they're 16 but when I'm done with them they're 22 23 years old and we've gone from you know our relationship Evol in that time from you know I'm more of a teacher at 16 but by the time they're in college it's much more of a situation you know it's much more of a friendship right you know and they're telling me things about like what they did last night that they're not telling their parents and I'm like yeah you know like that's normal that's to be expected that's where that's where things should be but yeah there's also a degree of there is a degree of therapy like I said you know how many people are crying on some of these initial calls uh is that ultimately yeah these people are dealing with like I said earlier they're dealing with anxiety and they just want that they just want that relieved they want they want somebody who can who can guide them and lead them and let them know it's going to be okay because it's a big time it's a big transition you're still a teenager so your hormones are still raging like all that's happening um and like you said people are people are too busy to help a lot of the time where they're kind of like ah you know um and so it comes back to just wanting to give them that moment where they can like they can take a breath for a second they can relax they can know that they're taken care of right yeah that's huge man just being able to hold space for someone to just you know blah out that they don't really know exactly what they're doing but they need help you know that's pretty huge um me I okay so I want to ask you say I'm say I am raising you know I've got a kid and you know you know they're in their teens and they're approaching high school maybe they're maybe they're turning 15 16 somewhere around there and you know they're starting to think about college we're starting to talk about college they don't really know where they want to go um maybe they have some certain interests that we want to buckle down on and I just I need to know what do they need to start doing you know if I was their parent and I reached out to you guys what does that look like even just one little foot in the door of hey we don't know much about college we don't have any decisions made yet but we need your help what does that conversation usually look like yeah for sure uh so it can look like a number of things depending on how many questions they already have answered you know some people come and they're like you know my kid loves math and you know he's really into robots and he's already doing this robot competition and you know he's in BattleBots 2024 and that then I kind of go like great we have a huge part of what we need and let's run with that but to kind of answer that question from what I'll say I mean for lack of a better term the lowest common denominator not in that not in quality but in terms of having the least amount of questions answered um that starts with what are we interested in what has your child been interested in um it's a question about you know where is your where is your ability to pay for college um you know what is the kind of schedule like all of these questions and then we start to get into uh it all comes down to you know what is this kid interested in what are they passionate about do they have those things because once we've start to build their interests their passions what they care about then we can really start to kind of like move forward in a healthy way if you're interested in

[00:28:48] Jacob: Politics right then having um you know

[00:28:51] Matt: Making sure that we're taking apus history making sure that we're taking honors history and honors English class making sure that we're getting into writing classes that's going to be important and it's also going to be something that the student enjoys right if you come to me and you're like I love politics and government I'm not going to tell you why you have to take AP Calculus uh you know that might ultimately be where you go if you want to be a really high achieving student but it's going to be about kind of like pushing into your interests and making sure that you're taken care of there from there we'll start to talk about all right so what are they doing the Summers you know are they going away to Camp are they big into sports what's going on there so how can we now take this interest let's say government politics and how can we start to build a list of extracurricular or um you know like uh activities to create to create what's eventually going to look like on your resume as a degree of proactivity and a degree of uh intellectual curiosity right so if you're seeking out an internship with a local city councilmen or you're uh constantly submitting op EDS to the local paper about some local election right and

[00:30:02] Jacob: You start to take those interests and

[00:30:05] Matt: You turn them into very specific accomplishments that not everybody has right if you just take a 16-year-old or a 15-year-old they're going to say I'm interested in politics I read the news I do what I have to do in class maybe I pick up a book and I read it but they're not going to have the direction and the follow through to kind of go and say how can I get published right and so that's where my job is to kind of go and say how can I sort of Channel your talents how can I challenge your interest and your passions into these more concrete

[00:30:38] Jacob: Achievable and uh measurable things that would look really good on a resume yeah excellent amazing okay um man okay I want to ask you one more time so when we first talked neurode Divergence was a thing that was specifically mentioned um I would love to you know I'm not sure that I can form a specific question around that but I would love to um just loudly kind of note it and put a question mark next to it and I guess just kind of ask you to expand on that for me um like what I guess you know kind of what does that mean and how does what does it mean for you know our modern young people growing up and uh how does it affect you know what you do in our thoughts about education sure I love that just neurod Divergent with a question mark next to it please yeah so um so neurod Divergent I mean is a term that sort of broadly encompasses uh and I'm likely to put my foot in my mouth here so I apologize to anybody if this is not the exact phrasing that it is uh is to say

[00:31:44] Matt: That someone's someone whose brain processes information differently than what we would consider the typical way of processing information that gets to be pretty muddy because you go like what is the typical way of processing information we all do it differently like that's what personality is uh but to I guess to put it in a more

[00:32:05] Jacob: Um digestible bit you would consider

[00:32:08] Matt: Somebody who is autistic to be neurode Divergent you would also consider somebody who has ADHD to be neurodivergent dyslexia counts as a neurod Divergence um people with physical disabilities I don't believe are always neurode Divergent but somebody with Down Syndrome would be neurode Divergent so it's kind of a nebulous thing there um and we've seen an increase with it uh over the past decade I'll say and I think that's probably a combination of uh one more exposure and more you know more awareness surrounding it and then two

[00:32:46] Jacob: Uh the decrease of attention spans related you know going back to social media and technology and the way that you know we do that um just kind of talk

[00:32:56] Matt: About how I work with it uh it is a

[00:33:02] Jacob: Very underserved space um in fact when I

[00:33:06] Matt: Was just getting started I was working as a private tutor uh with no training in special education or neurod Divergence or anything like that and I was working for a very bougie company that was charging a lot of money for tutoring and they sent me two kids and I said okay great yeah that sounds great and they said uh cool we'll get you started and then when I had the conversations with the parents the one parent was like you know yes so we started this home school because my child is autistic and I spoke to the next one and they were like yeah so we had to pull my child out of school because uh she has such severe anxiety that she often cannot speak or will not speak oh wow I was like yeah and I was also like well I'm not qualified yeah what do I do about that why am why would you give me these

[00:33:53] Jacob: Things um but ultimately I kind of came to the conclusion that if they gave them to me it was because they felt I was the best person for these you know there it wasn't though as though there was some special educator out there who they were like no let's not give it to him so I took on the cases you paused on my end Matt I'm not sure if you can hear me I'm not sure if it was your end or mine well that's fine hey we're back on it looks like it's working good I think we can uh we can carry on so uh we Matt we were in the middle of um neuro divergency so you had someone uh you had two people that came up one had extreme anxiety someone had um was it autism that they had

[00:34:31] Matt: Or uh yes one student was autistic the other student was not but she had um like I said extreme anxiety to the point where she couldn't speak um and through the process I just realized how underserved these people were that here they were showing out all this money expecting this like special educator and they got me who you know I was I was down to figure it out and take the time but like I said you know I was successful in one case I wasn't as successful in the other case uh and that kind of led me down the road of you know so what do these what do these students do after they after they finish up after they finish High School um and ultimately I realize that a lot of these families they think that college is not an option they think that it's not possible or that you know it's just it's

[00:35:14] Jacob: Not feasible for them uh and so I

[00:35:18] Matt: Thought that's crazy because given what we do you know given what I'm talking about with trying to find the passions and the interests in schools wanting to build a diverse student body you know a lot of these students in both of these cases I had you know the autistic student who I was talking about was hyper interested in um politics and economics and the other student was hyper interested uh in art right to the point where they had an understanding of this at 15 16 you know the girl was like 11 or 12 uh that I don't think I would be able to have insight into in years of practice um and so I started to kind of say like why is this I mean we could take these people we they could go to a top college um and I work with students who have ADHD who are who are at you know UC Berkeley or other top universities and you go there is a there is a program for students who have disabilities or students who have a neurod Divergence you know to be supported uh and so that's just kind of one of the things that I have sort of built is trying to work with these students who have different circumstances to help you know make sure that they can have the education that they can have but that they don't always feel that they or they don't always know that they can have it if that makes sense yeah I mean that must be huge to even be able to offer them and tell them like yeah you totally have a chance like it's just probably sometimes a huge uh sigh of relief on their end and their parents end to even see like you said that it is an option you know because I think that especially young people when we're different when we're when we you know we can tell we don't think or act or you know exist the same

[00:37:02] Jacob: Way as quote unquote everybody else um

[00:37:05] Matt: It could kind of you know make us seem like our future is already written in a sort of way but you know actually as it turns out I like the um I don't know if you ever heard I think it was Alan Watts said if you judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree he will live his entire life thinking that he is stupid or some something along those lines um but yeah I mean yeah that's so cool I imagine you probably find those people like cool what are your skills cool this college or this opportunity is perfect for those skills that's exactly what it is and so often they do have these heightened skills where they you know a lot of times uh they latch on to an idea that they that they love and they have the attention span and the inclination to explore that way further than you know somebody who is quote unquote neurotypical if you will um and the other piece of that too is that a lot of them go like well I have this thing that I've always been ashamed of because you're you know again you're 16 17 18 so you haven't yet come to that place of celebrating your differences sure and

[00:38:06] Jacob: And so you know it's also coaching to be like no you have this thing that sets you apart and I know you don't see it now because that's not the way that kids are but this is going to be this is going to be a huge a huge thing that it's going to be something that you can celebrate it's going to be something that makes you stand out it's going to make you know it's going to be um a distinc ofier which you which is going to be beneficial in the long run and getting them to kind of celebrate that in their applications so that they can they can again stand out because when you're competing against like 30,000 people you need to stand out in some sort of way yeah okay well so what is your Le let's queue in a little bit more on what you just said um standing out you know everybody has their individual characteristics everybody has their thing that if they you know I'm sure you help it help bring it out of them how important is it for people looking into colleges to stand out and what I guess what does it mean to stand

[00:39:08] Matt: Out if you're looking at a top university like if you're looking at like the top of the top it is it is not only important it's completely vital to stand out um I would also say that if you're applying to the kind of like that second level of University and you really want to get to that level again it's very important to stand out if you're and you're going you know I want to go to a large state school that maybe isn't that competitive my scores are pretty good but you know I'm going because I want to be part of a big student body or I want to be um you know I want to be in a successful sports program whatever it is you probably don't need to stand out as much your you know test scores and your grades will kind of take care of that for you but standing out comes in a number of ways

[00:39:54] Jacob: Uh standing out sort of sort of is

[00:39:58] Matt: College applications are ultimately a story right you're telling a story a lot of times I operate as like a PR Guy where I'm like this is you know this is who Jacob is right and we put it we put it to him that way um but standing out can have you know a number of a number of ways of looking at it in that like you know the girl to take the example of the girl with the scrunchies right she built that business uh the volleyball team the girls volleyball team was going to be really good every everybody knew they were going to be really good so she says okay I have this great idea I'm going to build I'm going to create these scrunchies right the like things that girls tie their hair up with she goes I'm gonna get these scrunchies we're gonna have like individualized scrunchies for each one of the girls on the team and then we're gonna sell them to the town and you can buy your favorite player scrunchies right because the town is super excited right and she's this smart young affable outgoing girl she's got this great idea and she starts to get because it's like you know it's like a couple thousand it's not like crazy investment but it's a couple thousand dollars to get these things like screen printed and whatnot so she has this great idea she gets some investment from the people in the town she has this you know it's going to be great it's going to blow up and it flops like no one buys these scrunchies basically the girls on the girls on the team and their families bought them but nobody bought them seemed like a great idea it did it sounds like a great idea right and she was everyone was excited it fails and so then this is this is to this day I use this example anybody who hears me on another podcast has probably heard this example is that she opens up her essay and mind you this girl is going into business she wants to be a business major she opens up her essay with the first time I declared bankruptcy I was 16 years old wow and you go that makes you stand out

[00:41:48] Jacob: Because one it's funny and two it's the embracing of failure right to go I failed epically and I'm not going to hide it I'm not going to I tried something I tried I failed and you know what I'm back up and I'm going to move on to the next thing um so that's one way you can stand out right the other way is you know I'll go back to the example of the kid who discovered the species of fish how many other people can say that they have done that um and

[00:42:18] Matt: So again he was hyper interested in Wildlife so he spent a lot of his time in parks and when he did find those fish I was the one who encouraged him hey let's get in touch with the local bi uh the local biologists to kind of like do some research around this and take it a little further um we had another student who wanted to go to MIT the kid did not really have the grades for Mi uh but he

[00:42:45] Jacob: And this was like 10 years ago maybe he had developed a primitive AI system that helped with organization somehow like organizing data basically and he had implemented it at his school library so that kidss were able to um kids were able to kind of like Search for the book that they wanted to but they could also search for other books that would be useful to them based on their search query and we took that and we went to his local library and we had them implement it right so you see that on an application and all of a sudden the

[00:43:21] Matt: Admissions officer leans forward and goes like oh this person's thinking outside the box he got into MIT right and so it's that type of stuff where you really need to in order to stand out you need to take your interests and pursue them to the point where the opportunity shows up right it's kind of where like luck meets hard work and then you know when that moment happens we've got to talk about it um because that's how you

[00:43:50] Jacob: Stand out because I can tell you what

[00:43:53] Matt: There's 20,000 high schools in the US which means there's 20,000 valedictorians and they all have 4.0 GPA and great test scores and I can tell you that there's less than 20,000 spots at all of the Ivy League schools total yeah so you've got to in some way Stand Out show your proactivity show your intellectual curiosity show that you're you know you're not you're not afraid of failure uh and show that you're a person who does more than grades in school and piano lessons right right yeah I'll bet that you end up you know meeting with people and helping them pull helping pull that part out of them you know because I imagine more people than they think have something that's pretty impressive or something that they know quite a bit about that they think is just like well yeah whatever of course I know all about this fish I like fish and you're like dude not everybody knows about fish like you actually have something here you know that's exactly right I mean even with the example of fish he was talking about terms there's like you know a type of fish that swims to the ocean and a type of fish that doesn't swim to the ocean and he's going like yeah they're these like diandrus fish that they go to the ocean and these other ones they don't do that so they must be another species and I'm going like I don't know what you're saying but like you know this is all this is all really good stuff like we got to use this um yeah and so yeah that's exactly what it is and trying to trying to pull that out of you because when you're 17 you don't always necessarily know where you want to go and I think you know what the question was when I had a guidance counselor they were sort of like so what would you do if you didn't have to worry about money right yeah and

[00:45:34] Jacob: Then like if you said I would just like you know hang out with my car and work on my car then you were supposed to be a mechanic and if you were uh you know if you said I wanted to you know write in my journal then you were supposed to go be a writer but to me that's like a you know that's a that's a question for one person working with like 150 people but to really yeah get to know someone and and allow them to open up to you is a

[00:46:01] Matt: Whole different ball game yeah I mean yeah I love all those examples I feel like that really for me personally that makes me realize how important you guys are as mentors and tutors and in the role that you serve um being able to help people kind of figured out I mean ju something that my mind keeps wanting to compare it to I've been updating my resume recently and it's one of those

[00:46:21] Jacob: Things where it's you know like I have accomplished a lot of things but I don't really know if they're important to mention or not and then I'll see you know I'm looking at applications or looking at you know different gigs or whatever it is and Linkedin will suggest

[00:46:34] Matt: Certain key terms or keywords or whatever and I'm like oh I have all those I didn't realize it was important to mention on my resume but if that'll help me be seen like cool I'll throw it on there it's completely true I have that skill I just didn't know to include it so yeah I mean it's got to be so useful for people to meet y'all and realize that they you know have a lot of spinning plates and they could just kind of consolidate them into you know a narrative to present like here's who I am and here's why it's important to take a look at me well and that goes back it's so interesting that you say that about the resume and like you know having things that you didn't necessarily know were useful because that goes back with the to the opaque process the opak andess opacity of the process which is sure I have all these things I know what I do I know what I like but what do I include right and so you know like I said we're our job is to kind of be the

[00:47:30] Jacob: Pr person to tell the story because ultimately they don't necessarily care about every little thing that you did they don't care about your one year on JV lacrosse if they're interviewing you or thinking about you from the uh perspective of are we going to let them into our exclusive bioengineering major they want to know about the things that you did there maybe they want to know about a few other things so they can gauge your proactivity in your work ethic But ultimately it's those type of things but you know in terms of figuring out what should I put

[00:48:04] Matt: On there and what shouldn't I put on there whether it's a job search or a college application or a high school application whatever it is it's important to have people know that and I feel like they don't you don't necessarily know what the person on the other side of the table wants yeah I wouldn't have any idea you know now and especially back then but now I still don't I'm 33 years old almost I have no idea so yeah right it's some and or and it's possible that it's just like AI right going uh you know Jacob had you know writer four times on his bio interviewer or two times right so yeah we can see him or we can't see him because of that you go yeah what am I supposed to do yeah um okay

[00:48:47] Jacob: Well so from what you've seen how much I mean you mentioned AI I briefly brought it up earlier um I do kind of want to I want to that might be another one that I put a question mark next to for you um H how has it changed their process you know I think you've already helped me realize that it's you know like a room full of people who are you know real actual people who are reading these things and having conversations about who to let in and whatnot you know I'm not even sure if I fully comprehended that but how nowadays um comprehended that until now until you explained it but nowadays the um you

[00:49:19] Matt: Know technology keeps on moving and grooving doesn't it chat GPT still keeps improving I'm sure that's not only changing education and Chang in high school college and everything but how is our advancements in technology specifically changing College admissions if at all yeah I mean I can

[00:49:38] Jacob: Tell you on the on the screening of

[00:49:41] Matt: Application side it's not or at least it

[00:49:44] Jacob: Hasn't yet if you submit an application that is being reviewed by an actual human person um they're not going to say you know we had our AI read your essay and you know welcome to the school or you know you can't come here you forgot four commas and we detected it yeah exactly uh that's not going to

[00:50:05] Matt: Happen um there are initiatives within the schools it's a competing process right because in a lot of ways they go like we kind of want to squash AI because it's an opportunity or a vehicle potentially for cheating but then now you're having a movement of graduates saying we aren't prepared for the workplace because we weren't trained in AI we weren't taught anything about AI so there's sort of a competing thing of you know let's get more classes in AI let's get more training and understanding in AI because it's not going anywhere um and also controlling it because it does allow for it does allow for people to cheat um as far as my perspective with it I have nothing against AI I think AI is a useful tool um if you use it properly I have had I'll say two or three situations in which I am working with a student on an essay whether that's a college essay or you know an essay for class and I'm going okay so here are some of the edits you need to make right you know maybe we need to sharpen up this paragraph I really like what you said here but you know we've got to kind of like put these things together and we'll sign off that'll be the end of the session and then they'll send me the work and you know I'm seeing something that's like I really want to go to the University of Arizona because the University of Arizona is a great School in the southwest right and you're seeing this whole thing and I'm going and I don't want to accuse anybody so I kind go you know I think that these edits are maybe a little bit too basic for you uh I think we could clean it up I think we could get more of you into this if I'm being perfectly honest reads a little bit like AI wrote this nice yeah let's get more specific with it right so I can kind of throw that like backand like you know I think you may have done a right without openly accusing somebody um but it is it is an interesting thing because it's not it's not going anywhere right and it's only gon to get better and better and better

[00:52:15] Jacob: Um but I think colleges are kind of famously behind the curve on a lot of things just because they're large institutions that are kind of steeped in process and tradition yeah you know and like the top universities you're talking about going back to the 17th century these are not these are not organizations that move quickly with policy or make decisions um

[00:52:40] Matt: Expeditiously I'll say yeah gotcha yeah I mean yeah it's really cool to think it's changing so quick and um uh you know for us to see how it's useful and you know not of benefit uh to us to to use these to use these tools cuz that's what they are you know it's not going to solve all of our problems but you know as we learn more and more about it people spend more and more time with it we can uh you know be more of a

[00:53:07] Jacob: Cyborg with our with our with our tools that are that are changing and as chat GPT evolves um Matt I want to ask you I wanted to back up a little bit man I would love to know on the personal side of things um I was listening to you on another podcast I think that you said is it true that you were a professional hockey player is that correct uh no I was never a professional hockey player uh no okay you played hockey I played hockey uh for most of my life I was a very high Lev hockey player uh but ultimately being a professional wasn't in the cards for me um okay and it goes back to the question you know when my gu at Scout SL asked me like what would you do if you didn't have to uh you know if you didn't have to worry about money I think my answer was probably like yeah I'll play hockey and then play hockey yeah exactly I'll play hockey and then you go like well great what happens if you're not good enough and you go well I'll um I don't know I'm 17 I haven't thought about that yeah terrifying okay yeah well okay so um you know rewinding time back to when you were 17 playing hockey and you were getting to the self I guess I would just like to know how what was your journey into being you know your life as a teen um you

[00:54:23] Matt: Playing hockey into being a mentor or a tutor and then um I mean now you

[00:54:29] Jacob: Guys have this organization this um you know these are these other people that you work with um you're the founder

[00:54:36] Matt: Um is it mrm education that's you guys mrm education and Elite tutoring so yeah you founded this and You've gathered these people who have these other skills and now you're helping all these all these people um all the all these younger people how did you get to there I mean what's the jump from you as you're young you started mentoring and tutoring at what age and then how did it kind of lead into what it is now uh yeah it's a it's a great question

[00:55:00] Jacob: I mean I was that 17-year-old who was

[00:55:03] Matt: Like you know I don't necessarily know what I want to do I knew I liked certain things but ultimately like I said my whole life was like I'm gonna go play hockey uh right and then there's a reality check of like I'm not going to be able to do that so I got into writing um politics government loved all that type of stuff and ultimately the first opportunity that presented itself when I got out of college was to work with uh you know one-on-one with students I was working as an ESL teacher I was working as a private tutor um and so that kind of led me down this path ultimately the reason that I got into um like starting

[00:55:38] Jacob: My own company was I realized a trend

[00:55:41] Matt: That exists within both College Prep tutoring SAT prep all of that stuff uh in that tutoring can be a very expensive service there are tutors that charge you know $250 $300 an hour companies that charge that and the belief is at least on the parent side that well I'm paying $200 an hour for my tutor they must be

[00:56:04] Jacob: Excellent um and the reality is they

[00:56:09] Matt: Might be excellent because those tutoring companies are still only paying their tutors 25 $35 an hour so ultimately what you get is a lot of like myself 22 23 year olds who are out of college so maybe I'm good maybe I'm not good right you get a lot of people who are in grad school working to become a doctor or a lawyer you get a lot of people who are uh scratching out a living as a Creator or an artist or a writer and they're using what they learned in college to kind of teach these people um and I thought you know this is crazy that these families are paying $200 $250 an hour and they're getting a tutor that can't really be that flexible with their schedule because they're doing something else or a tutor that is eventually going to be like you know this was fun but like I'm going to go be a doctor now right um and ultimately a tutor that is a part-time person right and so I thought I thought this is this is crazy we can't do this anymore so I started my company with the understanding that we would professionalize the process we were going to pay a significantly higher wage we start our tutors at $80 an hour now um and the idea being that they won't need to pack their schedule with eight students a day to make ends meet uh they will be uh incentivized to be able to reschedule sessions to be able to be flexible with their scheduling um and that ultimately we wouldn't I would be able to weed out people who weren't quite so good um so now I'm able to kind of solve for like what I was saying before with the like highly charismatic people I'm able to get people who are younger I'm able to get people who are um interesting and relatable to talk to which is actually probably the most difficult thing for hiring I'm able to hire people who have um AP reader experience which for those people who aren't familiar with what that is they are the graders of the AP test um so you know you're talking about like high level Educators we have college professors we have um high school department chairs uh and ultimately that was kind of the idea is to say if you're going to Shell out all this money for tutoring you really ought to be getting the service that you deserve to get and if you're a tutor and you have all these expertise and qualifications then you ought to be getting the wage that you deserve to get otherwise we're going to constantly be in this system where people are frustrated with the service and they don't know why because sometimes they can get a good tutor but other times they can't get a good tutor and they're like why is this working sometimes but not other times and you're realizing it's just kind of like a luck of the draw situation right yeah I get that okay yeah that's good um okay and then so how did you how did you start rounding up people who know I mean I I assume there's other people that work for you I mean how did you stumble across these people I'm sure they've got pretty good resumes themselves uh yeah well you know what it was it was it was really easy when I put uh $80 an hour on the uh on the on the job posting um and I started to get people who I was interviewing I interviewed one woman who was the um she was the mathematics department chair at Southern New Hampshire University and she's talking about how she was a biostatistician by trade and I'm interviewing this woman thinking like you are more qualified to be hiring me than I am to be talk about impostor syndrome yeah seriously right I'm going like what am I interviewing you for um but you meet a lot of people like that right and I think ultimately when it comes to being like a business owner and trying to be a responsible business owner is that like people want people want a couple things one they want to feel like they're being compensated properly for their expertise and their time and two they want to feel like they're part of something and I think that's what we create when we say like we're really trying to deliver that service um so my process looks like you know putting a job post out there whether it's on LinkedIn or kind of word of mouth uh and then meeting people

[01:00:13] Jacob: Because if you can be relatable and you can be interesting and you can be enjoyable then I have something for you whereas I don't care how many degrees you have or what you know what your expertise is if you aren't interesting and enjoyable to talk to if I can't connect with you if someone can't connect with you then ultimately they're

[01:00:33] Matt: Just going to continue to struggle with whatever they were struggling with before they came to you know yeah it's more than just what's on the paper you know like you don't just all right I have these accomplishments now I just sit here and everything good happens you know D it'd be like having a podcast guests who knew everything about you know I don't know but they you know were unable to

[01:00:56] Jacob: Speak or have a conversation you know yeah they can be brilliant but

[01:01:00] Matt: I mean yeah I mean Charisma go goes a long way and something I learn you know about myself and other people is uh you know certain areas I can be car charismatic certain subjects I can be incredibly charismatic there's things that I am so passionate about that other people might not care about at all but you know get me talking about those things and I'm going to come across incredibly charismatic and interesting and I might get you to be interested in those things CU I'm so pumped about them you know and so yeah just find finding exactly where people fit and giving them a little bit of space to you know dance around I suppose I love that I might be able to get you interested in something you didn't care about like describe to me the teaching tutoring process in one sentence I might be able to get you to care something to care about something you didn't care about before like that's beautiful yeah super cool man well um yeah um okay so how long have you guys been in business how long has your company been around uh we've been around basically from the pandemic we're fully virtual um so that was kind of my opportunity to say Hey you know like I can go I can do this now right I don't need like a brick and mortar location so yeah we've been around since uh yeah mid 2020 okay and within those within those years I mean what is a this a trick question I suppose but what have you learned what has it taught you about yourself I mean this is a I'm sure it's a lot of self-development by you know being an entrepreneur starting a company learning all these things what have you learned about you or I guess just about the whole thing in general

[01:02:26] Jacob: Business is hard business is business is hard you know I got into this and I was an educator and I knew going in that I didn't know all these things about business and so that was going to be difficult um but the grind of being an

[01:02:40] Matt: Entrepreneur day in day out managing

[01:02:43] Jacob: People doing the same things over again I mean we were talking a little bit about what we do in the summer for you know an education company where we have you know less clients um and just kind of like keeping yourself self disciplined and staying on top of the things when you don't have a boss breathing down your neck it's wonderful in a lot of ways because you do have that freedom but then you know if you have the freedom to prosper you also have the freedom to fail um but I think the one

[01:03:11] Matt: Thing that I would say if I had to say I would I took something away is that like if you can be connected to the why it really changes the game because then you do want to stay that you know it's like every time I bring a new tutor in or I you know make a connection with a partner we partner with a company or I go to a fundraiser I see all these people and I'm like you know I want to get that tutor I want to get that tutor work I want to I want to do that I go to the fundraiser and I go like I want to help these moms who are you know worried about their kids with disabilities um you so you know I want to I want to offer value to that partner and being able to connect to that why I think that's the that's the key if

[01:03:53] Jacob: You're Mission driven if you have a purpose as to why you're doing it all becomes a lot easier yeah wow what a beautiful answer I love that man yeah it's cool I feel like um you know it's a everybody always talks about service you know if you can like just pick something that's bigger than you and so we don't have to think it's so easy to think about ourselves all the time right you know so if you can have something where you can be in a room and go that person was interesting I think I could actually help them and then be able to have the tools and resources to do so I mean how cool is that you know like yeah yeah I always quote this I always find a way to jam it in there but uh Romos he's a spiritual teacher he always says we're all just walking each other home you know I just I just feel like what that means to me a lot of times is you know I might have something that is is useful for somebody else to like Express themselves and um you know walk them towards their home as I'm walking towards mine you know we're on the same path so to say um Um well cool man we are getting up here in time um I want to make sure that uh that we covered everything that um that's important for you I mean I want to make sure everybody knows I'll include everything in the description down below everybody will have those links um is there anything else that people need to know about MRM education Elite tutoring anything

[01:05:09] Matt: No I think we covered everything

[01:05:11] Jacob: In more brilliant well I love it man um I'm hoping some people reach out to you from this and um I man it was really nice talking to you it was really cool to get some of your perspective on this so I really appreciate you reaching out and then you know one more time again it's really grateful that you were willing to reschedule you know I know I did cancel on your last minute and that's not the most professional uh business move there but I really appreciate that man

[01:05:33] Matt: Happens to the best of this uh yeah this was a pleasure not all podcasts are great and like enjoyable to be on so like thank you for having me and thanks for like making this cool conversation this was fun yeah

[01:05:44] Outro: Yeah wonderful man all right well we'll be in touch man um I'll send you I'll send you a text um I'll get edit in all this uh listeners love yourself if you haven't drank any water today what are you doing dude drink some water uh stretch move around and then check out the links below and check out Matt stuff um if you have any questions I'm sure you could probably send over an email and he seems like he'd be pretty happy to answer for you so everybody have a good rest of your day Matt you as well I'll be in touch thanks again

[01:06:12] Matt: Man thanks Jacob cheers

[01:06:15] Jacob: All right see you