This episodes talks meets Judy Young – a college and MBA Admissions Coach (as well as an Ivy League graduate herself). We discuss the biggest advice she had for parents raising their college-bound kids as well as what it means to do this while running a business yourself. We also talk about young college-aged women working towards their MBAs and the tips + tricks they need to be as successful as possible. You can find Judy Young and her College Excellence program HERE.
Being A Successful Entrepreneur while Raising College-Bound Kids with Judy Young
Judy Young is a College and MBA Admissions Coach and an Ivy League graduate herself. Judy is CEO of College Excellence, and holds a BSc in Economics from The University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in Marketing and Finance from The Wharton School. She also has College Admissions Certification from UC Irvine and Rice University. She has helped students successfully gain admission and full-ride scholarships to top schools in the US and internationally including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT and Cambridge University.
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BULLET POINTS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- What does hustle like a mother mean to you?
- If you’re a mom, everything falls to you. Even if there was somebody to delegate to, there’s a guilt that goes along with that. I think it means understanding what your factors are and how you’re going to juggle those priorities.
- The mental load of being a mother and especially a working mother where, you know, not only do you run your business, but you usually run the main parts of your home, the schedules for your children and for your spouse or your partner. You’re making sure that the house doesn’t completely fall apart. And we still have to all exist in it.
- There is that invisible mental load of “I am the one who’s making sure that everything is running smoothly” and that’s okay. It’s not a bad thing, but it is there.
- It’s not part of American culture to have that help or ask for help or just expect that to be there. And I think that’s such a disservice to us as women and mothers, to have that taken out of the child-raising years. Because if you look at so many other countries, so many other cultures, and it is a village-based raising for these families. And it takes some of that pressure off when you have all of these peoples ready to step in and help.
- There’s something to be said about letting go of the guilt, letting go of the expectations, and just doing your best and doing what you can do. You’re the only person who can raise your children.
- You run College Excellence – tell me about how that was started and what you do for these kids.
- I came here to the US from Jamaica for what I thought was my sophomore year, but it turned out I was a senior, and nobody told me. Somebody asks me, are you going to take the sat? Huh? I had no idea. I’ve never heard of it. Then someone else asks me which school do you want to go to? And I don’t realize I could be rejected. I don’t know which one’s hard to get into. But I took the exam and I got into an ivy-league school and I didn’t even know what that meant.
- Through all of that, I realized that your choice of college makes a big difference and can really impact your life. And I thought, you know, someday, I gotta really make sure kids know that.
- When my kids were going off to college, I had to help them figure it all out. They got in great schools and then other people were like, wow, can you help me? So I did that for free for friends for a while before I realized this is a thing and I could actually make some money. So that was how it started. I’ve actually been doing this for over 10 years, but I’ve had my business now for four years.
- What advice do you have for parents who are in the thick of this, sending kids off to college and working through these rejections and exceptions and all of those things?
- So I think it’s a much bigger conversation. You prepare your kids the best you can, but I’m not sure it’s that different than when they try out for something. I mean, hopefully, you’ve been doing some of this all along. You might not make it, but you still do your very best and have a Plan B.
- Having a Plan B that doesn’t mean that you won’t be successful. I think you have to give kids a sense of confidence. It’s more about the mindset you bring to the game. No matter the circumstance, you have to be able to roll with what’s happening.
- All of that to me is coping mechanisms – being able to walk through it seeing the bigger picture. I know that sounds very simplistic, but I think it’s super important.
- We just need to go into that with that expectation of you are great, but there’s a lot of people who are great. There’s a lot of people who deserve this. There’s a lot of people who are in this same pool and it doesn’t make you less worthy of a seat. It doesn’t make you not good enough for a seat. No, it just is what it is.
- Those are also lessons I learned through owning a business and being a parent. Just because something doesn’t go exactly how you want it to go doesn’t mean that there isn’t another option or another path or that there isn’t something else that’s also good. Whether that’s in parenthood, whether that’s running a business, whether that’s getting into college – whatever it is, I think we can set ourselves up for that disappointment and failure if we attach our success to one thing.
- Redefining what success means to you is really important.
- One of the biggest things that you can do to prepare kids for college, beyond all the things you could do to make sure they get their grades, is also keeping them excited about learning.
- Kids shouldn’t be burned out from learning by the time they get to college. They should be excited for the next phase.
