Episode #48: Rich Dunsworth Webinar (Mastering Admissions & Financial Aid)

🎙️ Episode Title: Unlocking College Admissions for Student-Athletes

In this episode of the Significant Recruiting Webinar, host Matt Rogers is joined by special guest Dr. Rich Dunsworth, President of the University of the Ozarks (ozarks.edu) . Dr. Dunsworth brings his extensive experience in higher education leadership to answer pressing questions and provide valuable insights for student-athletes navigating the college admissions process.

Key Topics Covered:
🔑 Understanding the Admissions Landscape – Gain an insider's perspective on what college admissions committees prioritize when evaluating student-athletes.
📚 Balancing Academics and Athletics – Learn how to excel in both the classroom and on the field, positioning yourself as a well-rounded and competitive applicant.
💸 Exploring Financial Aid Options – Discover strategies to maximize scholarships, grants, and financial aid to support your academic and athletic journey.
📝 Crafting a Compelling Application – Get expert advice on standing out through personal statements, recommendation letters, and showcasing athletic achievements.
🏐 The Role of Coaches in Recruitment – Understand how coaches can advocate for and guide athletes throughout the admissions process.

Whether you're a student-athlete, parent, or coach, this episode offers essential guidance to help you navigate the path to collegiate success. Don't miss the opportunity to hear directly from a university president on how to make your application shine.

🎧 Tune in now and take the next step toward your academic and athletic goals!

Transcript

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Welcome everybody to the significant coaching and recruiting webinar series tonight. We have a great guest, Dr. Rich Dunsworth. I'll get to Rich here in a second, but we're going to talk about college admissions and financial aid, just because we understand so many families just don't know how it works. And Rich was a first generation student, I was a first generation student, and we want to make sure whether you've had five children go through the college process, or this is your first, you understand That it's not as overwhelming as it seems, and we're going to try and simplify it as we go just a little bit about me Matt Rogers. I was a head college coach and athletic director for the better part of 12 years than I was a college scout. And over the last couple of years, I've started working with families individually and consulting with colleges, universities, and I wrote a little book called significant recruiting. That Dr. Dunsworth was kind enough to contribute to and wrote a great piece in the book. So if you're interested in that, I'll give you the opportunity to get into that after our webinar. Dr. Dunsworth is the president of the University of Ozarks 11 years rich. Wow, 1212 years. And if you happen to have been in Arkansas on the campus of University of Ozarks 12 years ago and you happen to go back now, I don't think you would recognize it. Would you agree? It's a pretty amazing place. The chapel is still there and it's still just as pretty. The, but we've been able to take what we had and in some places, dust it off, give it a good polish. And then in some other areas we've been able to invest thanks to wonderful friends at the institution. And it is beautiful. And I know we have some volleyball families on tonight listening, and they've got big news. They are starting their first volleyball program. Yes. It will be the 21st NCAA division three sport. And historically we haven't had volleyball due to pressures on our gymnasium, but we built a new outdoor complex for softball Baseball and soccer, which has allowed all those teams to move to their outdoor locker rooms that are right next to their facilities, releasing some pressure on our gym. And we've we've announced the adding of the program will have the coach hired shortly after the first of the year. And here she'll have 678 months on the ground prepping and getting ready to start and will compete in the fall. In a very good league, a very high academics schools across the board. So really excited for your athletic program to be added in volleyball. I think that's a great addition. Dr. Dunsworth, we'll jump right into this. If you're okay with it, there's just four things that I wanted to address tonight and get your thoughts on talk a little bit about what the typical academic profile of your admitted students are. What are what is your admissions typically looking for just to get a student in the door? Sure. So for an institution, I mentioned word division three, we serve about 800 students. We are considered moderately selective and that's one of the words and the people talk about selectivity and basically it means, how, what do you expect? So our average student has about a 23 to a 24 ACT and they're an A minus student. Now, average is really easy to talk about. One of the other, the languages that people will use or you might want to ask is what is the, what are the outer limits? What's the bottom 25? What's the top 75? And people will often say, what's the 25 75? And that gives you the spread of what it looks like for a student to be admitted. We're an institution that, that before ADA 504 was even dreamed of, we were a student, an institution that supported students with learning disabilities. That started for us in the late sixties, early seventies. So we have about 50 percent of our students. that we don't have test scores on. We're a test optional institution. And basically what we say to students is, present your very best self. If that's with a test score and a GPA, and you think that best represents who you are and your ability to be academically successful, great, give us that. But if, maybe you're someone that lives in a really small town, and you didn't have test prep, Or maybe you didn't have as many options from a curricular standpoint. Great. Give us a portfolio. Maybe give us a couple more reference letters. So I can do typical, but there's so many students beyond that typical that it's really thinking about, okay, what represents me best and stand up, throw the shoulders back and present yourself to admissions folks and you're going to be able to find the right institution. I love it. Financial aid is a strange conversation with families that haven't gone through it before. Most families that do well, they make six figures, husband, wife, single parent. They simply assume whatever the price tag that the university is advertising, that's what they're going to have to pay. How do you how do you best describe how financial aid works and how a family should really perceive it as they start that process? That sticker price for some institutions. actually might signal quality, right? For some institutions, it signals quality. Very seldom does sticker price have a real relationship to what people pay. And the hardest thing is going, okay, let's go back to your son, your daughter, your child, presenting their very best self. Sometimes, students know exactly what an institution is looking for, right? They want a 32 or above ACT and they're willing to pay 50 percent tuition scholarship for that. They want salutatorians and valedictorians that are willing to pay x for that. They want cellists. They want, I remember once when I was a, an admission person and we had an orchestra to get cellists. One year was full tuition because they just weren't out there in the marketplace. The challenge is as a family, you never really know all the different nuances of what an institution wants or needs in a class. Sometimes that's athletically. Many of us work at institutions where you can't give athletic scholarships. That doesn't mean. Your son or daughter won't get a great offer or package. By way of example, I have three children. Two of them were Division III athletes. One was a Division I athlete, is a Division I athlete. Our Division III daughter, swimmer, nursing. By the time it was all said and done, I think her bill this year is going to be about 3, 000. She was supported because of her grades, her leadership skills that she was a certified nursing assistant at a long term care facility at a hospital. They loved all of that and just kept stacking scholarships on top of it. And her GPA was great, but her test scores were only really average. Almost. All students get some kind of financial aid nowadays. It's just what kind is it? Is it a scholarship? Is it a grant? Please know that those two words sometimes trip people up. Scholarship means you're not going to pay it back. Grant means you're not going to pay it back. And then always watch out for what people are doing as it relates to loaning up students. Let's talk a little bit about institutional grant and really what that means and why you have it and what its purpose is. Sure. So for an institution like ours, we were founded in 1834. We were in what was the the Indian territory, right? And then the state lines came later. So when we were founded, luckily some folks put some resources behind to help prepare teachers. So for example, We've got a program where, if a student comes in, they do everything they need to do, and they say, hey, but I want to teach, and I want to teach in Arkansas. We have an institutional grant that slides in there and meets all of their need financially if they commit to teaching in the state of Arkansas for four years. It's all, it's somewhat rural health care. Doctors in some professions that go, if you're willing to work in rural America, if you're willing to do this, some institutional grant will slide up there. So for us, it's about our mission. It's about who we educate. It's about our ability to influence maybe prior inequities, right? Whether that's working with students that maybe haven't studied a discipline. Up until recent changes, we had some scholarships like that for women in science. Why? Because you see a downtick in women in science about the time they come out of junior high, early high school. So because some alums who were women in science said, Hey, I want to leave some scholarship dollars for you to encourage more women to study science. And that's where for any of your families, Matt, that, that great, you're not great outside hitter in volleyball, but you're also wanting to study chemistry, many schools, the chemistry will get you more money than the outside volleyball hitter, unless you're, six, two, six, three, and can really pound the ball. I think that's the hardest part about being a parent. is we're so used to looking at a price tag and going gosh, how are we going to find that money? We've got to, whether it's club sports, whether it's high school activity fees, whether it's, the chess club, or we want to do an ACT, SAT prep exam, we look at the price tag and we assume that's what we got to pay. But at the end of the day, what your price tag is really going to be dependent on what kind of a person, what kind of a student, what kind of an athlete you've been over the last four years to say, I deserve something. I've earned the right to get, to make this cheaper. So for all of your families, for anybody there's a website. It's sponsored by the department of education, I P E D S iPads. gov. Where you can look up any institution in the United States and you always want to look and it says what the average Actual student paid what the average amount any student paid, and it typically gives you the last three years, right? I would go. Nobody's average, but at least gives you a place to start. And one of the things I would say that to parents to is we're seeing anxiety and stress and worry of our students at a level that it. I sure thought I worried as an undergrad, but it's nothing like what we're seeing now. And the number one or number two worry is money. And what I'd say is one, look the information up and then please have conversations with your student. They're worrying about mom and dad. They're worrying about grandma and grandpa. And they're that, that sometimes that worry causes them to do things they shouldn't do. What do I mean by that? Great. They stretch. As far as they can to make it affordable that freshman year, and then they try to work 20 hours, 30 hours, 40 hours, and they might as well be lighting that money on fire because in that first semester that first year, they really their primary job needs to be school. And if you think about that tuition dollar what it's costing. And I know we all go, Ooh they'll work and the lad more and they're allowed more. It doesn't work that way. For those of us that are multigenerational, yeah, I worked enough in college to pay maybe a semester of tuition. Those days are gone. So now it's, how do we think about summer school? How do we think about summer jobs to maybe get my walking around money? But that our students really, are stressing about how to pay for it. And I'm one that says let's get it on the table. What can we afford? What's reasonable? Schools now, most of them will do year round payment plans for families that just want to get on a nice cycle. But yeah, on the advice side, if you're having to stretch really hard that first semester, that first year, start asking questions about what costs have you included. Okay. How many classes have fees? How much, how many things are not included in that first bill? Because then you, then it pushes a family to a point of breaking and nobody in education wants to see that. And I would assume your financial aid staff. Is built to ask additional questions to a family if they do come back. So they'll ask, are you taking care of a loved one? Is grandpa and grandma live with you? Do you have any overhead? Do you own your own business? So they're right. And that's a great point, man. And it's one of those that, that sometimes I think. We're proud, right? We're proud of taking care of our families and if a stranger, relative strangers, tell me anything you need to know, you go what do you need to know? But yeah atypical medical costs for a year. Something catastrophic that happens, and this goes after you get there. Tell them they can't always help, but sometimes they can go, Oh let's talk about this. For example, we had a family that lost a home for tornado. We suspended their bill. They had the, they had the insurance, they had everything they needed, but it was a cashflow issue. So great. Let's just suspend your bill. We'll all be right. But the only way we can do that is if families tell us what's going on the rules are changing a lot this last year they're continuing to tweak it, they being the Department of Ed, where in some ways they're much more generous as it relates to. Private businesses, farms, land, retirement accounts and when I said the Department of Ed for folks that, that you hear a lot of lingo, FAFSA, Free Application for Federal Student Assistance, Student Aid it just opened, so if you've never done that before, you and your student should, ought to do that because it gives you a baseline of what you can expect in terms of gift assistance from an institution, or if you qualify for any other aid. And then there are a lot of state specific Opportunities that come from that as well. And for everybody that's on, I'm going to throw the FAFSA website into the chat box just so you have it. Rich, what was the, give me the IPEDS address again. It's I P E D S dot gov, I'm mostly confident. Cause it's popping up when I put in iPads, it's popping up as the college now navigator, national center for educational statistics. You got it. Okay. I'm going to put that in the chat box as well. Yeah, I guess it's yeah. N C E S dot ed. gov. It's the old iPads, but yeah, and it's a great. free tool that all higher ed must comply. And then they go out and get a bunch of our data from other sources, but it's a nice starter. It's a chance for students to see, okay what was the medians, ACT scores, SAT scores, GPAs. So you can go, okay, what am I looking for? Is this a place I'm likely to get admitted to? And then when I do get admitted, what did, what is it likely going to cost me to go to the school there? Let's talk a little bit about EFC and what that means to your institution and how the government is creating that. Cause I always make a joke about it that you fill out the FAFSA and then you, a couple of weeks later, the government tells you what you can afford. So Matt used the phrase EFC, which used to be expected family contribution. The department had changed the form now and it's. S. A. I. And I don't even know what the new acronym stands for, but it's basically you feed a whole bunch of gut information into the government, all this stuff and it comes back and the federal government says this family can afford X. And I'd say to the families, no family, very few families I have ever met agrees with what the federal government says. And they almost always go, the feds think I can pay what? They think, what do they want me to do to be able to write that check? And that's a point where in the old days, what folks would go is if your expected family contribution exceeded the cost of going to school there, it was assumed, okay, then you're a full pay family. You'll write a check, you're done. Those days disappeared in the 80s, and now it's, okay what other scholarships are available? What is realistic in that number? The closer that number gets to zero, Many institutions assume It's a pipe dream, right? If somebody says they can afford a thousand dollars more likely than not. No, they can't. That thousand dollars means something dire is going to be needed to be given up at home. If it's a zero, basically the financial aid folks say the federal government has said the Rogers family. cannot afford a single dollar for their student to go to school. It doesn't mean that student can't go to school. It means, hey, let's get creative. Let's layer as much state aid, federal aid. Here are your choices, right? That's where you'll see some students going, Ooh, I might decide to start a good community college, or I might decide to live at home and commute. Or, hey, how do I think about this? And then sometimes loan will slide into that. Or sometimes you'll go, hey, because of my test scores, I'm going to go for a chancellor's scholarship, or I'm going to go for a full ride scholarship. And they're still out there, just not as often as they were. It's a great question when you're on a campus tour, is to ask the folks going, how does this institution treat expected family contribution? Another further example. Some institutions will go great. How many do you have in school? Hey, you're expected family. Family contribution is 10, 000. But you have a twin sibling, my Children. Institutions would go, I assume five goes to the daughter, five goes to the son. The feds no longer automatically do that for you. I've seen institutions where they'll tell a parent, if you were ever going to go back to school, go back to school the same time your child is, for that same purpose. Because some institutions will go, we don't care if you're going to a community college for a cert, we don't even care if your employer's reimbursing you for it. We split 50 50. But it's one of those, it's just a natural question, how do you treat it? And if they get dodgy on you, Use that information. However, you would use it if you were trying to buy anything else and the salespeople won't tell you. Yeah I love it because you have to listen to your gut because I've worked at five different institutions. I know you've been at a number of two and depending on. The leadership, how that family is treated when they call and ask those questions really comes down to the human beings on the other side of the phone. That's exactly right, Matt. For most of us that I think of this as an 80 year relationship, right? My alums are going to live to be a hundred. Or let's say 98 ish. The four years you're here are important, but we want you 10 years out referring students or hosting them for an intern or hiring them or doing other things. So institutions like ours we want you to, come into the family. And that in, I don't like using the family analysis because some families don't talk money, right? Some families, that's the one thing you never talk about is. How do we afford this? We're the kind of family that goes, Hey, let's just talk about it. What's it going to cost? Can we afford it? What choices do we have to make? I'm going to pause for just a second. For those of you that are on, please use the chat box. If you have questions for Rich, and I'll make sure we answer those specifically from you. I have a bunch of questions I'm going to continue to ask. We'll go for about 20 more minutes here. But if you have questions, please ask them. I know the families that are on really well. So I'm asking some questions. I know they're probably going to ask. Here's one I get all the time. I want to ask one more about the state of financial aid for just a moment. So many families will say, Matt, it's not even worth it for us to fill out the FAFSA. We just, we make too much money. We know we're not going to get anything back. Is that a mistake? And why is that a mistake? Yeah, it, in many cases, it is a mistake. And I'm one of those families. I mentioned the twins. And one of them like, but then we're not going to borrow money. We've been 529 plans are a great thing. Remember when we were putting 50 a month away, but then what we learned was at that institution, if they didn't have a FAFSA on file. They didn't even consider our daughter for some of the academic scholarships that had nothing to do with money, and that by her filing that it opened up where there's information where it's a variable. We're need base, but they're going, okay, we've got it more information on this child, but we also learn more about the parents, right? They learn about whether degrees and information and married and living together and what kind of support other than financial, they're going to get at home. They learn that there are other siblings. They learn that there are other things in school. There's a lot more information on there. So even if you're I don't know if we'll qualify. It's, it, I don't know of anybody that it's ever really hurt other than the 45 minutes that it takes to fill it out and the new tools that import your taxes make it easier and easier. We chose to use it as a way to teach our kids, go, all right, sit down. My daughter was on a computer, my son was on a computer, I'm in the middle and we're doing it together. And we just naturally talked through some of those data points. I find it interesting when we talk about the FAFSA. That families don't understand. Number one, there's work study there. Most schools have a work study program where maybe, there's 2, 500, 3, 500 you can save over the course of a year, you're sitting in the library, checking out books. You're sitting in the gymnasium, checking people into the gym, whatever that may be, you're doing your homework 99 percent of the time, and you're doing a little bit of work and you're getting paid for it on your campus, talk a little bit about that from your side. And how your universe uses work study. Sure. So work study, let's quick do a definition. When we use phrases like work study the federal government gives the institution typically 25 cents on the dollar to employ students. that have a financial need at such and such threshold. Most institutions spend significantly more than that 75 cents. For example, we spend, for what we spend for federal work study eligible students we double that amount for other students because there are some that are just out of the range. They filled out the FAFSA, And their scores came back going, Oh, they're eligible for some money, but they're not eligible for federal work study. Many of those students also need a job. So most of us will do that. And campus based jobs, most are 10 to 20 hours a week. As Matt mentioned, it can be anything from groundskeepers to paint crews to library. Library is always a great gig because as he said, you have your book there and if there's not something to do, hopefully you're reading. I think about my work study, sorting mail. It was one of those quick fast and it, and we had that institution. I was at Colorado state in Fort Collins, Colorado. I think ours was a minimum. So if I got it done in 30 minutes, I still got an hour. And that was just one of the sorting mail and swiping people's meal cards in at mealtimes. That when you look at work, I'm a big fan of work. It adds to the likelihood of students going to stay and graduate. And that doesn't matter if they're working the custodial crew, working the setup crew in the gymnasium or conference center, they're more likely to stay and graduate because they're meeting a couple of other adults while they're there. The reverse of that, more than 20 hours a week off campus in the first two years. Junior, senior year, 20 hours a week in something academically related, do it every semester. Your first couple of semesters, if your son or daughter needs a job. Let's get him to the Career Center, find a job on campus, maybe washing dishes. But even university presidents have washed dishes as a summer job. And it goes back 30 years, almost 30 years when you and I met, we basically met because of my work study job. I did admissions. I did the admissions tours and then I did residence life. And I believe that's how we met, right? That's exactly how we met a hundred years ago. Quick. I was doing a session a while back and I made a comment about 20 years and somebody came up afterwards and they're like, Hey President Dunsworth, your math is a little off. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And they're going, you were talking about being at Colorado state in 1987. That wasn't 20 years ago. And then I'm like, you didn't have to call me out. And she's but you sound like you don't know how to do math. I'm like, but in my head, it was only 20 years ago that I was a college freshman. Oh yeah. I do have 20 year old children now. That's right. Yes. And when I knew you, you didn't have any children, and I had more hair. Yes. And both of our hair was much darker. The other point I want to make about FAFSA, and this is something, we never want families to think about this, but we just went through a major. the pandemic about four years ago, and many people lost their job and people still are going to lose their job for whatever reason. When you fill out that FAFSA every year, you're preparing yourself. For what may be the inevitable or what we can't, we hope never happens. Once you filled out that FAFSA, you're still eligible. You can go back to the government. You can go back to your school and say, Hey, we've lost our, like you talked about the family that lost their home in a tornado, I've, I have a bunch of families that lost their homes in the Maui fires and Hawaii, when you have that FAFSA, you can go back and say. Hey, we don't have the money that we thought we had. We didn't have the money that's showing on our taxes last year. What can you do? Talk a little bit about that. If that happens. Yeah, it's well and this is one of the, I don't want to pick on our regulatory friends. It's one of the few that the language makes perfect sense. It's called a professional judgment. that the federal government department of education gives the financial aid directors on university campuses the ability to make a professional judgment and there are metrics it's like audit as long as they make fewer than x it's assuming they're just making them and you know i can think of anything from major storms where people have lost the roofs of their yes where people have lost jobs where something devastating has happened with a family and the financial aid people can say, okay, but it doesn't have to rock your entire world. Let's keep your students in school. And typically that'll change and make them what's called Pell eligible, which brings the number down and makes them eligible for that five to now close to 7, 000 of gift assistance from the federal government. And then in many States, There's comparable pools of money that can make that grow from, say five to a total of 10, and it may not be permanent, but at least for that year, you get a professional judgment. Now, if a tornado hits your house every year, maybe, something might go on and you go, Ooh, that, that professional judgment isn't going to happen. But that's back to where if you fill out the forms and you talk to your financial aid staff and go, Hey, we're doing great, but. And the butts can be devastating. And most of us just don't want to. We want to keep this kid in school, keep the young person going and we're going to do what we can. And that gives you some concrete information to be able to do it. I think the piece of advice and you've touched on this is put your humility, put your pride on the shelf and don't be afraid to say, Hey, this is hard for us. Is there more that you can do? Is there more we can apply for? And I'll make sure before we say goodnight, I'll put some scholarship links, some websites up here for, if anybody wants to dive into those, if you already work with me, you're going to get those from me, no matter what. Yeah. But we'll get into that as we go. Exactly. And in many times Matt, it's just saying, Hey here's my reality. Or here's the reality of our family. And, sometimes I worry with families and we all want to give our kids the very best, but I mentioned three, we had three that because of the twins that were, they were only a year apart academically. Okay. How do we think about that? As we look at scholarship opportunities as we look at ways to do this. And, when I hear families talk about, oh we're going to take a loan from a retirement account, or we're going to do things of that nature. I just, I worry and go, hey. Can we explore other options? Can we talk about some of these things? And I know, for example, Holly and I, with freshman parents every year, we go, Hey, here's some things to think about. Here's our personal cell phone numbers. Again, we want you to be here and be successful. And that if they're stressing about money, maybe they're not being able to be the very best student they need to be, or the very best athlete they need to be, or the best human there'd be need to be, because money just weighs them down. That's right. And that's the last thing you want. And I think across the board, I think most university presidents think that way. Don't you, wouldn't you agree? I believe so, yes that we're all trying to offer an amazing service to people and it's hard when we go, we just can't make it work that what I encourage our admission staff to be able to do is that if and when we can't make it work financially, I want you prepared to make a recommendation. And say, have you considered X school or Y school and that, a family well enough to be able to say, Hey you're student because of something they do you might be able to make this one work. I love it. I, we have a question from one of our parents. And I know you're division three. So this may be you more from a flaw answering this more from a philosophy and an opinion than, and then having to deal with this every day, what are the pros and cons of the name, image, and likeness, because I know you're playing a bigger role and with education, and I know you've thought about enough, I know you and I've talked about it, what, where do you see. This NIL thing going, Matt. All right. So for our families that that yes, I've been division three. Since leaving Colorado state university of Illinois, I've attended large brand institutions. I have a son that's a division one runner. He's a cross country runner distance. So I'm shocked that my above average distance runner gets a monthly check from an NIL cooperative alliance, whatever. I'm also just as annoyed when I get a text message from that cooperative going, don't you want to help these young people out and contribute to name brand institutions in IL so that we can support these kids? And I'm like, so you can write my kid a 50 check. What? So on the one side, I see that and I go that's just dumb. But then I see it at the other end and I go, okay, hold it. Everybody's making money, but that family, right? If the institution, and there aren't many, it's a misnomer on how many institutions actually make money. What I see this athletic programs, or for me, and this might get me thrown out of the club. When I see what some coaches are making and go, hold it, you're going to get a X million dollar buyout. Or you don't even have to have a winning season and you're a millionaire and your students may or may not graduate and they're putting behinds in seats and they're making really people happy. Shouldn't they get something? Yes. And that makes sense in the abstract. But then when that something is millions of dollars and they're 18 and then we have agents involved, and lawyers involved and accountants involved and see and it goes it feels we've just thrown a much bunch more money on the table for a bunch more people to try to control young people's lives. And it's what are we trying to do? I get excited, what was the twin sisters in California that were volleyball players that because of their Instagram and their social media, they monetize their name, image, and likeness. They're going to graduate college with no debt. They're going to have a nice goose egg to, or to get start nest egg, to get started. Good for them. That's cool. 17 year olds. Having NIL deals. That's just a farm team for football. It is. That's just a farm team for basketball. I remember hearing a speaker out in North Carolina a few years ago. She's like, why don't we just call it what it is and make the NFL and the NBA pay for it. That's right. So I don't know if I answered the question. It's one of these where it's a curious thing. And I think we're going to see, my kid and two of his friends as they were seniors, they were all looking division one, two out of the three did division one, one did division three. And they're going, Dad, would you hire us a marketing firm to help start building out our pages? And, they were swimmers and runners that were accustomed to not wearing very much clothing. And I'm going there because that's where they instantly went. We'll model Speedos, we'll model shoes, and I'm like, no, I am not doing that. But it sells. It does. And that's the twisted, perverted nature of it. Yeah. Who would have thought we were ever going to have QR codes on jerseys that people could snap and add money into an account? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And when I tell all of my friends and family, when you get that solicitation, delete it. And they go, but Matthew's face is on it. Our kid. I'm like, I know his face is on it. Delete it. Their athletic program is funded. They have really nice gear. They travel appropriately and you do not need to write them a check. And that's why you want your alums to live to 100. Exactly. You want them to go out in the world and you want them to be doctors and lawyers and CEOs and make millions of dollars and say, remember that place that got me started? Or how about kindergarten teachers? I think kindergarten teachers should get paid more. I think junior high teachers, anybody that works in junior high should get hazard pay. But people laugh at me when I say things like that. I don't, I completely agree with you. We all, I want to go for about five to 10 more minutes here, and then I don't get you on under the world of how busy you are. I want to talk about supporting student success and some of the things that you and I have had really great conversations over the last four or five years about, and that's how do we help these 17 and 18 year olds get to a campus. And learn how to be an adult. Learn how to be a learner. What are you doing at the Ozarks? So if I've got a 17 year old daughter, she's going to come to Ozarks next year and she's no longer in my. And my grips, I can't, I'm not waking her up, but we're not feeding her anymore. What are you doing from a support system to help those kids when they land? Sure. I'm going to do parent and then I'm going to do the university. As your kid starts getting at that point, it's a great time to do a. almost like a family assessment. How good is our son and daughter at agency or self advocacy? How good are they at raising their hands saying, I need help? And this is where it's really easy for me to do the twins. One tested easy, made straight A's, one worked hard and got straight A's as well, but had to really work at it. That one was really good at raising your hand. Was really good at being able to walk into a faculty member's office and go, I don't fully understand this. The other one who had never had to ask for help first semester kicked him in the butt academically because he didn't know to go. Yeah, office hours. What does that mean? And you go office hours means generally that a faculty member there. They're not sitting there waiting instead of doing their work. They're prepared for you to walk in, knock on the door, say, Hey, I don't understand. Can you help me out? For us, institutions like ours, One, we first have a, most folks have an orientation class. Ours goes all year long, or all semester long, where we're helping students think about these things. Whether it's how to use the library, how to use tutoring, how to use the writing center, how to use the math center. But it's also taking time for them to say okay, when do you ask for help? And asking for help is not a sign of weakness, right? Asking your boss for, to clarify instructions is usually a sign of a good employee. Hey boss, don't completely understand, what are we looking for in this? Oh, you wanted a one page, not a 20 pager. Or, ooh, you want my best work in 30 minutes, Whether that's really good or just my best work in 30 minutes and learning how to start a dialogue. One of the things that I've, I ask my students, especially my student athletes, would you ever not talk to coach for weeks on end? And folks, no, I said, how often do you say to coach, what do you need for me? What do I need to do in the off season? What do I need to do on vacation? What do I need to do to move from number six to number two? What do I, and I said, think about what if you did that academically? And people look at me like I've grown horns. And I said, no, seriously, every student athlete knows where their coach's office is usually within the first 48 hours of being on campus. Most students have five faculty in their first year. Do the same thing. Learn where the office is, and what I say to them is and cross the threshold without the words I need. And student athletes have the perfect entry. Hey, Professor Dunsworth, here is our schedule for basketball this year. Our opening game is October 27th. I'd sure to see you there. Holy crap. Most faculty don't want to be the one that didn't show up after a student invited them. Most faculty are going to go, hold it. They didn't say, Hey, I'm going to travel 15 weekends out of the year. They want me to be at the home game. That's right. If I go to that first home game, I'm going to probably be even more forgiving when they need to miss a Thursday for a Friday game or I know that the bus got back at two in the morning and they've got an exam at eight in the morning and they come in dragging. But it comes with telling us to, hey, lean into that. These five people three years from now might help you get a job. And if you start doing that year round, okay, five the first time, the second semester, maybe you have one repeat and you learn four more. Yeah. By the time you get to your sophomore year, you have 12, 14, 15 wicked smart people who know you. They've watched you play. They've seen you win. They've seen you lose. They know your character, your integrity, and they're there cheering for you. And now you've got a board of directors going, Matt Rogers, how do we get you where we want, where you want to go? I don't know where I want to go. Great. Let's start by just getting you a job. That's right. And I tell families this all the time. I went to, I played division three basketball where else could I have gone at the division one level where I could have been on the basketball team, been an ambassador for admissions, been a residence life Person in charge of a, I was in charge of a dorm. I was a student teacher. The college sent me on college fairs. I would go to college fairs and meet with students and families and talk about our school. I was president of the student body. And when I graduated, I had the president, the vice president, the dean of students and the chair of my department, writing letters, making phone calls for me. Where could that have happened? At any institution with more than 5, 000 students on campus, it's hard. And I think that I know we're about out of time, but for our families that, this is one where we happen to have a gorgeous mall. And my international students say that I've got to come up with another word because when they hear mall they think shopping, and they will tell me you can't call it a mall call it along. We have a lot. And what I often will tell parents is they said, after you've walked the mall, if your son or daughter says, this isn't the right school, move on. That's right. Because there is an affect of going, okay, I think I can see myself here. And you can see the difference in students that when they walk in and go, I'm home. I had a young man from Paducah, Kentucky this year, and his dad called later. No, it's like my son told me on their visit day that I don't feel like I want to leave. And I'm like, yes. And he's Rich I didn't see this one coming. He thinks that's the right school for him. And I think it is too. And you go, after you know what your non negotiables are. If it doesn't feel right, trust it. Great. Get a couple more schools. I've mentioned our Children a couple of times. Our daughter is at her practice school and their president laughs at me when I say that we went to the school. She's at to give her a practice visit for the school. She really wanted to go to and After that long weekend, we did a three day weekend of the final ones, and she's Dad, where I really wanted to go, I don't want to go there anymore. I want to go, she doesn't call it the practice school, but we joke now, she's a sophomore, and she loves it. She's an RA, she's on the swim team, doing research in nursing, and she's she's just I think this is where I'm supposed to be. Yeah. All right. It snows there and we're in Arkansas and it seldom snows. And she's I know it snows there, dad. And I'm like, okay, just want to make sure you remember it snows there. Some details matter. And she's that just means new shoes. Okay. Got it. I've got one of my Florida families on, so it's good for them to hear that. We're going to have that conversation here in the next couple of weeks. It matters that this time of year in Arkansas, it starts getting cold and we've got a couple of students from the South and they're going, does it get any colder than this? I'm like only a little bit. And it's only for a day or two. It's going to be fine. You just don't want to be there in July when it's 112th. We tolerate, you're exactly right. We tolerate July and August, and then we get this time of year where this weekend I was grilling out, you always bring me down at the end of July and early August when it's 112th. So that's all I really It's the start of the school year, and it's when people would rather be inside listening to us than being outside. So yeah, that's exactly right. We've talked about that in terms of the academic schedule, in the old days, you took the summers off because everybody had to work for some of us. I think we'd rather be in school in the summer. And then about October go, can I have about a three month break or, for me, I'd like that break in February and March so I can come home to Colorado and enjoy the snow a little bit. Yes. Yes. That's right. Dr. Dunsworth, as always, it was a pleasure. You're welcome, Matt. And know that if you get one of those questions and want to tag team it we built this relationship over the last couple of decades. Feel free to keep using it. As you said, I'm a first generation college kid and college changed the trajectory of my life. And if I can do that for other students other young people and other families I'll just keep doing it. It's why I respect you so much and care about you so much. I know everything you do is to make make the lives of others better. So thank you for everything. And we'll be in touch. All right, buddy. Take care. Be well That's a wrap for this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast webinar edition. I'd like to thank University of Ozarks President Dr. Rich Dunsworth for his wisdom and generosity while guiding families through the college admissions and financial aid process. We hope you walked away with some great advice and solutions for your student athletes. I encourage all families to give the University of Ozarks a hard look. It's a beautiful campus with an outstanding faculty and staff. If you're enjoying these conversations, please give a click to that subscribe button and share it with a friend. If you're a parent of a student athlete looking to play in college or a school administrator looking to help your families with their college recruitment, you can schedule a free strategy session with me at CoachMattRogers. com. Thanks again for listening. Have a significant week and goodbye until next time.