Michael Shepherd

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome, everyone, back to the Tron podcast. This is your host, Rashad Woods. Today I have a very special guest and accomplished entrepreneur and actually currently still college student as well, too, Mr. Michael Shepherd. Thank you so much. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Hi there, Rashad. It's. Thank you for having me on the show. [00:00:33] Speaker A: It's great, too, because the way you balanced college life and having a part of a business, particularly education, is incredible. So please tell me about your background and how you became to be the entrepreneur that you are. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate that. Well, first and foremost, I do want to say I. I'd hate to attribute the success of Test Prep Academy to me alone. It's really been a collaborative effort, especially between me and my founding partner, Gubaz. So both of us, and really the entire group of people that we worked with to establish this company. You know, not to toot our own horns, but we've been. I'd say they used to call us gifted kids. We've kind of been in specialized educational programs throughout our life. And so once we graduated from high school, most of us went to what's known in New York City as a specialized high school. These are like the seven strongest public high schools or the seven or eight strongest public high schools in the entire city. And so. Oh, thank you. And we realized, well, you know, why don't we actually take these skills we've learned? We have some pretty good SAT scores, pretty good qualifications. We all made it to pretty good colleges. I think something we could do pretty easily is tutoring. Right. And so that's. That's basically where we. Where we got started. One day. One day, actually, Bubas came to me and he said, hey, I have this idea. Can we make it work? I was like, yeah, let's work on it together. It's. It's. It's great. And so we just came up with the Test Curve Academy. There you go. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Nice. Nice. So, like, the. The interesting thing about what you've accomplished, obviously, is that I saw, you know, some of the things that you wrote on your website regarding, as well as with your staff as well, too, which I thought was interesting, was education, particularly, I'm sure, like, when the pandemic happened and your tutoring services that are offered online, it had to have seen some really good momentum because of what took place as well, too. [00:02:28] Speaker B: Well, you know, actually, that. That's. That's a good point there. I think maybe if we were around when Covid hit, it would have definitely been a huge boost. Would have been a huge boost. Unfortunately, we missed that mark a little Bit, but, but ever since COVID there has been a much stronger emphasis on these, on these online meetings, on these online events, you know, work and all this stuff. So it's definitely had a huge positive impact on our market base for sure. I think maybe five, five years ago, people would pretty much write off virtual tutoring as even an option. They'd say, no, I need to go to, you know, in person, I need to go to a tutor, sit beside them, you know, like one on one or private tutor or I need to go to one of these classroom like esque tutoring centers where they have. [00:03:19] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:20] Speaker A: How large are your class sessions when it comes to your online tutoring sessions? [00:03:23] Speaker B: Well, we actually, we, we specialize, we find that it's the best. We specialize in one on one tutoring sessions with the kids. We sit down, right? We sit down for an hour on average. Um, that's, that's the usual class session. Though we do allow special circumstances. Let's say if a parent wants two hours, that's totally fine, of course, but you know, we sit down with this kid for an hour and we talk person to person here. What are you actually struggling with? Let's break it down so you don't get left behind. And I think that's one of the benefits of one on one tutoring is in a classroom setting, kids get left behind quite easily. They miss one fundamental and then they'll forever not really know what's going on. And they won't say anything because they don't want to look dumb. Right. They don't want the other kids to laugh. They, they don't want to raise their hand and ask a question that the kids around them will be like, oh, that's a, that's something we learned in third grade and we're in sixth grade now. You know, how are you asking that question? [00:04:20] Speaker A: So yeah, and I saw that you guys start at kindergarten, it goes to middle school, goes to high schools. Do you find that you have know you guys have been in business for a short time, but did you find any elementary that then also utilized it in junior high? And I saw some of the courses that you offer, somebody brings their kindergarten or their first grade. Like what's the age bracket that people start really bringing their kid in for tutoring that you've seen? [00:04:41] Speaker B: Well, though we offer K through 5, I'd say things don't really start getting useful until maybe, maybe third grade. [00:04:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:04:49] Speaker B: The thing with kindergarten, first grade is, I mean, I guess it's possible, but really what is the Kid learning. I mean, right, we're talking, we're talking 2 plus 2, 3 plus 3. I mean, if a child is one far ahead of the curve, which would be wonderful. They're far ahead of the curve and they need some, you know, upgrade accelerated course or, or learning some things that the school system won't offer yet. That's definitely a possibility. If a kid is really, really struggling honestly at that early of an age, they, they'd likely need a specialist. But you know, if there's a kid who just doesn't understand a certain subject, you know, they went over in class, they went to their mom and they're like, you know, I'm doing this homework. I don't really get this new concept they introduced. Like, I don't know, I don't know what this 2.5 is. A lot of kids struggle with decimals and fractions. Maybe the parent. Yeah, maybe the parent says, you know, we might need to take this to somebody who might be able to give you more help. [00:05:47] Speaker A: You know, I saw it. No, you're good. You know, again, I have, I'm a father of three daughters, so I have an 11 year old, a nine year old, a five year old, and when you said, you know, kindergarten, first grade. So it's like at five, like they're literally learning shapes and learning how to spell their name and recognize things. So it's like, hey, let me get this, this child or this young person at a stage where things get a little more complex, I think is the, or a little more challenging, where it's more rudimentary and higher skill sets involved. So, so I think that's to your point, if I'm not mistaken. [00:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah, you don't want to overdo it. I mean, if your child is, I mean, it's like you said, it shapes, it's, you know, single digit arithmetic. It's not really, it's not really something that needs extra help. [00:06:30] Speaker A: I did, I did have some questions because you, you know, there's so many things. You have a degree, you're pursuing a degree in architecture and a minor in business. What's the architecture? [00:06:39] Speaker B: Well, you know, I've actually always had an interest in drawing. You know, even as a kid when I was, I actually distinctly remember when I started drawing, it was third grade, I had just gone to a new school. I had switched over to the school called Nest plus M in Manhattan. And I was sitting in a third grade classroom and I, I kind of just started doodling on my sketchbook. I was doodling little stick figures and they were, like, fighting each other and stuff like that. Right. And so from then on, I've been drawing my whole life. And obviously I'm not. You know, I looked at, oh, what, what do I want my career to be? And, you know, it was never going to be artists because I want to have something that's successful for, you know, me and my family. And obviously, art is not that industry. So I decided, well, why don't I combine art? I've always had a knack for understanding 3D environments because I've been drawing for so long. You know, shape, form. Well, hey, that sounds a lot like architecture. In my high school. In my high school, we had these things called major tracks, where in 11th and 12th grade you could take these courses designed to sort of get you ready for certain majors in college. One of the offers was architectural engineering. I had a. I had a friend. Yeah, he was a couple years ahead of me. He came to me, he said, I took architecture. This is the worst major track ever. There's so much work, I'm literally dying. I hate all of my teachers. Um, and I remember thinking about that, and when I went to go select my majors and I clicked architectural engineering as the first option for. For these major tracks, I was like, I wonder if I'll have the same experience. Thankfully, I didn't. I loved it. And so when I loved it, yeah, when I loved it, when I had a great relationship with my teachers, when it was fun to me, I knew, hey, this is what it's like for somebody who doesn't like it. It's torture me. It's not. So that. That clearly shows to me that, okay, this is where I belong. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Okay, fantastic. You know, and it just goes to show, the old saying, different strokes, different folks, right? So, yeah, you know, and I want to. I want to give you a compliment at the very beginning when you said, hey, I went to a special school for people who, you know, showed some academic prowess. We celebrate people all the time when they go to an academy for sports. So don't sell yourself short. You can brag about that, right? Like, if a kid can toss. And I'm not knocking athletes, man. Right? So. But if a kid goes to a prep school and he's the best basketball, football, baseball player, everybody's like, man, he went to this academy, you know, just because it's for intellect. Listen, bro, like, be like, listen, I went here because they saw something in me and my. You know, and it was the right avenue for me to take. So that's something to Brag about, man. It's a nice feather in your couch. So, of course. So I did have a question like, how did, how do you guys measure results? Because, you know, is it. Do people get higher AP scores, ACT scores, college admissions, things like that? And do you. And so there's two questions to that. So I'll wait for that second one before you answer that one. That's okay. [00:09:36] Speaker B: Okay. Well, you know, it depends on the student. If a student is here for improvements on. Because we have a lot of different avenues. AP exams, SAT exams, general grades. We have these things in, in the state of New York called Regents Examinations. They're basically end of the year, it's a little bit more organized than some other states have it, because other states have finals maybe that just the teacher offers, or they have a couple of classes where there'll be a standardized exam at the end of the year. In our main customer base in New York, we do have customers across, at least for now, the Eastern seaboard. But in New York, in our main, in our main area of operation, we have these things called Regents Exams. End of the year. [00:10:16] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:17] Speaker B: And they got it for every course, basically. And so in middle school and these, these kids, they come in struggling. We actually had a kid who was, who failed their biology Regents and she came, I remember, did a six week program with one of our tutors because her, her Regents retake was in January, so she didn't have much time because she started tutoring in November. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:43] Speaker B: And she was able to, she was able to pass. And not just pass. She was able to get like something in the 80s, which was definitely impressive for somebody who had previously gotten something in the 50s. Now. Yeah. Thank you. And now for. I actually had a couple of SAT students who when they first entered and we were doing these practice examinations, they were all essentially scoring 1100s, 1200s, which is definitely above average. But it's not something that will impress the top level schools. [00:11:17] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:18] Speaker B: A couple months later, by the time we had gone through, I'd say for each of the students, about 10 practice examinations, which I think is a pretty fair number on how many you might need to, you know, be able to improve. All of these kids were consistently scoring 14 to 1500s on their SATs. [00:11:36] Speaker A: This is a guy who never took the SATs, so they gave me the option. Right. So I was like, no, I totally. [00:11:43] Speaker B: I totally get you. It can definitely be something that's. Oh, I know. Very difficult. And so. Right. And we're talking about a 1500 on a, on a. Yes, on an exam that's out of 1600 now, that's the maximum score. So definitely huge improvements. [00:12:00] Speaker A: Have you found yourself integrated with. With actual schools? Like, okay, this is the, the tutoring. Because schools have cut back on those types of services. Whether it's tutoring, whether it's other various avenues, like in classroom sizes have obviously gotten larger. Have you found yourself integrated with any particular schools? Like, okay, this is the academy that you all need to go to because this is the best offering of success, you know, whether it's public, private, charter, et cetera. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Well, we, we definitely would like to. We haven't really reached a point yet where any school is sort of in an agreement with us or understanding that, oh, hey, these guys are like a premier tutoring service. It would be great because I do think we definitely have a lot to offer. [00:12:42] Speaker A: Okay. [00:12:43] Speaker B: But that's definitely on the horizon. It's something we've thought about a lot. [00:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I'm just. I'm just curious because, you know, it's. It's not a financial burden on the district. Right. It's an opportunity. And so, you know, they're not taking their staff. And it's just me thinking, you know, while I'm talking to you, I'm like, boy, that'd be a great avenue for you to tap into. But obviously you have a wonderful team that I'm sure you guys are bouncing ideas off your heads. [00:13:05] Speaker B: Definitely. And you know, something interesting on that front is a lot of schools, actually a lot of schools like to keep things in house. Certain schools around here at least are starting up these sort of their own tutoring programs now. I can't speak to the quality. I've been in a couple when I was in middle school, and honestly, the ones I went to were subpar. But it could be very different now. But yeah, a lot of schools like to keep it in house. Just. Just as a matter of fact, keep their students. [00:13:37] Speaker A: Right. Because then next to you. Yeah. I mean, because if, God forbid, a kid goes out of district, they get tax dollars, allocated tuition, etc. Yeah, it gets. It's a. Or if it's a union school. Right. They have, you know, it gets complicated. Right. But just on paper, that sounds like something that may benefit some districts. So. [00:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [00:13:54] Speaker A: My second question is, is that, do you deal with just US based students or do you have any international people who maybe want to come over, go to a US College and need to be prepped, you know, to learn to be ready to go to Syracuse, for example, if somebody's coming from out of the country and says, hey, I need to be more tutored in this particular topic. [00:14:11] Speaker B: Well, actually, we're totally open to it. It's been something we've never been against. We're not just limited, limiting ourselves to the US Especially with the online format. It's really global. Right, but. And I'd potentially even argue that we have a few students like that. Not necessarily the exact same situation, but we do have students who have recently moved to America. We're talking a matter of like a couple years. A few years. And yeah, they're taking these SAT exams and they'd like to sort of, sort of, you know, get into a good college. So we try to set them up that way too. And we'd love to brain shop. We'd love to. It would help our tutors as well because, you know, when you're just doing American students, you're stuck in this time of work from like, let's say around, you know, if you're on the eastern seaboard est, you can start around like 3:00pm, go to 2:30, 3:00 clock. Exactly. Because that's when kids are getting out of school. Now you say you open yourself up to the international market. Well, now you got, now you got tutors that could potentially work full time. [00:15:13] Speaker A: Correct, Correct. And then this is just me thinking out of the box, right. Whether it's learning English, whether it's, you know, learning the. I mean, obviously Google is everybody people's best friends because a lot of place, I mean, the is we're connected world. But you still have people because universities are so competitive to get into, you know, everybody now needs to have the best advantage to get where they need to get. You know, it's, you can't just rubber stamp your name anymore to get in. And so, you know, your services could be a valuable tool. And that 1300-1500 could be the difference between somebody getting into an elite school and not getting into an elite school. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. It, it makes or breaks the whole thing, you know, I mean, simply put, a lot of people like to, like to spin it a certain way. Oh, your college application is important. Oh, your extracurriculars are important. And they are, they do have an effect. But the simple fact of the matter is if you don't have the scores they're looking for, a lot of schools just have like some, you know, automatic system that flags accounts that just aren't up to par and they just kick. [00:16:12] Speaker A: Them out without question. [00:16:13] Speaker B: So. Exactly. So at the end of the day, it's A very important, you know, your SAT scores are very important and your GPA is very important. These are the two most important things. Top two. Then comes the college app, then comes the extracurriculars. Then comes the, you know, personality or interviews and stuff like that. It's all. [00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah, unless you could throw. Unless you throw a fastball, 90, you know, 100 miles an hour. [00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. That's true. [00:16:38] Speaker A: So do you have any people who are bilingual to be able to further accelerate your services? Or is that something that you're going to dive into too? Because, you know, that's a great tool or a feather in your cap as a company? [00:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah, we have, we have a couple of bilingual, I'd say, actually most of our employees are bilingual. [00:16:57] Speaker A: Beautiful. [00:16:58] Speaker B: We have, we have a good deal. We have an employee actually that is English, Korean speaker employees that are English, English, Georgian speakers, if you've ever heard of that language. Georgian. [00:17:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, for sure. [00:17:12] Speaker B: We'Ve heard. Yeah. Very, very Russia. We have English, Russian speakers as well. You know, same, same kind of area there. And yeah, we're working to expand. We have English, French speakers. You know, of course, with the, with the potential of this being a global market, it's, it's something you need to have, you know, not necessarily that you teach in a foreign language, because if, if the idea is that somebody's coming to America, you know, taking an SAT to get into an American school, you. You'd have to do all the studying in English. But still, for that person to person dynamic, it would definitely be easier. Okay, what does this word mean? Maybe I need to explain it to you in French. [00:17:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:49] Speaker B: You know. [00:17:50] Speaker A: Right. But at least, you know, even just a foot in the door of a conversation, the first half with the parents and the student. Right. Like, you know, if there's a question you need to ask, and quickly, I can. I mean, that's just a, that's just a feather in the cap for you and your team. Oh, my next question is, is that, do you hand out certificates when people have achieved anything? Is there anything. And I know this is. I'm pushing myself ahead and thinking, right. I'm a parent, so I'm like my kidney tutoring, you know, and ever would that be a service? Is there some sort of level where you guys are going to say, hey, this is accreditation, this is certification that you went through us. What are future plans for you guys? [00:18:25] Speaker B: It's absolutely part of the plan. Rashad. I'll tell you, I'll tell you, first and foremost, that's Absolutely part of the plan. And we very. Yeah. And we're very confident in the expectation that eventually TPA will be something that is, is, is vied for. Because, you know, I might be a little biased, but I've never seen tutoring better than us. And I've been, I've had tutors, I've loved a lot of tutors, I've worked with tutors, I've, I've, I've seen how other businesses run things. And of course I'm biased because I work for Test Prep Academy and I created Test Prep Academy partly, but I've never seen anybody do it like we do. And I think definitely Test Prep Academy will be something that people say. I need the written down that Test Prep Academy has approved of my educational program. I need it written down that Test Academy says I am a smart person. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, because here's the thing, right. Is that, and this is just me from looking from the outside in, right. I'm long removed from high school, so it may, it's obviously not going to help me. I'm not saying I was a great high school student, but Father Time stays undefeated. But what I find fascinating is, you know, there's so many online courses now, whether it's a Coursera, whether it's, it's Test Prep Academy and obviously it has different demographics, you know, whether it's your Google Certificates, you know, when it comes to competitive nature of high school, you know, you're taking somebody like you're 15, right. You're not too far away from actually getting out of your house and being on a college campus or, or essentially having to be self sufficient to a degree. And it goes by very quickly. Right. And so your services, I think can bridge the gap between, you know, making this salary, base salary and making that next salary based on the admission of the school. Obviously it takes the aptitude of the person. But I also want to say this, and I apologize if I'm talking too much, it's that when I looked at the people that were on your team, they bring a lot to the table because they were heads of their classes. [00:20:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Shot. I'm telling you, we, we tell, we tell students this all the time. We've had seminars where we've told students and parents this. Now I'm not sure how, how if people take it to heart or not, but they really should. But 15, I mean, I'd say 15 even is already an age where you're kind of starting in the middle. If that's when you're Realizing, whoa, I really got to lock it in. Because everything has a domino effect. Yeah. And we say that even ninth grade, right off of. Right off the bat in high school, even in middle school, if a certain school offers accelerated programs, a kid should vie for those accelerated programs. No question they should be. Yeah. If there's a test to take, take it. If there's a person, a counselor to talk to, you have to talk to them. Because getting a couple of courses ahead in middle school leads to doing those AP Advanced placement courses in high school. Because if you get done with the school curriculum sooner, you have more years in high school to work on college courses. That makes you way more desirable for. For universities that see. Whoa, you're ahead of the curve. We actually had. [00:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. No, I'm sorry. I thought you're done. [00:21:39] Speaker B: I was going to say we actually had one of our, One of our tutors. He went into College with 32 credits. College credits. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Wow. [00:21:50] Speaker B: That is. That's a year of college. And he's, He's. He's graduating a year early because of it. And this is something I, I feel like people understand. AP exam, AP courses. They understand that you can take these courses and you know, that you can get. Rack up a couple of college points here and there. Yeah. But if you start off the bat, you can be doing AP exams as early as 10th grade, even 9th grade in some cases. [00:22:13] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:13] Speaker B: You have four years. Yeah. You have four years to do these exams. And guess what? You save thousands of dollars because, you know, paying a hundred bucks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. [00:22:23] Speaker A: And the thing is about it is, is that there's this misconception that you have to start when you're a freshman in college. Right. And if, if you've already planted a seed in your mind, and obviously college isn't for everybody. So, you know, I don't want to on this podcast, like, if you want to be a plumber and this, this is not dismissing what you're doing. I'm just saying, as a whole, in life, people can choose to be whatever they want, but if that's your mission to do and say, I need tutoring because I want to get to a great university, then you don't have to because it's so competitive and global. It's a bad idea to wait when you walk on campus, that this is, when you. That this is the time to get my act together. It really is. [00:22:57] Speaker B: Right. You need to have your act together way before, way before college. It's something you got to Realize. Yeah, even, even, even myself, I'd argue I got my act together way too late because. And, and I know this from first hand experience. That's what I tell, I tell my students and I tell parents that don't do what I did here. I got my act together in this. In the first semester of 11th grade. I had about, yeah, I only had three semesters until college admissions and so I had to, you know, get, get things. It was like whiplash. I had to turn it on so quick. [00:23:32] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:33] Speaker B: I went from a, I went from a 90% semester, you know, getting 90 out of 100 to. I had to, I had to go to 102 and 106 semesters just to get my GPA back up to something that was presentable for colleges, obviously. And, and some of the time getting 102. Yeah, it's stressful. Sometimes it's even impossible because if you don't have an AP exam to put you over that 100%, there's only so much, you know, lifting a maximum score can do if you've had five semesters of subpart score. [00:24:05] Speaker A: No doubt. I mean the law of averages is ultimately going to win out, so. [00:24:08] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:24:10] Speaker A: You know, it. I thought it was fascinating. You're also on the dean's list for my understanding as well too. So how do you balance all this, man? Like we could talk about the business for days, but let's talk about you, man. How do you balance all this? [00:24:20] Speaker B: Well, it definitely helps that things are sort of fluid and this is something, I think that helps the fact that a lot of our tutors are college students just like me. Having the option to create your own schedule and having the option to do things from home or anywhere really, if you find a room, because on the campus they got a bunch of rooms that like you go in. It's like a. Exactly. It's a quiet room. You keep to yourself. Well, you know, if I have a class from one to three and then look, I have this class from five to six, I have this open hour from three to four. Well, I can leave my class, I can go to this private room that's just down the hall and I can have one quick, one quick session and I go continue on my day and you just don't take, you don't bite off more than you can chew because. Yeah, and that's why, that's why I think the system we have devised is just, is very beneficial for, you know, people who have other responsibilities. [00:25:20] Speaker A: Well, and to your point, you know, people don't have time to say, okay, by the way, on Saturday, you're gonna have to go to, you know, Johnson hall, you know, halfway across from your dorm room or your apartment. You know, if somebody could be like, listen, I really want to do. I really want to get better, but I'd much rather, particularly with cell phones and laptops and smart tablets, like, listen, man, I could do this after I ate breakfast and brush my teeth and be ready to go. So you're meeting the people at the. At the place of their convenience. And so you break down that barrier that they don't have to drive, get on a bus or walk or ride their bicycle, too. [00:25:50] Speaker B: I mean, that's true. I mean, we've had students who, you know, they've. They've expressed like, oh, my gosh, you know, I'm so sorry. You know, tutor Michael, whatever. I'm so sorry. You know, I just. I don't know if I can make it on time. Can I come to the meeting room? Well, first of all, they say, could we. Could we move? Could we reschedule? And since everything is fluid and flexible, we say, you know, we'll try our best to reschedule for a different time this week so you don't miss out on tutoring. [00:26:16] Speaker A: Right, Right. [00:26:16] Speaker B: If you're late to a tutoring appointment somewhere, physical location with the classroom, chances are you're not getting that time back. That money also is. Is gone. You know, you don't get it. You don't get to reschedule when you got 30 other kids in a classroom. [00:26:29] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:26:31] Speaker B: Right. But with us, it's. Okay, well, let's reschedule. Oh, we can't reschedule. There's no time that works for us both besides this hour. Well, okay. Where are you right now? Well, I'm in. I'm in a car. Okay, well, can you get your notebook out? We could do the class session from the car. You know, you guys, just don't disturb the student while he's in the car with, you know, whatever parent might be there. Yeah. And we just get the lesson done there, and it's been. We've seen it to be, you know, just as effective. The environment is. Is important to a certain extent, but when it's a still safe environment, like, you know, the family car or, oh, I'm at. I'm at my grandpa's house this week or something like this. Well, great. Get on the computer and anywhere. [00:27:14] Speaker A: Exactly. I do have a question. So you're on a college campus, and I have to ask this Question. Have you thought about expanding into college? [00:27:21] Speaker B: Yeah, we have. College brings with it a lot of challenges because first and foremost, colleges have tutoring programs. And they're pretty good. They're pretty good. [00:27:34] Speaker A: TA usually get. [00:27:36] Speaker B: Right, right. You usually get students who are in a. In a further year than you who have taken the course you've taken. These are usually your tutors, and they're free most of the time. It depends on the school. But sometimes these tutoring services are free, so. So when, when there's something like that. Why would a student ever choose Test Group Academy? Well, we just need to be better. That's obviously the answer. And it also brings with it a lot of specializations because you're not just teaching arithmetic anymore that everybody knows. Right. [00:28:04] Speaker A: To your point. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Yeah. You're talking like, go ahead. [00:28:09] Speaker A: Somebody five years away is from potentially being a medical student. I mean. [00:28:13] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Being a doctor. [00:28:15] Speaker B: Right, right, right, right. And it's like you're teaching. So now we have to get a guy for, you know, advanced biology. Now we got to get a guy for advanced physics. Because these, these majors hardly ever, you know, cross over. If you get somebody who's very gifted in math, well, guess what? They're probably not very gifted in history. They might be, but they're probably not. So. Right. But it's, it's, it's on the horizon and we've already started branching into it. We. The. Whenever we do have, you know, a new employee, a new tutor, we do ask them, what's your specialization? What do you have? Show us your qualifications in all levels of education. That includes elementary, middle, high, and it includes college. So we add it to our repertoire as we, as we expand, and we have a couple of things. We have, you know, for example, me, the architecture student. We have a student actually who's, who's trying to apply to an architecture college. I've taken him under my wing and I've, I've tried to teach them. What are they looking for? What, what do you need for your. Sorry, what's it called? [00:29:19] Speaker A: Expectations or things like that? [00:29:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Basically what they're looking for because you have to submit work, you have to submit, you know, what, what you've done. And it's like, what are the specific things? What's the skill they're looking for the quality. A lot of these things don't come naturally to people. And, you know, what's. How should you manage your time? I manage my time terribly. I save college applications till the last month. You don't want to do that. Right. And these are the things that, you know, people don't necessarily know, especially if they're the first in their family to ever apply to college. They would never know. And there's a lot of families like that. So, yeah, it helps to have a mentor as well. [00:29:59] Speaker A: And it's very complicated because, you know, and this is just me thinking of this from the. From the outside looking in. There's so many stools that can get added onto this chair of yours. You could be, hey, this is how you apply for fafsa. This is how you actually get scholarships and grants. I'm sure you guys have thought about this because, you know, at some point people are going to start asking you all these questions or if they have already, like, okay, yeah, that's great. I'm getting prepped for the acts. I'm getting this score, by the way, my parents never went. I don't know what to do after this. Right. So do you. I mean, it all kind of works itself out after a while. [00:30:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Actually, we've held seminars already because we've. We know that we have a lot of good information to give. [00:30:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:39] Speaker B: We've held seminars for both middle school students and high school students. What should you be doing in the coming. In the coming years? Teaching. You know, with middle schoolers, you teach them about, hey, get, get ahead right now, because you're going to be taking these AP exams later on if you get ahead right now for the ones in. In New York, we actually have something called. In New York City, we have something called the shsat, which is kind of like the sat, except it's for getting into one of these specialized high schools. I was talking about before. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Right. You take it in seventh grade. Right. And so if somebody. If we have the students in sixth grade and even sometimes the students in fifth grade, we tell them, well, are we going to start preparing for this? We probably should, because you want to do good on this. If you get into one of these specialized high schools, guess what? They're gonna set you up much better than any other school to get into a good college. You know, and it might sound silly to a lot of people to talk to a fifth grader about college, but that's just the reality of the situation. When you get ahead in middle school, you get ahead in college. That's just how it works. [00:31:39] Speaker A: I gotta. [00:31:40] Speaker B: It's a butterfly effect. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Who's in AP classes right now? So I totally. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Really? Wow, that's amazing. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah. My oldest one and, you know, they're all special, but you know, she's in AP calculus right now. And I'm like, whoa, whoa. Honest. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. [00:31:56] Speaker B: So that's impressive. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, she didn't get that from me. For the record, let that be stated unequivocally. The math was not. So I do have a question, I think, and maybe you guys have already gotten into it as well too. What about special needs students? Like, how is, you know, because there has to be, you know, those questions I'm sure have been asked. How do you guys handle that particular segment of students? [00:32:17] Speaker B: Yeah, we've had people who've asked us about special needs students before. You know, as of right now, special needs students need special needs students tutors. There's specific degrees teachers need to get for teaching the general public, and then there's specific degrees they need to. To teach special needs children because there's a whole different set of skills. These are skills test Prep Academy doesn't necessarily have any sort of qualifications. And so whenever we've had people ask us about their special needs children, we've redirected them to local specialists in their area because that's honestly the best you're going to get for special needs kids. We don't really recommend online tutoring in general. [00:33:01] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:02] Speaker B: Exactly. It helps a special needs to know a lot to have somebody sitting there next to them. And especially this is someone who needs to have, you know, patience to an utmost degree as well, understanding the specific ways you need to approach certain problems for a special needs child to understand. [00:33:20] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:20] Speaker B: And then that changes depending on the special need as well. You teach a child with, let's say, down syndrome very differently than you teach a child with autism. Even further, you teach a child with severe autism very differently from someone with mild autism. Okay, so it's a whole different set of skills. [00:33:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's why I just kind of had to ask that broadly, you know, it's, you know, because I'm sure you, you know, again, I'm not speaking on your behalf, but it's just a question I was curious about based on what you guys are doing. And that makes sense that they go to people with specialization in those degrees, you know, to help those children out. [00:33:53] Speaker B: But down the line, if, if we have employees that come to us and they say, oh, hey, look, I have a certification in this special needs area, wonderful, we'll add it to a repertoire. That's, that's the thing. As TPA expands, we have this section on our website where we basically cover everything that we can offer somebody anything we can offer a student that's just going to keep expanding as time goes on. [00:34:16] Speaker A: Right. [00:34:16] Speaker B: You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, that's never really going to stop because everybody brings something new to the table. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Right. And so, you know, you're going to let it grow organically based upon your, your current base and who you're servicing and as things, you know, people with qualifications, skill sets or if you're like, hey, we've been asked this by 150 people. Maybe we need to allocate some time, resources in a plan of action to set to service this particular sect of customers. It's not customers people. Right. You know, clients or what term you may refer them to. [00:34:47] Speaker B: We say clients. [00:34:49] Speaker A: Clients. Yes, yes. Because that's a person, you know. Definitely, definitely. And so listen, you know, Michael, this is, this has been wonderful, man. You know, I wish there wasn't online things. When I was graduating from high school, man, America Online was like the, the premier online service. You get a little dial up that you were dealing with at the moment. So, you know, it's crazy. So, you know, I love the work that you do, your qualifications and at the age that you're at, it shows success is attainable no matter which year you were born in. And I, you and your team are doing wonderful things and I'm looking forward to having some follow up conversations with you about what, what you guys are doing. [00:35:24] Speaker B: Thank you, Rashad. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I mean it's really the truth that, you know, if you want to do something, you can just go and do it. There's really nothing stopping you. [00:35:32] Speaker A: Right? [00:35:34] Speaker B: Yeah, you just have to work hard. [00:35:35] Speaker A: You sure do. You sure do. I always ask this, and I make sure to ask you this, where can people find you? [00:35:40] Speaker B: You can find us@test prepacademy.net that's just our website. We're, we're on every social media, well, probably not every, but we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on Instagram. [00:35:55] Speaker A: I saw that. [00:35:56] Speaker B: We're on, yeah, we're on YouTube as well. And you know, a lot of these things are about, you know, get getting started. And we're at Test Prep Academy on all social media. But, but the best way to contact us, the best way to see what we're about is definitely going to a website on test prepacademy.net and it's spelled just like how it sounds, the words Test Prep Academy. So that's, that's where to find us. [00:36:20] Speaker A: That's awesome. Michael Shepard of Test Prep Academy, it's an honor and a pleasure to have you on the. On the Tron podcast, Randomness of Nothing. Without this podcast, I wouldn't have been able to reach out to you. And I'm glad you reached out to me to be able to carve for you to carve out some time to speak with me. [00:36:36] Speaker B: I appreciate it. It was great to be on your show, Rashad. And, you know, I really appreciate you having us, and this just seems like a really great podcast, and I'm honored to be here. [00:36:43] Speaker A: I appreciate your time, brother. You do well. Okay. [00:36:46] Speaker B: Thank you so much. You have a great day. [00:36:47] Speaker A: You, too. [00:36:48] Speaker B: Bye. Bye.