What is “College Planning”

College planning is a process of developing the ‘right’ strategies that result in being offered admission to the ‘right’ colleges, being offered the ‘right’ scholarships to pay for college, and minimizing or avoiding student loan debt. The earlier that a student begins the college planning conversation, the sooner a student can begin pursuing the strategies needed to develop a “body of work” reflective of their gifts, talents, passions, and aspirations—one which they will eventually present to colleges and scholarship providers. Pictured here is Kimberly Hadaway (soon to be Dr. Kimberly Hadaway), a member of our church during the time that we (Mychal and Nina Wynn) served as Education Ministry Leaders. Long prior to the inception of our College Planning Cohort Program, as a 3rd grader, Kimberly began following the same guidance that we had given to our two sons (our older son received a full scholarship to Amherst College and our younger son is a 2012 Gates Millennium Scholar who attended Morehouse College). The body of work that she developed throughout middle school and high school across our 3 pillars of scholarship, leadership, and service resulted in Kimberly being offered 6 full scholarships as a high school senior (Amherst, Duke, Princeton, Vanderbilt, Washington & Lee, and Williams).

While Jayla, from our Florence School District 3 Cohort, did not enter our program until she was a high school sophomore, she learned about Kimberly’s success in our published books, through our online curriculum, and listening to Kimberly speak at one of our monthly meetings. Using Kimberly’s college planning strategies as a blueprint, Jayla pursued our 3 pillars of scholarship, leadership, and service to build a “body of work” resulting in unimaginable outcomes (Yale Young Global Scholar, QuestBridge College Scholar, 5 Fly-in invitations, and admission to Williams College on a full scholarship). 

As pictured below, Kimberly and Jayla are not our only success stories. The facts are that only 1.5 percent of all college students (including athletes) are attending college on a full scholarship while over 50 percent of all college students are collectively accumulating over 2 trillion dollars in student loan debt. Our comprehensive college planning approach guides students in developing a “body of work” that is then “packaged” in a way as to present colleges and scholarship providers with the highest quality self-presentation—a process that is articulated quite well by Kristen Starks, a participate in our Guilford County Schools Cohort, who went on to receive a full scholarship to the University of Richmond as a Richmond Scholar. Kristen has since graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Biology and is now attending graduate school at Duke University in her home state of North Carolina.

Full Need- and Merit-based Scholarships

Full Scholarships to HBCUs

Our full scholarship recipients include sets of siblings, beginning with our sons (Mychal-David (Amherst College) and Jalani (Gates Millennium Scholar): Kristen (University of Richmond) and Sydney (Bowdoin); triplets, Sydney (North Carolina A&T Honors College), Tristyn (Claflin Honors College), and Kailer (Wesleyan University); Brittany (Gates Millennium Scholar) and Brianna (Gates Millennium Scholar); Kyrah (Xavier University of Louisiana Presidential Scholar) and Khalil, who received the same scholarship; Jayla (North Carolina A&T Honors College) and Kaylie, who received the same scholarship; Faith (Ohio University Templeton Scholar) and Sarah (North Carolina A&T Honors College); and Jasausha (Claflin Honors College) and Jason (USC – Columbia Opportunity Scholar).

Former students have also gone on to be selected as Marshall Scholars, Rhodes Scholars, Ford Foundation Scholars, Northeastern University Graduate Fellows, and National Science Foundation Graduate Fellows.

Click here to download “Students Who Benefit Most from Our Program”