We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Ledwith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jennifer, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I’m a Houston native raised by a single mother with high debts and no child support. People repeatedly told me that my mother made too much money for me to get any college financial aid. But grants are just one type of aid. When I walked across the stage at high school graduation, I had received so many scholarships that the announcer was still reading them after I was done crossing the stage. When I graduated from college with minimal student loan debt (only $1,000), I realized that I was an outlier: most of my friends and classmates took on massive student loans to pay for college. This was a key catalyst for me. In 2004, I created Scholar Ready to help future undergraduates avoid taking on unnecessary student debt. Initially, I focused on helping students write scholarship essays; however, realizing that scholarships are a function of several factors — PSAT scores, ACT scores, SAT scores, GPA, and essays — I expanded Scholar Ready’s services to include math tutoring and test preparation. I understood from a young age that education and literacy are crucial to success. To this end, I designed Scholar Ready to give students the help they need to succeed in school and achieve a better life.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

In 2019, nearly 75% of Texas 8th graders read below grade level. Nevertheless, most likely, these students were promoted to 9th grade, struggling to understand middle school level texts. Throughout high school,they “pass” assignments that they don’t understand. Thus, when A’s and B’s beam from a student’s report card, parents believe that the student is traveling a path of college readiness; on the contrary, the student is plodding a straight, narrow, rutted road to limited opportunity.

For the past few years, parents of 12th graders have called me, hoping that I can help boost abysmal SAT and ACT scores. Unfortunately, a burst of tutoring cannot repair years of deficits. Now, multiply this situation by the nearly 450,000 seniors and the nearly 480,000 sophomores and juniors who, in 2021, failed to meet the SAT benchmarks. These students have less than a 75% chance of earning a C in college freshman math and English composition courses.

The gap between a student’s grades and test scores shock the busy, professional parents I serve. Nonetheless, this outcome is to be expected: students lack homework; students lack the background knowledge to understand what they are reading; students lack basic algebraic skills; and students lack critical thinking skills.

While our competitors focus on test preparation or college and major selection, Scholar Ready focuses on building long-term academic college readiness. We regularly measure and report students’ college readiness and use this data to help them to improve their reading, writing, and math skills.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Giving presentations to school counselors and parent groups has been the most effective strategy for growing Scholar Ready’s clientele.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Each parent referral has been the best source of new clients for Scholar Ready.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.scholaready.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/scholar-ready/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scholaready
• Other: Interested in free SAT and ACT study guides and tips and strategies for the academic and financial aspects of going to college? Subscribe to the ScholarSpot newsletter: http://www.scholaready.com/downloads-resources/#subscribe