Welcome.

Thank you so much for having me, Mike and Amy.

Many times, parents ask me, "How did you get into this work?" And the truth is, I never set out to become a college counselor.

The work actually found me.

I'm someone that loves stories.

I love writing stories, helping people express themselves through stories on paper and in person, which is actually the heart of college counseling.

In, in, in college, I majored in English.

How often do you, when you're talking to parents, you ask the student for a list and you ask the parent for a separate list, and then you compare them [laughs] to see if there's any overlap whatsoever? Uh, what other strategies do you have, Beth, for trying to deflate the pressure by addressing what each party in this process wants out of it?

Has AI come into the picture in helping you?

So AI comes in.

But before I talk about AI, it's a great question.

It's so much harder than it used to be.

And it didn't suddenly get...

This crazy overnight.

It's like it morphed into a whole new sport.

Did it, in fact, did it make it any easier? Or did your kids kind of remind you that you're a mom and not their college counselor? I mean, how did you get through that process?