Things Brian Eufinger Has Said on Podcasts

“If we want authentic writing samples, you could even make it ungraded … If you have Shakespeare over here and then the essay they wrote under monitor conditions over here, well, then you at least have a little bit of a BS detector on that front. So I would not be shocked if five years from now we have a built-in mandatory but ungraded essay on these tests. It'd be a boon for honesty.” — Brian Eufinger, ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast

Explaining how ChatGPT is undermining college essays, Eufinger proposes bringing back a proctored, ungraded SAT essay so admissions readers can compare a student's real writing with a polished application essay.

ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast · 2026-11-02 Permalink → Listen →

ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast Around 33:27 into the episode

Brian Eufinger

…these schools have in the South, Southeast, have gotten more popular faster than others, not just the football and the other stuff and the rah-rah and bama rush on TikTok and all that stuff. But the actual net price is quite appealing at a lot of the schools that are in the southeast comparatively.

Brad Barrett

What's the strategy? Is it still applied to many schools? And can you leverage one school against another? Are there strategies for that? Like nuts and bolts. What can someone listening to this do?

Brian Eufinger

…2016, it was mandatory. And so there's the infrastructure to do it. If we want authentic writing samples, you could even make it ungraded. Just we scan it as a PDF and it's attached to the front of your scores. If colleges really care about the authenticity of the essays, you can still let people submit the Common App essay. But what if you attach that essay to the front of it? Because then if you have Shakespeare over here and then the essay they wrote under monitor conditions over here, well, then you at least have a little bit of a BS detector on that front. So I would not be shocked if five years from now we have a built-in mandatory but ungraded essay on these tests. It'd be a boon for honesty. But AI will continue to warp things. Now, tactically, I'd be remiss if I didn't end the AI thing by mentioning this. I have a beer bet with a University of Georgia admissions officer here locally where he thinks I'm being chicken lid a little bit on the AI stuff. I'm like, no, no, no. UGA, you guys got rid of the supplemental essay. The only thing holding back lazy teenagers for the most part…

Brad Barrett

Okay. Essays and recommendation letters are either going away or becoming less trustworthy. They're

Brian Eufinger

still around. If your kids, a junior or senior, you write the best essays in the whole wide world. I'm saying, but look at the horizon of anyone who's an eighth or ninth grader. That's really hard to think about what that's going to look like five years from now. Yeah.

Brad Barrett

So does anything replace them or is it just simply GPA, rigor, and standardized tests?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

“I will never make more money per hour, ever, ever, ever, than I did studying for this test in high school. … I quit tennis. And in those 60 or 70 hours I worked on this stuff, I paid for 140 grand of Wash U.” — Brian Eufinger, ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast

Asked what families should know about the SAT and ACT today, the test-prep company founder explains why he thinks scores are worth the study time, using his own merit-aid story.

ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast · 2026-11-02 Permalink → Listen →

ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast Around 39:32 into the episode

Brian Eufinger

…today. So it'll probably hang around just due to nostalgia or other things, but you can't hang your hat on it, certainly. And GPA mattering from day one of high school needs to be the first and second and third point since even a few oopses on the GPA front can derail the rest of the application.

Brad Barrett

…What do people have to know today? Is there new things on the horizon? When should families start taking these tests seriously? I know literally as we're recording this, my daughter is taking the, I think it's the PSAT 9 or something like that. Talk us through the landscape of what's going on.

Brian Eufinger

…just be whatever. So it's not an IQ test. It's very coachable stuff. But you need to, as a family, help your student understand where they're going to set aside some time to study for it. Because as I always say, I will never make more money per hour ever, ever, ever, than I did studying for this test in high school. And that was back when college was literally one-third the cost that it is now. I quit tennis. And in those 60 or 70 hours I worked on this stuff, I paid for 140 grand of Wash U. Regrettably, I do not make like $2,000 an hour. And so the dollars are real, even more so if you happen to be in a state like Florida where there's bright futures or other things. It's not just any given school.

Brad Barrett

Right. So there is a very quantifiable return on SAT and ACT improvement in certain instances.

Brian Eufinger

Yeah, my favorite client last year, she sells a lot of really high-end homes to like Falcons and Brave Players. She's a great lady. Her son is a bro. She would not be mad at me saying that on the podcast. Her son, he's very smart, but he's very lazy. He's probably internationally ranked in Call of…

Brad Barrett

I love that. Okay. So you've said multiple tests a couple of times. So two questions, but they're going to be tied together. So is there any detriment to taking any of these tests, AC, the SAT? Let's just say SAT for now, to taking it repeatedly.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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