After Affirmative Action.
Stop Playing Checklists. Start Engineering Advantage.
Listen to the Trailer Episode.
If your Black child is in an elite, mostly white school, straight As and “involved in everything” are now the floor, not the win. The families whose kids rise to Princeton, Penn, Spelman, Howard, and full-ride merit packages are not more deserving—they’re more strategic.
For decades, we were told: work twice as hard,
be grateful for rigor, trust the system.
Here’s what the data and our lived experience say instead…
When race-conscious admissions ended in 2023, Black enrollment at top universities dropped immediately—
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but because the old “good kid, great grades” formula was never what those schools were really buying.
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Black enrollment at flagships fell by over 40 percent and never fully recovered.
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Students with less talent are being taught how to turn random interests into polished “impact narratives” that read like pitch decks
The only difference post–affirmative action is this: if you don’t know the unspoken rules by 8th–9th grade, your child becomes someone else’s cautionary tale.
After Affirmative Action is a father–daughter strategy lab
for Black parents raising brilliant kids in elite systems that were not built for them to win.
.On this show, we don’t:
Pretend meritocracy ever existed.
Worship prestige while ignoring the depression, isolation, and burnout baked into many “top” campuses.
Offer feel-good tips you could get from any counselor who starts thinking about your child in 11th grade.
We do:
Decode how competitive admissions, merit scholarships, and honors tracks actually work now—for Ivies, selective PWIs, and HBCUs.
Show you why 12th-grade outcomes are lagging indicators of 8th–9th-grade decisions on rigor, leadership, and narrative.
Teach you to think like a dealmaker about AP access, counselor bias, summer opportunities, and “merit money” instead of hoping the system rewards your child’s effort.
If you inherited your parenting playbook,
it probably sounds like this:
“Do your best, and God will do the rest.”
“Just get into the hardest school; it will all work out.”
“Join a few clubs, get leadership titles, you’ll be fine.”
That worked—barely—for a different era, under a different court, with different numbers.
Strategic parenting in this era sounds different
“We are engineering an 8th–12th grade arc that tells one fierce, coherent story about who you are and what you build.”
“We are treating AP access, recommendations, and research slots like deal flow—not favors.”
“We are pursuing elite outcomes and HBCUs with equal intentionality, because network is strategy, not charity.”
This podcast is where we make that shift in public.
Your guides are a Wall Street–Wharton–Howard–Princeton, AME-rooted father–daughter team who have:
Navigated elite private schools, Ivy League admissions, and high-stakes corporate rooms as “the only ones” more than once.
Turned a student-led culture club into district-wide diversity policy and a portfolio that opened multiple Top-20 doors.
Built Black Founders Formula, a leadership and admissions framework helping Black teens launch measurable, purpose-driven initiatives before 10th grade and compete for elite admissions and major merit aid.
We are not neutral commentators.
We are practitioners building portfolios, reading offers, and negotiating aid with families like yours right now.
Each episode delivers:
A clear lens (like “Deal Flow for APs” or “Merit Money Portfolio”) you can use to audit your child’s current positioning.
Concrete questions to take into counselor meetings, teacher conferences, and boardrooms.
Specific moves for the next 30–90 days—whether your child is in 7th grade at an independent school or 10th grade at a magnet.
No fluff, no panic porn, no respectability lectures. Just unapologetic strategy for Black families who refuse to let a broken system write their child’s story.
Listen to After Affirmative Action
If you know the rules changed in 2023—but also know they were never fair in the first place—this is your signal: stop hoping the game will remember your child. Start learning how to engineer their advantage.
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