Improved Confidence and Motivation: Motivation and confidence are inextricably linked. No one wants to spend time doing the things they find impossibly hard – that’s torture. However, once a student believes that they are capable of completing their work at a high level, they naturally feel more motivated to take it on and cross it off the list. Our tutors help students build that confidence, one win at a time. 

A Deeper Understanding of the Material: A tutor brings your child beyond a surface level understanding to the heart of the material. Instead of simply regurgitating definitions or formulas, or cranking out a paper that meets the minimum requirements, your child will begin to see the deeper significance of the curriculum. That creates a totally different experience, one in which your child makes meaningful contributions to class discussions, turns in work of a higher caliber, and feels more engaged and excited about the class.

Personalized Instruction: “I pay attention in class, but I still don’t get it!” Teachers present the material in the way they think will make sense to the greatest number of students, but that inevitably leaves some people out. And there usually isn’t time in class for teachers to explain concepts again, in a different way. Students must then struggle to piece together an understanding by consulting their textbooks, class notes, classmates, or Google. This circuitous path causes frustration, as precious time is spent, often without much to show for it. Our tutors are focused on understanding how your child learns best: the explanations that truly resonate and the ones to avoid. Tutors can then give your child access to the material in a way no one else has, which alleviates stress and encourages confidence.

Because You Can’t Help Your Child: Let’s face it, even math, which you might remember, is not taught the same way that we learned it. So even if you had the time and the inclination, you probably can’t help your child with their homework. And jumping in to try usually only frustrates your child and cuts into whatever precious downtime you might have had after work. This is not a recipe for success.

The Gift of Time: Your child will accomplish a great deal more in tutoring than on their own. They go from confused to clear with amazing speed, and on to the next topic. In fact, it’s not unusual for students to clear up a week’s worth of material in a single hour or ninety minutes with their tutor. That’s important because there is no shortage of other activities competing for a student’s time: sleep, sports, meals, friends, chores, hobbies, etc. Time is among our most precious resources, so providing a tutor so that your child to get through their work more quickly creates numerous benefits of great advantage. 

We Accommodate Your Schedule: Even when teachers want to meet with students outside of class to provide extra support, they cannot always free up at the time the student is available. That often means it’s impossible for the student to get the extra support they need, or the student might force their other commitments into undesirable time slots to be able to see their teacher, often with unintended results. With us, though, you can schedule the time that is most convenient for you. That can be the difference between a stressful day where you’re running from one commitment to another and a day where you have a moment to catch your breath and prepare for the extra support. Also, by meeting your tutor on Zoom, you don’t need to go anywhere, which again saves you time. Most people feel overcommitted as is, and finding the time for extra support shouldn’t, in itself, be another stressor.

We want to hit the ground running with students so that they are confident in our ability to help them and never feel like their time is being wasted. That means we complete whatever preparation or planning is necessary ahead of the appointment (and never bill for that time). Some tutors might claim that they don’t need to prepare for an appointment because they are such experts of the material, but that would simply indicate their lack of experience. Whatever the subject, it’s always possible to find a lesser discussed topic, something really obscure, that a tutor would need to remind themselves of. We believe that should be done on our time. Also, by getting the material in advance, we begin to think of the different possible ways to break concepts down. Then, after considering several explanations, it’s easier to shift from one to another when necessary.

Preparing for appointments is not a common practice among tutoring businesses, but we place a premium on the rapport between students and their tutors. We want students to trust that whatever their problem or confusion, their tutor will clear things up in short order. That just isn’t possible if the student has to wait while their tutor hurriedly skims a textbook or Googles a forgotten formula. 

The most important reason is that only an expert can explain the very hardest questions in a way that your child will understand. We guarantee that we can work with the brightest students in the most advanced classes and that none of their questions will be too difficult for us.

The other main reason, which is also very important, is that our tutors bring their passion for their subject to the appointment, and it’s contagious. By spending time with someone who has devoted a great deal of time to the subject and achieved a deep understanding, students gain insight into why the material is relevant, powerful, cool, worth studying, etc. It’s this personal connection that makes the material come to life, and unless students can find a reason to respect the material they’re studying, they will never really embrace it. 

The minimum time for an appointment is one hour, but they can be scheduled for any length beyond that. If you’re unsure how long you need, we recommend that you start with an hour and see how it goes. Appointments are so full of meaningful discourse that sometimes an hour is all a student can handle before needing a break. Also, your child will probably accomplish a lot more than they expect in the hour, so they really might not need anything more.

When students don’t need a break after an hour, then longer appointments can be a lot more productive, especially for more advanced classes that deal with more complicated concepts. Students have told me that in one two hour session they are able to accomplish more than double the work they would have done in a one hour block, and that’s because they are taking the time to get deeper into the subject matter. Also, simply knowing that they have more time can make it easier to relax and concentrate more freely.

You must also consider how many classes you are trying to support and how frequently you’re meeting. For a single class of average difficulty, 60 or 90 minutes per week is usually enough, as long as the student is merely keeping up with the current material, and not catching up. If your child is catching up, they might need quite a bit of time each week, depending on their present situation.

We would be happy to advise you in regards to your particular situation, so feel free to schedule a call or shoot us an email.

None. We have made this as flexible as possible for families. That means that whether you want a consistent appointment at the same time each week or simply call whenever you need some extra support, you get the same first class treatment. We are not trying to upsell you on bundles of hours or convince you that there is a single best approach. On the contrary, the whole benefit of working with a private tutor is the ability to find the specific solution that is best for your child in your unique circumstances. We really enjoy thinking things through and coming up with custom solutions.

Absolutely. We stand by our work, and that means that if you have a tutoring session that you do not think is helpful – because the tutor is unable to explain the material in a way that makes sense to your child – then we will not bill you for it. I have been in business since 2005, and that has never happened, but we still have the policy in place.

We have a 24 hour cancellation policy, meaning that if you cancel within 24 hours of your scheduled start time, then you have to pay for the session as if it had taken place (100%). We hate to bill for time not used, but our schedules would be completely unmanageable without this policy.

We select only the very best people to work with your children and are very invested in our relationships with our tutors. Hiring them as employees does add to our expenses, which is why most tutoring companies hire people as independent contractors, but as an employer we are able to specify how they do their job. In other words, we can only train our tutors and ask them to adhere to the policies and practices that we have found to be essential to students’ success because they are employees. Independent contractors are free to do their jobs however they deem fit. We insist on certain procedures and protocols, so that was never something we considered. 

If you are considering other companies, you might ask this question, though. Companies who simply refer independent contractors cannot possibly control the quality of the tutors’ work. That might be okay in some industries, but not when it comes to working with your child; at least, not in our opinion.

Rather than starting by hiring a tutor, read the following recommendations, which won’t cost you anything.

Before I get to the goals that your child can take on, let me pass on some ideas about laying the right foundation for the changes ahead.

To simplify the language, I made my comments as if it were a son that you were trying to help, but these suggestions are the same for a daughter. I did so to avoid saying “he or she” over and over.

1. Talk to your son about why he’s struggling. Because most children will struggle to explain this to you, you should expect to lead the conversation. Note: Be careful not to appear like you’re blaming him (comments like “Why didn’t you come to me for help? Why didn’t you ask your teacher? Don’t you understand that you need good grades to get into college?” can make teenagers feel attacked and cause them to become defensive). If you want him to be open so that you can help him think through different scenarios and choices, you cannot turn around and throw his mistakes in his face, or he might shut you out entirely. To be successful in this endeavor, you need to establish trust, meaning he must trust that he can tell you about his mistakes and that you will not criticize or judge him for them. This is especially important in the very beginning, though you must adhere to this principle always. He already knows you don’t approve; he himself doesn’t approve either. You have to own that and let go of the idea that if you put his face in his mistake that you will be able to manipulate or coerce him to do the right thing going forward. That’s just not true. The only way that your son can make real change is if he himself wants to make a good choice, for his own reasons, and he’s willing to take a hard look at the choices he’s made up to now. It will never happen because he wants either to avoid a scolding/punishment or to please you. Any changes that come about for those reasons will inevitably be short-lived, in spite of how much he might want them to last.

I must also point out that in some families, this type of conversation just isn’t possible. There is so much arguing about school or blame about other things, disappointments, etc., that having a calm discussion about a potentially explosive topic just isn’t going to work. If so, I would suggest that you consider enlisting the help of a counselor or psychologist. Your son needs to be able to talk to someone to make an honest assessment of what he’s done so that he can acknowledge his role and get some perspective. It can be extremely difficult for people to navigate these conversations without the help of a neutral party, so if you are not having any success, consider trying a different approach. Enlist the support of a professional who can help provide the tools you both need.

Listed below are examples of goals that he can realistically set for himself if he is ready to make some changes. Remember, in order to experience lasting change, your son will need to change the way he thinks about things, and that is a gradual process. If he “decides” that he is going to do everything right from now on, he will fail and then resent the process of trying to improve. Instead, it’s better to start with bite-sized pieces that he can chew — and only as many of them as he is comfortable with. Often the excitement of “I’m going to get it right this time!!” is intoxicating and leads to goals that essentially amount to fantasy and delusion. On the other hand, if your son expects the process to be a little unpleasant and prepares for that, he is probably on the right track.

Lists are great tools, but sometimes people get carried away – thinking that everything they put on paper will magically get done. For instance, a student might start blocking out “times to study” on a blank calendar, scheduling 8 hours per day, 6 days a week. Yet if he had not been devoting any time to school before, then that schedule would be completely unrealistic.

Because it can be hard to know where to start, I offer some challenges of varying difficulty so that your son can find at least a few to get started with. And as he starts tasting success, he can choose to add a few more – when he’s ready! Sustaining his efforts on a regular basis is key — so encourage him to choose the right goals and not overpromise. Let him know you’re proud of him.

Goals that your son should consider:

1. 1. Set up regular meetings with your teacher (or a different teacher who teaches the same subject) outside of class for extra support — either before school, during lunch or a free period, or after school. Bring in specific questions or concepts that you want to discuss further.
   2. Write to a counselor/learning specialist at the school for support with note taking and/or creating study materials. The school might have someone available for free who can help you to understand how your notes or study materials could be more effective. This will save you time and make your study time a lot more focused.
   3. Find one or two people in the class who are doing well and willing to study with you before tests. If you are feeling shy about asking for help, think of something you might be able to offer them in exchange, such as homemade chocolate chip cookies. Most teenagers have a sweet tooth.
   4. Take out your class notes and evaluate the following them in terms of the following characteristics:
      1. Legibility – if you can barely read them, they probably won’t be useful or instill confidence.
      2. Clarity of idea (do you know why you wrote something down?)
      3. Connection to bigger themes or ideas within the class (often a teacher will mention how the book or idea that is being discussed connects to the same ideas that other books presented, for instance).
      4. Usefulness – Since taking the notes, have you gone back to read them? Have they been helpful, or did you just write stuff down so it looked like you were busy in class (or because everyone else did)? If you are NOT using them, this is the best reason to improve their quality. It is impossible to remember everything from class, so if you start to write down less, but the things you write down are useful and remind you of the ideas that came up during class discussion, that’s a big step in the right direction.
   5. Read the book and take notes on what it covers before it is brought up in class so you can follow the discussion more easily and completely. Obviously, you should be reading the book at some point, and ideally, you will take notes as you read. By deciding to do this before material is presented, you will have a much better chance of asking a good question or simply understanding what your teacher is discussing. Also, your notes from class will be much better as a result.
   6. Commit to going through your binder and backpack every day to:
      1. throw out useless papers and garbage.
      2. sort everything else so that you can find materials easily.

Note: If you have been very disorganized, you will need to decide what you would like your system of organization to be. Most students like to personalize their system, but whatever they choose, they will need to sort their materials into the following categories: relevant now, relevant later in the semester (for a final or bigger test), and not relevant anymore. I recommend that the big binder (or the smaller ones, if you prefer working with multiple) that goes to school every day contain only the stuff that is relevant now. Everything else that you need to keep for later can be transferred to binders that stay at home and carefully stored for when you need it.

1. 1. Email your teacher directly for feedback on where you could improve. Letting a teacher know that you are making a concerted effort to improve your performance and your grade is always a smart move. Not only do teachers often have suggestions that you might not have considered, but they will be more likely to reach out and help you when possible
   2. Commit to writing down all your assignments before leaving school, and designate a place for them, like a planner or the calendar on your phone. Try to make it a ritual, where you can see that you are actively making yourself better organized. Even if your assignments are available online, you want to make sure you know what your evening will look like before you leave school so that you can also make sure that you have all the materials (books, handouts, calculators, supplies for dioramas, etc.) before you get home.
   3. Commit to improving your understanding of how long assignments will take to do carefully and completely. Many students have no idea of how the night will actually turn out, such as how long assignments will take or whether they will have time left for something fun before bed. They tend to start without a plan and hope they finish everything before bedtime.

In order to budget your time, and decide the sequence that you will take on your various assignments, you need to start improving your understanding of how long things take. Imagine trying to make a financial budget without knowing how much things cost… it wouldn’t work. You have to make choices based on the amount of time you have and how long things actually take. But that information is only available through improved self-awareness. No one else can tell you how long you need. Follow these steps:

1. 1. 1. When you look at your assignments, write down your estimated time to complete.
      2. . Start a timer when you begin working on something.
      3. When you finish, stop the timer and record the actual time to complete.

You will find that some things go much faster than you thought while others take longer. That is extremely useful information to have. Also, it will motivate you to be more efficient while you’re working — to see how quickly you can get things done without sacrificing the quality of your work.

1. Commit to never leaving a completed assignment at home. You could designate a folder in your binder for completed assignments so that whenever you finish one, you will put it there so it is definitely with you in school the next day.

These goals are not set out in any particular order. Again, I would suggest that you start with the ones that resonate the most with you – the ones that seem to be the most beneficial – and build from there over time. Do not try to do too much at once or you will burn yourself out.

And please feel free to reach out to me personally to discuss any of these suggestions. I am always happy to share my experiences.

Remember, your goal throughout the tutoring process is to become more independent so you need the tutor less and less. You should be proactive in your organization, study skills, and execution.

• Follow the suggestions in free self-help as much as you can.
• Complete as much of your schoolwork as you can as soon as the opportunity presents itself. That could be in the 25 minutes before dinner is ready, while you are waiting for the bus or some other time that might not seem like the typical time to get stuff done. Always keep an eye out for such opportunities.
• Take the time to track areas where you have questions and need support so that you are prepared to ask for it when your tutor arrives.
•  Devote time to preparing for your tutoring session before it begins.
  1.  Getting your workspace ready — assemble your materials and be ready to go before your tutor arrives.
  2.  Prioritize what you need help with and write up specific questions or a list of topics you would like to discuss so no time is wasted when the tutor arrives.
  3. A lot of time can be wasted if the tutor needs to assess your academic situation and determine where you need the most help.
•    Evaluate your progress in these areas. You can be proud when you see your improvement but also acknowledge when you should take additional steps to do better. Be honest with yourself.

Parents want the best for their children, and it can be devastating when a kid seems to squander the opportunities that we have worked so hard to provide. This is especially true in an academic setting because most parents believe their children need a good education to have a successful career and ultimately enjoy their lives. Parents can become frustrated and exasperated when they cannot seem to motivate their kids to do well in school.

I am not a psychologist, and I would not presume to understand the myriad reasons that a child is withdrawing from school. I can speak to the experience I have amassed working with many different types of students, however, and I hope that you will find this helpful. Ultimately, you will need to establish communication with your child to understand what’s going on and what their motivations truly are — no matter how baseless or silly they might seem. Teenagers will not let you in if they feel threatened, judged, or criticized. They will lie or remain quiet rather than risking being emotionally hurt. If you already feel cut off from your child, you might consider hiring a family counselor or mediator to help reestablish communication. If you have not had a real talk with your child in a long time, chances are they feel isolated and lonely. 

The main reasons I find students withdrawing are the following:

1. Lack of self-confidence. When students think their efforts will blow up in their face because they are incapable of doing the work, they will naturally look for ways to avoid it. They might act disinterested or dismissive, but insecurity is at the core of their behavior.
2. Peer pressure. Getting good grades is not cool in some circles. To have “cool friends”, some kids will act foolishly or not studious. You might try to understand who they are hanging out with and what the pervasive level of ambition or motivation seems to be among their peer group.
3. Problems with drugs or alcohol. Substance abuse can cause students to be more focused on getting high than anything else. Unfortunately, these problems can arise at very young ages, and parents aren’t always aware of them.
4. A way to get back at their parents. When children are not getting the attention or understanding they need, self-sabotage can be a way to frustrate and torment their parents. This may seem completely illogical because the students, rather than the parents, will ultimately pay the price down the road. In the short-term, though, it can be a way to get even and try to get attention, albeit negative attention. 
5. School seems like a waste of time. Many students don’t know people interested in their classes or going on to colleges and careers that they would want for themselves. Because of that, the whole system can feel like a huge waste of time and energy. They may feel that they are only going through the motions of high school to satisfy their parents and that they are not learning anything relevant to their lives or futures. This problem could be exacerbated by the school itself, your child’s friends, family life, the role models they have had (or not) over the years, etc.

This list is by no means comprehensive, but hopefully, it will help you start thinking about what your child is really going through beneath the façade or attitude. No one wants to grow up to an unfulfilling life, and too often, children lack the perspective to understand how important their childhood is — not  only because childhood is when they create their educational foundation, but also because the relationships they forge will become the standard against which all future relationships will be judged. As parents, we need to be sensitive to the challenges our kids face.

Historically, the SAT was the more prestigious test, but that is no longer the case. All colleges that accept the SAT also accept the ACT and vice versa. And there are plenty of high-achieving students taking the ACT, which means it’s more competitive than it was in the past, so the percentile rankings are just as meaningful as for the SAT. This means that you should choose the test on which one you will score higher, in terms of percentile. And in my opinion, with very few exceptions, that’s the ACT.

There is a pdf available for download just below this question which outlines the key differences between the SAT and ACT. It’s worth downloading it and taking a look. But I will explain the main reasons that the ACT is a better test, one section at a time.

The English sections are essentially the same – except that the SAT includes charts and graphs, which is an odd choice. My theory is that the test writers wanted to make it more comparable to the ACT, which has a Science section that requires students to pull information from charts and graphs. That makes a lot more sense in the context of experiments, rather than in the Writing and Language portion of the SAT. But the rest of the section is the same…the SAT appears to have copied the ACT section when in 2016 it restructured its test (yet again, the previous overhaul taking place just 11 years prior) in response to the ACT being more popular. That means that the content tested in terms of grammar, punctuation, and editing questions is the same, as is the timing for the sections.

The math portion of the SAT is perhaps the biggest reason to avoid it. Firstly, there is a section that students must complete without their calculators…which causes most students stress. Secondly, there are free response questions (which are not multiple choice) – another component that adds stress. Also, the SAT questions are not straight forward: they take a math concept and turn it upside down and inside out and see who might be able to recognize it and apply the correct solution. The ACT questions are hard, but if you understand the content that the question is based on you will know how to set it up and work it out. And that just isn’t true of the hardest SAT questions. So I think the ACT questions reward students who learned the math and are prepared to do (real) math questions, such as will be important down the road in college. But all these considerations are not the central reason to avoid the SAT math. The most important reason is that students have a much harder time getting an elite score on the math portion of the SAT, and here I will explain why that is.

The scores are all percentile-based, which means that the test takers need to generate a bell curve distribution of the results, so that the same percentage of people earn the same scores from one test to another. To do that, they must get the results of a test (how many questions were answered correctly and incorrectly) and THEN determine how to scale those “raw scores” to generate the “scaled scores” (1-36 on the ACT, 200-800 on the SAT). It’s a complicated problem, one that I am glad I am not responsible for. There are many more easy and medium level questions on the SAT, which most students get right, which means that the test writers need to penalize students a lot, to knock down their scores dramatically, for missing even a few questions. You might have heard students say “I only missed 5 questions but I got a 710,” or something along those lines. That’s because everyone bunches up near the top – because there are so many easy and medium questions. The only way to create a spread of results is to make each of those (few) incorrect answers impact a student’s score disproportionately. On the ACT, there are many more medium and difficult questions, which naturally creates a normalized distribution. In fact, on most ACT tests, you can miss one or even two questions and STILL get a perfect score. And as I alluded to above, even the hard questions are phrased in a way that rewards the student who prepared. In other words, if you understand the content, you will know how to set up and solve the given problem. I think that’s much more fair.

The reading sections are also vastly different. The College Board usually includes a passage from the 18th or 19th century, which means the English is written in a noticeably different style, something I consider to be a useless challenge. Students need to be ready to read in college, but they will not be confronted with old English for most majors. Also, the answer choices are very short and often phrased to sound like they mean the same thing, so students are often not clear on what the difference is – so they don’t know why they should choose one over the other. It comes down to a 50/50, which, again, does not reward the student who studied for the test and is a good reader. The fact that the student has more time to read the passages does not, in my opinion, compensate for these fundamental flaws in the design of the passage. The ACT reading passages are written in contemporary language, and the answer choices are longer, so it’s easier to find a distinguishing feature when comparing two answer choices…meaning you can see why they’re different so you can decide why you should pick one of them. The timing is a lot more challenging on the ACT – you need to be decisive and to practice – but in my experience that is something that students can improve in, so don’t be deterred if the first few times you take it you feel like you don’t have enough time…that’s quite normal.

The science section is perhaps the biggest reason that people avoid the ACT. And it is hard, but you don’t need an extensive science background to get a good score. The passages are like reading comprehension that involves charts and graphs. So almost all the information you need to answer the questions is provided to you. There are a few (1-3 out of forty) questions that require outside knowledge on each test, but they will not keep you from getting a good score. The timing is, again, a challenge in this section…but with practice and a mindset to be decisive during the test, students can succeed on this section too.

As for the essay – the ACT still offers is (for now?) but only a handful of schools actually require it, so I would steer clear of it altogether unless you happen to be applying to one of the less than ten schools that still requires it.

So to recap – students who take the ACT are rewarded for their preparation by having a better chance of earning a higher percentile score. Of course if a student doesn’t prepare, then it really doesn’t matter which test they take as they won’t be especially well-suited to either. I address my comments to students who intend to practice and prepare for these tests, and in my experience, the ACT gives you a much better chance of getting an elite score. The “wiggle room” afforded you on the math (being able to miss a question and still get a perfect score) and the overall straightforward nature of the test are huge factors. The fact that the ACT allows you to use your calculator for all math questions and they’re all multiple choice makes students a lot more comfortable. The disparity between the tests is to stark that nowadays, whenever a student contacts me for SAT preparation, my first response is to ask if they’ve considered the ACT instead. I can still tutor for the SAT, but I think that students who are well-prepared usually don’t get the super elite score because of some of the challenges associated with old English and math questions that are intentionally and unnaturally difficult (they’re just not like math questions you face in school or in other math settings). I have had 6 students get a perfect score on the ACT, on the other hand, and many more scored 35, which is well into the 99th percentile. That’s what students want when they set out to prepare. Not 95th percentile.

So are there exceptions? Yes – but they are few. If a student is really unable to be decisive enough during the test to finish the ACT, then they must opt for the test which is more flexible in time…which is the SAT. I say “decisive” because it is usually a student’s unwillingness or inability to make a choice that uses up their time: they reread answer choices, lose focus, or otherwise stop themselves from moving forward through the test. And if they cannot get past that tendency, then they will need to opt for the SAT, despite its problems.

Absolutely. We pride ourselves on teaching the relevant content for these tests, and math is arguably the most teachable part. We have worked one-on-one with countless students and seen first-hand that every student is capable of learning the content from us. 

We start by providing multiple explanations until we grasp what resonates with a student. Soon we are guiding them through lessons with much greater efficacy than they are accustomed to at school. Taking a personalized approach and building a strong rapport allows us to get through to students in a very productive way.

For topics that a student has never seen, we created instructional materials that break down the ideas and practice problems to help the student hang onto newfound understanding. Some questions on these tests are foreign to everyone – no matter what classes they’ve had – because either the topic itself is truly obscure or the way that it is being tested is unfamiliar. We are ready for that.

The other side of this process relates to filling in the gaps in a student’s understanding that relate to older material – things that were covered in a class they had and either forgot or never understood in the first place. This is a vital step, as it gets to the source of the student’s lack of confidence (in math). We are expert at diagnosing what students need to learn and assembling lessons for them in the appropriate order. 

Other companies will bury students in practice tests, but when they understand 75% of the material, they are wasting 75% of their time. In other words, students should spend a hundred percent of their time on the topics that they do not understand. We have created the materials to make this process feasible, and that’s why our students consistently achieve much better results on the math portions of these tests. Our system goes way beyond test strategies and gets into the material that questions are based on. That breeds real confidence and is, really, the only logical way to approach this process.

Families often ask what score on the SAT would be equivalent to the ACT score that they got or vice versa. The only real way to answer this question is to look up the percentile of the ACT score and find the SAT score(s) that have the same percentile. Here are links to the tables for ACT Percentiles and SAT Percentiles (starting on page 5) rankings.

Let’s say that your composite ACT score was a 23. From the table, that’s 69th percentile. Now if we find the SAT score(s) that are equivalent to 69th percentile, we see that it’s 1160-1170 for an “SAT User” and 1110 for the “Nationally Representative Sample”. What’s the distinction between these two groups?

According to page 4 of SAT Understanding Scores 2019 document,

Some people believe that the more they take the test, the better they will do, but that is just not true.  

If the student is well prepared each time he or she sits for the test, then two or three times will be enough. Ideally, a student only takes it twice. It’s a good idea to take the test more than once to be able to superscore and also because performance will vary from one day to another. Also, it is not impressive to colleges when you take the test four or more times.

Beyond that, we have observed that if students expect to take the test many times, they do not have the appropriate sense of urgency each time they go in. Students should think of each test as if it’s the last time they will ever take it — so they max out preparation and make the most of each opportunity. If in the back of their minds they’re thinking, “I could take it three more times”, they will not push themselves to prepare as best they can.

Also, since many colleges require that students submit all of their results, students should avoid taking an officially scored test just to see how it goes. They can take a practice test and score it on their own so that they do not need to report a low score.

The answer is different for every family. It depends on how much a student has to learn, how high they are trying to get their scores, the family’s budget, and how much work the student puts in independently. There is a lot to cover, so usually the more time you can devote to preparation, the better.  

This is what it looks like for most families – students prepare for two to four months before the first real test. Every week they meet their tutors for one and a half hours and are assigned homework that will take about the same amount of time, so it’s a commitment of three hours per week. 

For families on a tighter budget, we suggest allocating two hours (or more) to homework and having just one hour per week of tutoring. Our tutors prioritize the lessons, so although there likely won’t be time to discuss every single thing the student is struggling with, we will have time for the most important topics. 

After getting the first official results, students usually resume tutoring for another month or two to prepare for a retake. Retakes are important because of superscoring and because a student will not perform exactly the same on different days.

The advantage of private tutoring is that you can schedule exactly how much help you need. Families are not committed to any minimum number of hours with our firm, and we do not sell bundles of hours. Instead, we offer flexibility and professionalism so that families get what they really need: practical support that gets results.

No. The point of doing a practice test is for students to produce a current score and reveal the topics that students need to understand better, so that they can then learn the pertinent information. If a student already knows how to do 60% of the questions, then they are wasting 60% of their time! We want students to spend a hundred percent of their time on the topics they don’t understand. Of course, that requires a set of topic-specific materials, but we created such materials with that in mind.

It is worthwhile for students to periodically take full tests so they can see their score going up and improve the mental stamina it takes to be locked in for over three hours at a time. However, the majority of time should be spent with other materials.

 Superscoring means combining the highest scaled scores that you have earned across multiple administrations of the same test.

When you take the SAT, you get two scaled scores, each ranging from 200 to 800. One is for Math and the other for Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (EBRW). Let’s say you take the SAT twice: The first results in Math and EBRW are 640 and 480 (for a total of 1120), and the second results are 490 and 660 (for a total of 1150). Your superscore would be generated by using the Math score from the first test and the EBRW score from the second, for a total of 640 + 660 = 1300. 

Superscoring on the ACT works the same way, except that for the ACT, the composite score is the whole-number result when you average the best of each of the four scaled scores (instead of adding them) from English, Math, Reading, and Science. For example, imagine you have taken the ACT three times. Your first scores in English, Math, Reading, and Science were 23, 24, 31, and 25, respectively, for a composite of 26 (25.75 rounded up). Your next set of scores, in the same order, were 29, 29, 29, and 22, for a composite of 28 (27.5 rounded up). Your last set of scores were 27, 33, 30, and 29, for a composite of 30 (29.75 rounded up). Now your superscore would be calculated using the highest scaled scores, which in this case would be 29, 33, 31, and 29, giving you a composite of 31 (30.5 rounded up).

Let’s say you took my advice and did some preparation before your practice SAT and ACT tests and the results are approximately the same percentile. If your degree of comfort is about the same with each test, meaning you don’t have a strong preference for one over the other, then you might just take both. Sometimes, the results that practice tests predict (such as a higher SAT) don’t hold up when the real results come back. By taking both tests twice, you increase your chances of getting a score you’re happy with.

There’s enough overlap between the tests that if you’re preparing for one, it isn’t that much more to prepare for the other at the same time (or right after).