If You Ran A Test Prep Company, How Would You Do It?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Hey Guys,</p>

<p>I've been a user and a fan of College Confidential and the quality of the people on it for a long time now (ever since my own days as a high school student nervous about the SAT haha), so I wanted to get you guys' opinion on something. I ran my own test prep company in miniature in my hometown this past summer (I'm currently a junior at Princeton), and am thinking about taking it full-time and expanding when I graduate. I had a pretty low opinion of test prep companies when I was in high school, so it was really gratifying to do things the way I thought they should be done. I learned that students’ scores can go up (to the tune of a 250+ average score improvement, with no rigging), if test prep is done right. It’s not the service itself, but how the service is currently done by most companies.</p>

<p>It's no secret that test prep companies are home to some pretty bad practices. Based on my friends' experience taking classes and my own past experience in working for one, these include: </p>

<ol>
<li><p>Rigging the practice tests to show false improvements</p></li>
<li><p>Hiring some underqualified teachers (sorry, but having a 1900 doesn't qualify you to teach the SAT to students who may have higher scores than you)</p></li>
<li><p>Hiring qualified, but just plain BAD teachers (reading out the book is simply unacceptable, as is straight lecturing the whole time)</p></li>
<li><p>Being misleading about score improvement guarantees (the parent of one of my former students was screwed out of a refund because her son went up by one point in one section on one practice test)</p></li>
<li><p>Having classes too big to foster any kind of personal interaction between student and teacher</p></li>
<li><p>Having bad test-taking strategies, or not having any at all</p></li>
</ol>

<p>And so on. The list goes on and on. What I'd like to avoid is down the road becoming what I currently excoriate, so I'm trying to do it as well as I can in all aspects.</p>

<p>Here are some of my ideas:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Separating classes by ability. It's done in high school with General, Enriched, Honors, Gifted, etc. and works great, since you can tailor the strategies and teaching to your students. So why hasn't this been done in test prep?</p></li>
<li><p>Using only official SATs (Blue Book). Not only is this way easier than making up your own, they're also balanced, have no typos, and more reputable. While test prep companies say they use their own because students have already taken all of the official ones, you could easily keep a large enough library so that this wouldn't be a problem. The only real reason to use your own is to be sneaky.</p></li>
<li><p>Keeping class sizes small. Like capped at 7 students small. This allows for a way better classroom dynamic and helps ensure the kind of personal teacher/student connection necessary to learning. Also include 4 hours of private tutoring as part of the course since some things (like the Math) are really easy to tutor but hard to teach in a classroom setting. These things will necessitate higher prices (like $700 instead of $500), but in my experience, once you're talking about that kind of money, the main things parents and students want is for it to work. Plus, the fact of the matter is that most people who get test prep are upper-middle and upper class, and so are more concerned about results than cost. Test prep companies are currently in a price war, trying to make the discussion about price when it should really be about quality.</p></li>
<li><p>Emphasizing the instructor, rather than the corporation. Because really, if you're taking a course on a friend's recommendation (since word-of-mouth is the backbone of any successful business), you're not really taking "Princeton Review," you're taking it for the specific instructor. Test prep companies should recognize this and market appropriately. They should also train their instructors' appropriately. I don't think you can make a bad teacher into a good one, but I do think you can hire good ones and help them become great ones.</p></li>
<li><p>Working closely with schools, proctoring free SATs, free SAT workshops, and having classes there. Many companies already do this, but most don't treat the school very well and are pretty impersonal. It's important to recognize the counselors and the teachers for the service they're doing for you and treat them well.</p></li>
<li><p>Have a solid discipline policy backed by a solid guarantee. This past summer I learned it’s not always the instructor’s fault. Some students just aren’t going to do the work, show up on time, behave, etc. Instructors shouldn’t be penalized for these people. Instead a “Graduate” program should be instituted, where you get access to free exam-time review sessions, as well as the guarantee, in return for just doing the work, showing up on time, etc. Also arm instructors with the authority to remove really troublesome students from the class, since they’re just hurting everyone else.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>But other students do the work and are responsible, and still don’t go up. These students shouldn’t be left out to dry. For these students, I’m considering a “free private tutoring until you go up by a certain amount” guarantee, since I think parents and students care more about results than they do the money (it also holds instructors responsible for their failures), but am willing to consider a straight-up full refund if you think that would be better.</p>

<ol>
<li>Being more personalized and service-oriented in general. Having free workshops so prospective parents and students can see you in action. Calling the parents before the class starts to see what the student is hoping to get out of the course, where their head’s at, etc. Sending hand-written thank you notes both when a student signs up and after they’ve finished the course. Tailoring a student’s study plan rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.</li>
</ol>

<p>I have a couple of others, but those are the main ones. Like I said, what I’m looking for is what you would do in my situation, or what your idea of a “perfect test prep class” is.</p>

<p>I’m also currently putting together a “dream curriculum” by going through all of the current books and methods and picking and choosing the best. So far I’ve heard good things about Princeton Review, Xiggi’s thread, Barron’s (for high scorers, since the questions are abnormally difficult), and of course the Blue Book. If you guys have any specific recommendations (I really liked how Princeton Review’s book did X this way, my tutor showed me how to do Y this way and it worked really well, etc.), I’d really love to hear them.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>You’ve mentioned most of the good stuff already.</p>

<p>This should be useful
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/764514-sat-essay-prompt-archetypes.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/764514-sat-essay-prompt-archetypes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And I loved Sparknotes’ Writing Section tips.</p>

3

<p>Thanks! I’ll be sure to look it up.</p>

4

<p>Specifically this part
[SAT:</a> Improve SAT Score with SparkNotes: The Seven Deadly Screw-Ups](<a href=“SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides”>SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides)</p>

<p>Direct Hits vocab book is also probably the best out there. That helped me a lot too.</p>

5

<p>Ideas 1, 2, 3, and 4 are good and work well in my experience. A comment about #2, however: I would suggest that the typical prep company doesn’t use actual SATs because they can’t, not because of a perception that students have already taken all the official ones. To be sneaky yet still use real SATs, the company simply needs to adjust the scoring scale as desired. However, the only legitimate method of using real SATs is to buy a copy of the blue book (the first three tests are real) for each student and/or use the official practice test PDFs from collegeboard.com. Collecting a library of past SATs and using/copying them as part of a business is an activity that relies heavily on the CB not noticing said business. That said, I’m sure there are such companies out there (anyone?).</p>

6

<p>You’re right: there are ways to rig official SATs. I’d be interested in seeing whether or not it’s legal to use official SATs as long as you don’t claim to have written them yourself or include them as part of a book (ie purchase the blue book or print them out separately). I think it probably is, and that printing out copies of official SATs that have been made publicly available for free use as practice tests isn’t illegal. This isn’t like file-sharing with movies and music, which haven’t been made publicly available for free use. Obviously this is something I need to find out.</p>

<p>In answer to your second question, there are lots of companies (especially smaller ones) that use official SAT tests both as part of their curriculum and for the free exams they proctor at local high schools to get students. Most local companies do, and Ivy Insiders did until recently (it made the move to using its own this past year after several years of using official ones, claiming that the convenience of being able to package them in the same book, making themselves look more official, and the ability to “control” their content outweighed any mythical belief that official SAT tests were automatically better than tests made independently using a similar format). Granted, it’s possible that these companies’ size enables them simply run under the radar, but my intuition is that that’s not the case.</p>

7

<p>

I know 2-3 local companies in my area that do have and use past SAT’s. Of course, the few students that actually notice the illegality aren’t going to phone up the collegeboard about it, since they know they’re benefiting from the practice.</p>

<p>Idea 6 is potentially risky, as losing a student is losing a customer. </p>

<p>I like the idea separating classes by ability. I feel like there are 4 categories to put students in:</p>

<ol>
<li>students who don’t know the material at all, and need lecture time to learn the concepts (<600)</li>
<li>students who know a majority of the material, but still make substantial mistakes (~600’s)</li>
<li>students who know pretty much everything, but make careless mistakes or get an occasional curveball question (700-750)</li>
<li>students who don’t need the course except to be pushed to practice more (~800)</li>
</ol>

<p>Especially important is to divide the classes by subject: some are better in one subject than another.</p>

<p>And, instructors should all be able to score >2300, because you can’t teach if you don’t know what your teaching.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I feel that test prep courses are just a costly substitute for self-motivation to study. I would only start my own test prep company if I were willing to forgive myself for stealing desperate parents’ money. The ideal test prep organization I would run would be one where I sit down with parents and talk about the Xiggi method to have them enforce it on their children, for a small consultation fee or something.</p>

8

<p>I agree that the more splits the better, but to support that many splits I’d have to be able to fill all of the classes at 28 students every 2 weeks (since the courses overlap), which is pretty hard to support in a single geographic area. Right now I’ll probably start with an above/below 1700 split and see how that goes.</p>

<p>I agree with the high bar for instructors, though in practice I’ll probably make it 2250 rather than 2300 so I have the luxury of taking a 2260 who may be a better teacher over the 2340 who may be kind of a d-bag (obviously this would be done on an individual basis).</p>

<p>As far as the merit of test prep in general goes, I both agree and disagree. I think that it’s wrong to charge someone for something and then not deliver for one reason or another. I also think self prep is the best option for a lot of people (like myself–I never took a course). </p>

<p>But I disagree with the idea that motivation is the sole problem that people don’t go up. There’s a big difference between reading/hearing concepts and strategies and actually learning them and putting them into action. Most people (although not most people on this site) simply aren’t smart enough to teach themselves everything covered on the SAT: it’s always harder to do things by yourself. I see this with a lot of my students who are smarter than their current scores (as judged by their 6 or 7 point improvements) and who have actually tried to prep by themselves repeatedly but haven’t succeeded. Sometimes people need a guide, and there’s nothing wrong with providing that service.</p>

<p>But ultimately, while I’m personally comfortable selling test prep as long as it’s quality test prep, it’s not really my decision to make. If my service doesn’t work or isn’t worth the money, parents won’t buy again for their other children or recommend the company to their friends and family. And that’s how companies make most of their money: referrals. I could still run a business selling shoddy test prep (PR, Kaplan, et al. do it), but it wouldn’t be nearly as profitable as it could be. Not to mention I could never compete with the big guys, since I would have all of their disadvantages and none of their advantages. Bottom line, it’s simply not in my own self-interest to sell shoddy or unethical test prep.</p>

9

<p>Good luck man. You talk sense.</p>

10

<p>Haha thanks.</p>

11

<p>An basic two-way ability split of “above average” and “below average” works pretty well, where average should reflect your typical student (nationally that would be >1500 and <1500 but this may not be typical for your students). Also, having math sessions separate from reading/writing is pretty helpful.</p>

<p>You can confidently use the downloadable PDFs as many times as needed, this gives you three actual tests (Mar 2005, Oct 2005, and Jan 2006). However, standard copyright restrictions prevent you from copying the tests in the blue book and using them repeatedly, whether or not you attempt to disguise who wrote the tests. Again, I’m sure there are companies that copy tests at will, but it isn’t legitimate. You will have to decide for yourself which route to take. BTW, I am not an expert in copyright, but the above is based on my discussions with College Board people whom I’ve talked with about this very issue. One thing you <em>can</em> do: obtain QAS tests legitimately (either take the SAT or get the booklets from students who don’t want them anymore), and build a library of problems based on those tests. This works very well for math: small variations in problems will generally avoid copyright issues.</p>

12

<p>Yeah, I thought about where my students stacked up and 1700 was right around the middle. People who get test prep tend to be from more affluent than average backgrounds, and tend to have higher scores than average.</p>

<p>That makes sense what you say about the the difference between the pdfs and the Blue Book. You have to pay for the Blue Book, so I guess that doesn’t count as publicly available. Annoyingly, that’s only 3, and I need 4 based on my current idea of how the course should be laid out. I’m also having trouble locating more than 1 free ACT online.</p>

<p>Does anyone know where I can obtain more free ones, and for the ACT as well?</p>

13

<p>Strike that, I’ve now found 2 ACT’s online. Need 2 more.</p>

14

<p>I am not trying to be a downer or whatever… but (atleast in my area) we already have test takers. And not only does it work but it is EXTREMELY popular (where i live) because it hires well qualified people who are also amazing at teaching. Its a nice idea though:)</p>

15

<p>I run SAT prep courses locally and here are a few things I do that may differ slightly from what you have posted:</p>

<p>(1) My maximum group size is 6, and furthermore I would only group 6 students together if they have scores over 600. Under this I cap it at 5, and students in the 400 range I cap at 4.</p>

<p>(2) I always use different instructors for math and verbal. They must be excellent teachers who can always get nearly an 800 on the sections they are teaching.</p>

<p>(3) I use my own materials to teach strategies, and for practice problems, but I only use the blue book for practice tests.</p>

<p>(4) I do not give a guarantee. If the students do the work I assign, then their scores go up. If a student is not doing their work I contact the parent to let them know. This puts the responsibility on them. If the student continues not to do the work, and their score does not go up, then the parent will not be surprised - I have already warned them. I have never been asked for a refund. (But, if a parent ever did ask me for a refund I would give it without hesitation - I would never keep someone’s money that was unhappy with my service - it just has never happened). I’ve never had to remove a student from a group, but I’ve had one case that was borderline - I had to have a converstaion with the parent. Ironically, this is the only parent that never paid her balance - I guess bad behavior runs in the family (I think I’ve used the word “ironically” wrong here - don’t judge - I’m a mathematician).</p>

<p>(5) I experimented with e-mailing the parent a feedback form every week. This was a full checklist of what the student had and had not completed, the scores on their practice tests, and a section for notes. I eventually dropped this because it created a ton of work for myself that didn’t seem to be appreciated, and didn’t have any impact on aquiring new students.</p>