You may be asking yourself, "why should I pay this guy to tutor my daughter or son?" I'm glad you've given me the opportunity to answer that question. I firmly believe that my tutoring services are the best option for anyone looking to prepare for the ACT and SAT. Not only is it the best way to prepare, it is also at a much better price than you can get elsewhere.
1. Unfortunately, Test-Prep Classes Do Not Work.
OK, admittedly that may be a bit of an exaggeration. What's not an exaggeration is that whatever benefits you get from them are so minimal that they virtually never, ever justify the cost. It is my belief that test-prep classes do not provide a significant value. Can you see a score increase with them? Yes. More than what a student would most likely get by studying alone? In all likelihood, no. I say this as someone who has taught many hundreds of students in classrooms and in individual tutoring. So why do test prep companies offer them? They are extremely profitable. 10 people paying $1200 minus maybe $1000 for the teacher and a couple hundred for supplies and you have a great business model! Of course they offer private tutoring, but they set those prices so high as to deter many into the far more profitable classes. If you want test-prep, you'll either have to pay crazy amounts for private tutoring or settle for an ineffective class.
Why are classes no good for test prep? Essentially, for three main reasons: Topics, Pace, and Strategy. Something I've found to be generally true is that most students will be either really good at the Math and Science or Reading and English. The benefit of private tutoring is obvious here; students can spend time focusing on only, or mostly, those sections which they're having trouble with. Even further, with private tutoring, I can see what exact types of English, or Math, or whatever questions a student is having problems with. Geometry, trig, semi-colons, scientific method questions, vocabulary, etc, can all be focused on and easily addressed. A class however, has a syllabus that has to be followed. Students in classes teaching things they already know get bored and stop paying attention. My students never get bored or stop engaging because we're only covering topics they need and want to learn.
Pacing is a huge deal! I saw a Ted lecture by the founder Kahn Academy the point of which was that students who were typically the worst performers in school ended up becoming the best if they were simply allowed more time to get the fundamentals down before the class moved on. This is one of the major drawbacks of class room teaching in my opinion. Are students who take a bit more time to learn something necessarily bad students? I don't think so at all, but when your class moves on before you're ready, you're at a huge disadvantage. Conversely, classes that go too slow have a negative effect on students who learn quicker. A student scoring very high already is not well-suited to class designed to cover the entirety of the exam. A student who just finished Calculus is not well-served in class that goes over the order of operations. I've found a secondary effect is that these students will stop paying attention altogether, even when the class is going over topics that would benefit them!
Finally, Strategy is one major topic that classes do a poor job of addressing. By that I mean that exact approach each student should take when they sit down to take the exam. Not all students will get to all the questions on each section or should get to all of them. Some students should focus on getting a higher percentage of the questions right that they actually get to rather than try to answer all of them. In fact, it can be detrimental to try to do so. It depends on a student's ability and the score they're trying to get. You simply will not get that type of attention in a class with 10 or more other students.
2. Why You Should Hire Me/What I Do
I teach these exams in a unique way. At least I like to think so. I try to teach as little of actual academic knowledge as I can. Instead, I teach the SAT and ACT. What I mean by that is that I don't teach topics or knowledge beyond that which is covered on the exam. I know these exams intimately and have come to realize they're nothing but a set of different types of questions. I teach students how to recognize these questions and the simple steps to take to get the right answer. A mechanical process.
Okay, shameless plug time. The main advantage over classes has to be the overall strategic methods I teach students. I like to tailor make an approach to the exam that works best for my students. Take for example, the Reading Section. While I advocate a specific way of approaching the Reading passages, I've found many tweaks for different students depending on their reading ability, reading speed, current score, and learning style.
The same is true of the Math section, as another example. There is actually quite a large amount of Math knowledge required to answer every single possible answer you might see. They can all be boiled down to repetitive types of questions and generalized enough to be answered with a simple set of instructions. However, all the material is not created equally. Trigonometry for example; there are easy, medium, and hard types of these questions. They are all easy if you know the basic steps to answer them, but let's think about strategy. The section goes from easy to difficult so should you be trying to get to all the questions? Why rush through the easy questions, increasing the chances you miss them, only to get to the hard questions which you might not get anyway?
I make sure that every minute of time I spend with a student is used effectively and I keep meticulous notes on what we've covered and what a student is struggling with. Each subsequent session is focused on how to improve my students' weaknesses and reinforce the systematic approach to the exam I advocate. The homework I assign is centered around these goals. Tailored just for your student. My students will have their test planned down to the minute.
3. How Much I Charge
I charge $120 dollars per hour. I HIGHLY recommend tutoring sessions of 1.5 hours, so $180 per session. One hour doesn't really allow me to cover as much as I'd like and two hours people stop paying attention. I also highly recommend meeting once a week, starting about 2 months before the exam. This allows us to see if we need less time together or more. It also allows enough time for students to get a lot of homework done and take 3 or so full-length practice exams.
For a pre-purchase of 8 1.5 hour sessions, the cost is $1200, which works out to $100 per hour. That is 12 hours of private lessons from a highly experienced and regarded tutor. I have taught the ACT and SAT for both Kaplan and Get Smarter Prep. At Get Smarter Prep, my hourly rate was over $200 per hour. Currently, a tutor of my experience there costs $350 per hour and the least experienced and effective tutors cost $150 per hour.
Kaplan is no better. Hourly rates for private tutoring will cost you $200 per hour or more.
I fully believe that not only am I the best option for ACT and SAT tutoring in the Kansas City and Overland Park area, but also the best value.