5-Day Summer Break Test Prep Kickoff
In just 5 days, your student will go from not knowing which test to take or how to start...
...to having the confidence and peace of mind that comes with a clear study plan, excellent test prep resources, and knowing exactly how to prep for the ACT or SAT.
What the Kickoff Program Includes
The test prep kickoff program is a comprehensive way to supercharge your test prep with everything you need to ace the test. It always includes:
- 30-minute private consultation with me about your situation and goals.
- 15-minute take-home ACT vs SAT diagnostic test, plus personal video message analysis and custom score report.
- Your first mock test, analysis, personal video message analysis, and custom score report.
- 60-minute group meeting with your family, your IEC (if you have one) and me to go over the data we’ve collected. We’ll also align our visions and set realistic score goals and expectations.
- Personalized study plan and my suggestions for your highest impact action items, yours to keep forever.
- 1h45m private session where we’ll start learning those high-impact strategies right away and you’ll learn how to study effectively.
About Me: 10+ Year Test Prep Expert
A decade of teaching test prep for learning differences has led me to the same conclusion most parents have already arrived at: these tests are not good measurements of a student’s ability or aptitude.
I’m convinced these tests are just hoops students have to jump through to apply to college or graduate school. There’s not much worth learning on the test. In fact, I can’t wait until these tests are phased out of the college application process and kids don’t have to take them any more. But until they do, I think they might as well get good at taking them.
My SAT Results
According to the College Board’s own research, working with a private test prep company or personal tutor shows average score gains of 20-40 points, on average, with more gains coming in the math. This is hard to separate from normal testing noise, which is about 32 points (don’t think about that too hard–it’s more evidence of how poor these tests are at measuring anything useful). By contrast, a student working through the Khan Academy program for 20 hours is associated with an average score increase of 115.
My students see an average gain of 270 points on the SAT after the same number of hours working with me. That’s because I know how the test is written, how each question is designed, and how to exploit that design, and that’s what I teach my students.
I took the past year of SAT programs (23 students) and looked at their scores. I took their final official test score and subtracted the score of either their most recent PSAT (a decent predictor of SAT score for sophomores and juniors) or the first practice test I had them take before we started (if they didn’t have a PSAT). That gave me the score increase for each student. Then I just averaged them.
I recalculate this number every year, so check back next year to see if it’s changed!
There is no equivalent score reporting for the ACT that I could find. The ACT doesn’t publish its data, and there’s no Khan Academy program for the ACT.
That means I can’t do a big dramatic reveal for my average ACT score increases. So here it is, with less fanfare:
+5.4 pts
How the Kickoff Program Works
Day 1: 30m Private Consultation & Diagnostic Test
Find Your Best Test in 15 Minutes or Less!
Your student will start by taking an ACT vs SAT diagnostic test that can be taken at home in 15 minutes. I designed this test to help me make a strong prediction about whether the ACT or the SAT will be naturally better-suited to your student’s strengths.
By taking this 15-minute diagnostic, they’ll save 8-10 hours of practice testing, score comparisons, and interpretations. You’ll know which test will likely give the higher score with the same amount of practice, and you’ll know exactly why that test is best.
Results are delivered in a custom score report, accompanying video explanation, and written summary so you can refer back to it at any time.
Day 2: First Practice Test & Custom Score Report
Calibrate Your Starting Score!
Based on which test will suit your student’s strengths better, I’ll send a carefully-selected and official licensed practice test and self-administration instructions to help us get the most accurate idea possible of their starting score.
You can’t improve what you can’t measure, so we’ll get an initial score to help us plan with confidence about goal scores and realistic expectations without relying on outdated or misleading test data.
Results are delivered in another custom score report, accompanying video explanation, and written summary so you can refer back to it at any time.
Day 3: 60-Minute Test Prep Team Briefing
Get All the Stakeholders On The Same Page!
Next, we’ll plan a 60-minute Zoom call with your student’s college admissions team (you, your student, your IEC if you have one, and me) to discuss the results of the practice test and score report.
We’ll use this time to work together to combine our expertise:
- Your knowledge of your student and how they learn best, their potential, and their scheduling conflict and logistics.
- Your student’s insight into their own ambitions and dreams.
- Your IECs knowledge of the college admissions process and what certain colleges expect for scores.
- My decade of test prep experience and intuition for score increases and most effective tactics for each student.
We’ll create a series of realistic score goals and timeline for your student to work towards. You’ll get a summary of the meeting and our thinking in written form that you can refer back to at any time.
Day 4: Personalized Study Plan & Program Walkthrough
Everything You Need to Know To Study for the Test!
I’ll combine everything you’ve done so far with my resources and experience to create a personalized study plan and timeline for your student’s test prep. Since I focus on high-impact strategies and most effective ways to raise scores, the plan will be a powerful blueprint for reaching the goals we created together.
I’ll take care of setting up score tracking, providing resources, notes of our meetings, and a test-taking strategies archive. All your student has to do is show up and doing the work and I’ll take care of the logistics.
Before we meet for Day 5, I’ll send that study plan to you for your review so we can work together to address any concerns you have about timing, content, and difficulty.
If you decide after the boot camp that you got what you needed and you’re not interested in continuing, I’ll continue to manage your study plan and resources so you can continue to prep on your own or with another tutor.
Day 5: 1h45m Private Session
High-Impact Tactics Kickoff Session!
If you like the study plan and timeline, we’ll start with a virtual 1-hour-45-minute kickoff session. This session is all about learning the highest-impact timing and pacing strategies that suit your student’s learning best so they can see big score increases right away.
The confidence boost that comes with seeing instant score increases is invaluable, and my hope is that your student carries that momentum forward into the rest of the study plan, whether I’m involved or not.
Sessions are virtual and scheduled at your convenience, and a written summary, list of action items, and strategy writeup will be sent to you after the session. If you decide you’d like to continue working together, we can make that happen, but there is NO obligation and NO commitment for continuing lessons if you sign up for the boot camp.
Need More Kick in Your Kickoff?
Summer is the best time to start test prep for the fall. Students have more time to study, and they especially have more quality time (mornings and early afternoons) to study.
To encourage students to sign up early in the summer and get a head start on prep, I’m offering sign-up bonuses for families who sign up before June 30th!
Kickoff Program Pricing
$999
The Good Fit Guarantee: Not everyone is a good match, and I don’t want you to be stuck working with me if we’re not. That means after you receive your study plan, if you don’t think it will work for you, you can cancel the kickoff session and get your $999 back, no questions asked.
Summer Break Promotion: Sign up before June 30 and also receive the bonuses listed below!
The $999 kickoff program fee includes everything listed above.
Here’s a recap of everything you’ll do in 5 days this summer:
- 30-minute private consultation with me about your situation and goals.
- 15-minute take-home ACT vs SAT diagnostic test, plus personal video message analysis and custom score report.
- Your first mock test, analysis, personal video message analysis, and custom score report.
- 60-minute group meeting with your family, your IEC (if you have one) and me to go over the data we’ve collected. We’ll also align our visions and set realistic score goals and expectations.
- Personalized study plan and my suggestions for your highest impact action items, yours to keep forever.
- 1h45m private session where we’ll start learning those high-impact strategies right away and you’ll learn how to study effectively.
If you’d like to to continue working together after the boot camp ends, additional virtual sessions can be scheduled on an ongoing basis for $399 each (1h45m sessions, about $225/hr if you’re comparing).
Summer Break Bonuses
My favorite practice materials, the most recent edition of the official study guide and online components, sent to your house.
I partner with Mindprint Learning to offer data-driven cognitive assessments that supercharge our first few sessions so you see big improvements right away. Mindprint is the only K-12 solution that uses objective cognitive data to teach students how they learn best and provides strategies personalized to my students’ strengths and learning needs.
I’ll use the results of the Mindprint assessment to inform my study plan design and our first few sessions, so we get more done in less time.
I’ll create, host, and maintain a personal test prep resource portal that’s only accessible to you and your college admissions team.
It will have your study plan, all your homework assignments and solutions, the test bank and practice questions, test-taking strategies we’ve discussed, instructional videos, session records and notes, your score tracker, and everything else you need for test prep—all in one place, accessible whenever you need it at the touch of a button.
The site will stay up until you leave for college, and I’m happy to send you the materials you like before I take it down.
Instead of normal 2-3 sentence summary session notes, I’ll provide full transcripts and summaries of our test prep sessions, sent to your inbox every week, with homework action items and recommendations for further study. You can refer back to these at any time, even after we’ve finished working together.
I’ve curated, edited, and written thousands of practice questions in my decade of experience, and I’ve organized the very best into a huge question bank that I use for supplemental exercises and hyper-targeted practice for my students.
They’re sorted by section, difficulty, topic, technique, and more, so students can always put what they’ve learned into practice right away.
The night before every official test date, I offer a cram session that covers everything students need to remember about the test to succeed. This two-hour session covers only the most high-impact strategies, walks students through their test-day plans, and focuses on managing test anxiety. You’ll get a free ticket and one for a friend.
Sign up before June 30th and get ALL the promotional bonuses listed above ($1075 value) at no additional cost!
Learn More
If you’re interested, you can schedule a no-obligation consultation with me using the scheduling wizard on the next page.
We’ll talk about your student’s test prep so far, what’s worked and what hasn’t, my recommendations for next steps, and if this program is a good fit for you or not.
Space is limited in the boot camp as I only accept 10 students in this program at a time.