PrepMe Blog

Hey guys! I’m Calvin and I’m the new Operations Manager at PrepMe. I’ll be handling customer service and tutor operations so that each and every student gets a high quality experience. I, along with Ryan, just started full-time a little less than a month ago and I must say every minute has been great thus far. I also interned at PrepMe last summer and part-time during my last year at the University of Chicago where I obtained my Bachelor’s in Economics.

As Ryan pointed out in his earlier post, the score improvement report is definitely something to check out. I was directly involved in the research for that project so I would highly recommend going through the report, understanding our methodology, and realizing the PrepMe difference—it’s in the numbers! Also, one of the great things that doesn’t come across in the report is the amazing response we have received from students. Through the process of contacting students and talking to them about their PrepMe experience, I was delighted to hear great feedback such as:

“The lessons really connected with you and that made it a lot more fun while you were studying. Everything was really straightforward. They would break everything–the critical reading section, the math section, the writing section—would all be broken down into the types of questions you would expect on the actual exam.”
(Priya from CA)

“PrepMe was a last-minute call for my October SAT testing date but it sure was helpful despite the minimal preparation time. I felt that the essay feedback from a qualified tutor was crucial, as I got a perfect 12 after only three weeks of PrepMe!”
(Yamini from NJ)

These are just two of hundreds of positive comments I have heard from our students. I look forward to hearing thousands more now that I’m full time at PrepMe!

Hi everybody, I’m Ryan, the new engineer. I’m just finishing up my first week here at PrepMe. So far it’s been awesome. We’ve been busy preparing the new version of our site, which we launched on Thursday. You might want to check out our new report on the score increases obtained through our test prep system. Also, we have a new Vocabulary Builder in our Free Tools section. Keep your eye on the Free Tools for new test prep tools from us.

To give you a little background about myself, I just graduated from Stanford in the Spring with a degree in Mathematical and Computational Science. I interned for PrepMe last Summer and had a great time, so I’m stoked to be full-time with them now. Everyone here works really hard and are genuinely passionate about their work. Outside of work, I’m really into cycling, soccer, and rock climbing, but right now I’m spending most of my time learning how to cook!

I hope you enjoy the site as much as we enjoyed making it. If there’s anything else we can do with the site to help you out, just let us know! (Or if you have any recipes, send those along too)

The New York Times reports today that Harvard rejected 1100 students with perfect 800s on the SAT Reasoning Test’s Math Section. It seems that admission to the top universities in the country gets tougher each year. Why? Here are a few key factors:

- Each individual student applies to more colleges than students in past years did

- More students are graduating high school than ever before (3.2 million members of the class of 2007 versus 2.4 million members of the class of 1993)

- A greater percentage of high school graduates going directly to college

It is certainly not about to get easier to get into a top school in the near future. As more schools accept the common application and acceptance rates continue to decline, students will apply to more schools. Students graduating high school will peak with the Class of 2008 so that pressure may ease. That being said, as higher education becomes increasingly important in a globalized economy and the returns to a college education increase, a greater percentage of high school graduates will go to college.

That being said, worrying about it won’t make it any better. As any good counselor will tell you, focus on your grades and test scores, participate in a couple of extracurricular activities and show commitment to them, and build strong relationships with your teachers, mentors, coaches, employers, etc. so that they will someday write you a strong recommendation.

It is my guess that with so many more highly talented high school graduates on the market that the quality of schools across the country is rising. That’s good for everyone. It means that universities can raise their level of teaching because their student population is higher quality than it used to be, it means students benefit from having amazing classmates, and it’s good for the economy - America’s companies have more highly qualified, bright college graduates ready to create the innovations of tomorrow.

We at PrepMe are here to help. We have been where you are and can help you get to where you are going

Today, we formally launched our premium ACT program with both Platinum (with online tutoring) and Gold (without online tutoring) versions.

Course development was led by our VP Test Preparation Joe Jewell which culminated in the launch of our beta course in August 2006. We went through an intensive round of editing for the course while it was in beta and listened the feedback that students gave us to improve the program. We spent the next few months developing thousands of practice questions and materials to

The program we unveiled today includes:

- Full-length ACT diagnostic
- 3 full-length Real ACT practice exams
- Completely customized weekly schedule with lessons, quizzes, and practice tests
- Live online tutoring
- Top-notch tutors from Stanford and the University of Chicago

Learn more about the ACT course or go ahead and enroll in our ACT program today!

The program uses the same adaptive learning technology and platform that has helped PrepMe deliver customized, high-quality learning to our students across the globe. Also, our program is already being used by the entire junior class of Perspectives Charter School here in Chicago which counts the Gates Foundation and Walton Family Foundation amongst its funders. Perspectives is a great school with motivated inner-city Chicago students and we are confident their juniors are going to do very well on their upcoming SAT.

In sum, PrepMe has already helped thousands of students to rock the SAT and now we’re going to help millions rock the ACT!

Best,
Karan

PrepMe CEO

Today is a big day for both PrepMe and the State of Maine. We just announced that in conjunction with a philanthropist, we will be making $4.5 million per year in PrepMe test preparation available to Maine’s public high school juniors for the next three years. Maine took the bold step of replacing its state assessment test with the SAT because it believed that every student deserves to have access to a college education and with the partnership announced today, PrepMe hopes to play a substantial role in making college accessible to Maine’s students.

We made the announcement today at Portland High School in Portland, Maine with Maine’s Governor, John Baldacci, and Maine’s Deputy Commissioner of Education, Angela Faherty. One of our advisors, Rick Bolton, spent much of Wednesday afternoon walking students through PrepMe’s SAT program and helping them understand how our adaptive learning technology works. The students and the principal of the school all have had extremely positive things to say (hear what they have to say on a video from NBC News - Portland, ME) and we look forward to working with Maine’s public schools to make test prep available for their students. There is also a Boston Globe story on our substantial donation.

We will keep you posted on all of the press and the success of these wonderful students.

We are thrilled about this opportunity and hope to announce many more equally exciting initiatives here in the coming months. A big thanks to our advisor Rick Bolton without whom none of this would be possible. Thanks Rick!

Best,
Karan

PrepMe CEO

Governor Baldacci, Karan Goel, and Principal Michael Johnson announce PrepMe’s $13.5 million donation of free SAT prep over 3 years

Hi all,

As promised, here are my next two tips.

4. Don’t Get Lost in the Language of your Essay
As a corollary to the last tip, don’t waste your time over-correcting grammar and don’t use words you’re not sure how to spell. ADD can often cause you to spend far too much time fussing with the language of your essays. SAT graders are not looking for a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. They want to see the basics of structure with competent language use. Using familiar and comfortable grammar and vocabulary will not only remove distractions, it will leave more time to focus on the all-too-important structure of the essay.

5. Always Leave Time to Revise your Essay
This may seem simple to some, but a majority of students don’t proof and revise their test essays. They are rife with simple mistakes in spelling and grammar which would easily have been corrected after one reread. Always be mindful of the time as you’re writing your essay so you can have a few minutes to reread and check for argument cohesion. It can make the difference between an average and a great essay.

Best,
Eric

PrepMe Senior Tutor

Hi again,

As promised, here are my next two tips.

2. Don’t Read the Reading Comprehension Passages Fully
The reading comprehension passages can often be long and full of unnecessary information. This is a big problem for anyone with ADD or slow reading habits in general. A great way to cope with this is to read the first one or two sentences and the last two sentences of each paragraph. This way, you’ll get the general idea of the passage.

Some questions will refer to overarching themes, which by this point you’ll be prepared for. Other questions will refer to specific words or lines. When responding to these questions, find the word(s) or line(s) in question and examine the text around them. Seldom is there a question which requires specific knowledge of more than a few lines of the text at a time, so this provides you with more than enough information to answer this type of question. Following this approach will not only focus you on the relevant information, but also save time which can later be used for revising.

3. Structure your Essay before Writing
The graders of the SAT essays rarely spend more than a few minutes on each essay. They only have time to verify your thesis, support, and conclusion, and then do a cursory read through for grammar and spelling. This means that structure is stressed over eloquence. Therefore, it is very important to understand where your essay is going before you put the pen to the paper. It is a very good idea to have your thesis and at least two points of evidence firmly in mind before starting. That way, you’ll never be distracted from your main point, and your structure will be obvious to the grader.

Best,
Eric

PrepMe Senior Tutor

Hi everyone,

I’m Eric Bjerstedt and I’m one of the senior tutors at PrepMe. I’m a third-year linguistics concentrator at the University of Chicago. I was diagnosed with ADD and Tourette Syndrome at the age of eight. Over time, I have learned to deal with these disabilities without medication and want to share my thoughts so that others may benefit as well.

I recently had an article published in ADDitude Magazine entitled “When ADD Meets the SAT” and over the course of the next few weeks, I will be sharing my tips. Here is the first one:

1. Don’t Practice in the Ideal Test-Taking Environment

Chances are the venue where your test is administered will be full of distractions and frustrations. Other students may be making noises or fidgeting after they finish a given section, the rooms are often large and full of posters and other kinds of reading material, and the list goes on. The best way to prepare for this is type of situation is to take practice tests in a similar environment. Since the actual venue will not be sterile and isolated, try to practice in an area with small distractions such as ambient noise or other people, like cafés or central rooms of libraries. This will allow you to be accustomed to the environment before actually arriving, which can make a world of difference.

Best,
Eric

PrepMe Senior Tutor

PrepMe’s CEO Karan Goel was featured on the front page of BusinessWeek.com yesterday.

The slide show relates to a feature story entitled “The Afterlife of Business Plan Contest Winners“ and there is an accompanying slide show. If you’re wondering where the photo is taken, it’s just outside our office at the wonderful University of Chicago Graduate School of Business’ Hyde Park Center.

I joined PrepMe part-time after we won The University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge and it’s been an amazing journey since. We launched our own technology in September 2005 and have grown by leaps and bounds ever since. We will keep you updated on what we are up to next and we promise to update the blog more often now!

As always, thank you to our students, their parents, our friends, advisors, and family for their support. Thank you to all the reporters and publications that have generously covered our story of how we’re changing test prep by focusing on high-quality, customized materials. Every student deserves the benefits of a private tutor and we hope we can make it accessible to everyone.

Best,
Sammy

PrepMe Lead Engineer