My Aliso Niguel SAT Prep Branch - Week 1: Demystifying the SAT

I remember facing the challenge of the SAT like it was yesterday. There it was, this huge, mysterious monster of a test that would determine my entire future. I'd been hearing about it all my life, putting it off until later, and then all of a sudden it was the summer before my junior year in high school. I received the results from the PSAT, the SAT's little brother, and was not too happy with my results. I was doomed, I thought, to go to a mediocre college and live a mediocre life.

I think my experience reflects how a lot of students feel about the big bad SAT, and so I want to share an important message with you: relax. The SAT may seem scary and mysterious, but in reality it is an entirely beatable test. With the right preparation and a confident mindset, anyone can dramatically improve their score on the test and give themselves a leg up on the college admissions process. How do I know this?

Well, first let me introduce myself. My name is Neil Aronson and I graduated from Aliso Niguel High School in 2010. I am a rising junior at Tufts University (a little Ivy right outside of Boston) where I'm studying International Relations and Entrepreneurial Leadership. This summer I am starting and running my own test prep branch through Ivy Insiders, a program offered by Revolution Prep that selects students from top schools who have scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and sends them back to their communities to help kids from their hometown improve their scores. It's a great opportunity for me and for the students I'm teaching. I can guide them through the strategies they need to improve their scores and also give them advice on the college admissions process.

So let me get back to the test. After the PSAT, I decided to get to work on improving my score, and through learning some basic strategies I was able to score in the 99th percentile on the test. The key was realizing that the SAT is a standardized test that is relatively easy to beat. Unlike most tests in high school, you know what is going to be on the test because the SAT will ask the same types of questions every time. This is a huge advantage for those that take the time to prepare, because by learning some highly effective strategies on how to answer the very particular types of questions that are on the SAT, students can improve their score tremendously. Understanding that the SAT is very predictable and that it will always throw the same tricks and traps at you is how students like myself are able to beat the test and get a great score.

This is what I am teaching to my students in all of the group courses and private tutoring that I'm offering this summer. This week marked the beginning of my first group class.

I'm happy to say that after just one class going over some of the most important strategies, my students improved by an average of 160 points! I couldn't be more proud of them. I'm really looking forward to see their progress over the next week as we go more in depth on how to attack each section of the test.  The point here is that learning these strategies and understanding the test is a surefire way to improve your score. So again, my message to parents and students alike is the following: relax. The SAT is not as mysterious and awful as it seems. With the right test prep, every student can improve their score*.

In the coming weeks I will be posting an entry here every Friday to let you know about how the class is going, to give you some free tips on the test, and to answer any questions out there about test prep and college admissions. Post this blog to your Facebook, send an email to your friends, and let everyone with a child in high school know about this blog. My hope is that anyone and everyone who reads this blog will learn something and feel a little more confident in facing that (now) not-so-scary SAT.

For more info about my test prep offerings this summer, check out the Laguna Niguel Patch's article on my branch at: http://lagunaniguel.patch.com/articles/anhs-alum-starting-summer-sat-branch or shoot me an email at Neil_Aronson@ivyinsiders.com .

*Yes, I know that technically I should say "every student can improve his or her score." And in fact, the SAT asks specifically about that pronoun every time. But who wants to say "his or her" every time when it's so much quicker to say "their"? Just another example of how the SAT tries to get you.