Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced independent educational consultant?

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Meet Michelle Siddons. Michelle is an Associate Member of IECA, a new member of NTPA, and has her Masters in Education from Seton Hall and undergraduate degree from Colgate University. Michelle has been helping high school students for over twenty five years with test prep and the past five years with college counseling. She completed her certificate in college counseling from UCLA. She and her husband live in Mountain Lakes New Jersey, have three young daughters and she serves as a volunteer with many local organizations including the Mountain Lakes Swim and Dive Association, the local travel soccer club and serves on the board of a program called Project Readiness which seeks to level the playing field for all of New Jersey's children – regardless of economic background – through school supply drives, and free counseling services for students seeking financial assistance for college. In her free time, Michelle can be found on local platform tennis courts as she is a self-professed "paddle junkie".

Find Michelle at msedsvcs20@gmail.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our past episodes on the show page and keep up with our future ones by subscribing to our email newsletter.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros and LEAP. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Paul Oberman, who has been involved with education since 1989 as a teacher, principal, and head of school. He has been at boarding schools and day schools, Catholic schools and Jewish schools and non-denominational schools, single gender schools and coed schools, progressive schools and conservative schools. He has coached all of the mainstream sports: springboard diving, Ultimate Frisbee, and water polo.

In the summer of 2023, Paul started his own tutoring company, Oberman Tutoring, which helps students prepare for the ACT/SAT and supports students in math classes from middle school through high school. Paul also loves playing Ultimate Frisbee and performing stand-up comedy.

Find Paul at https://www.drpauloberman.com/.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Nikki Rooks, a lifelong learner with a love for helping students build confidence and achieve their academic goals! After changing majors a few times, she graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with undergraduate degrees in mathematics and computer science. Nikki worked in the IT field for 5 years before deciding to pursue her passion for education and becoming a full-time tutor.

Nikki primarily works with middle and high school students in the Nashville area, offering individual support in K-12 math and ACT/SAT/ISEE prep. She takes joy in connecting mathematical concepts and demonstrating that math can make sense!

In her free time, Nikki enjoys playing with her dog, cheering on the Nashville Predators, and trying new recipes. She is also an avid ballet dancer and is a company member of Ignite Dance.

Find Nikki at nikkirooks7@gmail.com or www.nikkirooks.com

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Ari Freuman, the Founder and Lead Tutor at Ivy Tutor. He began his tutoring career in 2013, serving students in New York City and Northern New Jersey. As a tutor, Ari recognized how difficult it was for parents to find effective SAT and ACT tutors like himself. To address this need, Ari assembled and trained a team of dynamic and inspiring tutors, creating what is today, Ivy Tutor.

Ari is obsessed with delivering results. He adheres to an evidence-based ethos to develop and refine Ivy Tutor's strategies. His mission is to ensure that each student receives the most effective instruction possible from him and his team.

Find Ari at https://ivytutor.com/.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Anna Moss, the founder of Mind the Test LLC, a tutoring company that empowers learners by teaching test prep and academics paired with lifelong research-based study skills. After earning a BA in Linguistics from the University of Chicago and a certification in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, she taught English and SAT/ACT prep all around the world for five years, spending summers as a cognitive psychology teaching assistant at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth.

She followed her passion for the science of learning to the University of Cambridge, where her MPhil thesis research focused on improving educational equity via linguistic dialect-sensitivity on the SAT.

When not teaching, Anna can be found reading about sociolinguistics, baking interesting desserts, and traveling. She lives in South Jersey with her husband, dog, and little four-month-old baby.

Find Anna at anna@mindthetest.com.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Jeffrey Dalton, who graduated from New York University in 2006 with a Bachelor's in Linguistics and Languages. After college, he taught English in Lahore, Pakistan for 4 years where he helped middle school students develop their literacy in English. After returning to the USA, Jeffrey worked for 2 years as a Math and Verbal tutor for SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT in New York and New Jersey for a leading international test prep company before making the shift to Dubai in 2015. A passionate educator, Jeffrey recently finished his Master's in Education in Instructional Design through Purdue University. He uses his knowledge as an educator to capably and efficiently guide his students to achieve their target scores on standardized tests. In fact, one of his students scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT.

Find Jeffrey at jrdalton258@gmail.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Mike Settele, the founder of Settele Tutoring, an SAT prep company that specializes in creating user-friendly SAT resources. Mike has published thousands of hours of SAT lessons on his YouTube channel, which are watched every day by students around the world.

Mike began his SAT career while an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied political science and philosophy. He started as a Writing section tutor for Capital Educators, a test prep company that runs courses in the Baltimore-Washington metro area. After graduating, Mike became a full-time program director for Capital Educators, but he eventually found his true passion helping to create their curriculum for the new SAT in 2016.

Once the new test was released, Mike moved to Los Angeles and founded Settele Tutoring, shifting his focus to private tutoring so that he would have time to create new SAT materials. He has since published the "SAT Packets" study guides for both the Reading and Math sections of the exam, with new editions coming soon for the digital SAT. In fact, when he's not tutoring, Mike can often be found sitting on Santa Monica Beach, writing SAT questions.

Find Mike at https://setteletutoring.com/ or his YouTube SAT channel.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Loni Lebanoff founded CogniTutor with a simple mission: help millions of students Learn to Learn. She is an international teacher who, to name a few, has worked with doctors in Vietnam, taught English to Italian children, and conducted piano lessons in Canada. Loni conducts and studies the latest research on memory, learning, and cognition. She demonstrates her belief in life-long learning through her dance, art, musical instruments, and other varied pursuits. Through her research, learning, and travels, Loni continually improves her and CogniTutor's effective and original methods of teaching. Some of these methods are the same methods that she used throughout her schooling and that helped her receive a perfect score on the ACT. "CogniTutor instructors are enthusiastic and care about their students. No one ever stops learning. By helping students learn to learn, our tutors aid students in their academic careers and the rest of their lives."

Find Loni at https://www.cognitutor.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Jason Hankins, who graduated in the year 2000 from Milwaukee School of Engineering with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering and a minor in Business Administration. Jason works full time as a Software Engineer and part-time as a test prep tutor. He has a love of math and teaching others how to understand it. In 2004 he started his tutoring business, J. Digital Tutoring Services. He specialized in tutoring mathematics courses, math sections of standardized tests, Business courses as well as computer programming courses. Tests that he has helped students with include the NCLEX, TEAS, CLEP, ASVAB, GMAT, ACT, and SAT. With his business minor has been able to help students with accounting, finance, microeconomics, and managerial science courses.

Jason is the founder and moderator of the SAT Exam Prep & Discussion and ACT Exam Prep & Discussion Facebook groups.

Jason has been involved with math tutoring for a long time. His first tutoring job was in college working in the college's Learning Resource Center. Since then, Jason has produced math instructional DVDs, worked as a math tutor at a local college (15 years), ran a tutoring program at a local church, maintained a math education YouTube channel, managed ACT and SAT Facebook groups, and is currently running his own private tutoring business. When he is not solving math problems Jason enjoys watching the stock market, looking for the next great stock, and watching professional sports.

Find Jason at http://www.j-digital.net.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Remy Zaken Andersen. Remy is a graduate of Columbia University, where she majored in Psychology with a focus on social cognition and emotion. A former professional actress, she serves as a strong role model for students striving for academic excellence while balancing extracurricular and career interests. She scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT and SAT, and also received perfect scores of 5 on the AP exams in Biology and US History.

Tutoring professionally since 2013, she is a skilled instructor who has found students connect well to her warm, engaging, and energetic personality. She is passionate about teaching important study and organizational skills, while working with her students to manage test anxiety so they can reach their full potential on these exams and in their future academic careers. She has tutored Lower, Middle, and Upper-level students on the SSAT and ISEE and has seen at least 100 point increases in both the verbal and math sections for SSAT and 3 stanines on the ISEE. Every single one of her SHSAT students who started tutoring in April and completed their homework has been accepted to a specialized high school. She's also had students accepted to Hunter College High School. There are many more success stories upon request!

Find Remy at https://www.and-ed.com and remy@and-ed.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Alex Pint, the owner and founder of Pathway Prep in Kansas City! Alex attended Kansas State University, where he received a BS/MS in Architectural Engineering. To earn some extra money during college, he got a campus job tutoring math and physics, and thus the seed of being an educator was planted. After graduating in 2015, Alex started working at a KC consulting engineering firm but soon began a test prep side hustle. Alex continued working in engineering for 5 years, earning his Professional Engineer's license along the way, before deciding to pursue test prep full-time in February 2021.

Alex works with high schoolers in the KC area, focusing almost exclusively on ACT prep through individual and small group formats. He enjoys experimenting with insights from psychology and business in his test prep process.

In his free time, Alex enjoys spending time with his wife (high school sweetheart), enjoying his season tickets for Sporting KC, and reading new books. He is also an avid runner and completes multiple half-marathons and/or marathons per year.

Find Alex at https://pathwayprepkc.com/ alex@pathwayprepkc.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Sara Kohn, who was raised in South Florida and attended Florida State University, where she obtained a degree in marketing. She later pursued a master's degree in exercise science. About two decades ago, She began tutoring about 20 years ago and eventually established her own company, Ready Set Prep - now called Advanced Test Prep, focusing on high level preparation, particularly for National Merit and the PSAT/NMSQT. She has conducted successful programs across South Florida, contributing to around 10% of all semifinalists in the state annually. Expanding on her passion for education and helping students achieve their academic goals, Sara's journey in the field of tutoring and test preparation has been both fulfilling and rewarding. Through her company, Advanced Test Prep, she has been able to make a significant impact on the educational landscape of South Florida.

Sara has had the privilege of assisting educators and school districts nationwide in establishing their test preparation programs, aiding them in seamlessly incorporating test preparation into their existing curriculum. Additionally, she has collaborated with organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club, the Salvation Army, and the FIU Upward Bound Program. This enables her to offer elite private school services to individuals who may not have access to them otherwise.

Find Sara at www.advancedtestprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros and LEAP. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Kate Fisher, who grew up in Englewood, NJ, and graduated cum laude from Horace Mann School, where she remains an active part of the community and is a member of the Alumni Council. Private tutoring is not Kate's side hustle; rather, she deliberately chose to pursue it as a full-time career because she loves teaching and values cultivating genuine and impactful relationships with her students and their families beyond the boundaries so often required by traditional academic and classroom environments. Kate is an energetic and patient tutor (and cheerleader!) who is able to quickly and effectively accommodate her students' needs. Her tutoring is creative and adaptive, providing her students with the support and skills they need to achieve their goals.

Kate has worked with thousands of students during her career as a full-time tutor, which she began as an undergraduate in 2008. As a part-time teacher at Kaplan Test Prep, she taught ACT, SAT, and SHSAT in both in-person and online classrooms. By 2010, Kate expanded her tutoring repertoire to include both the ISEE and SSAT, as well as various AP exams, SAT Subject Tests, and high school and college admissions consulting. She spent 2013 as a full-time instructor, teaching classes and tutoring students throughout the tristate area. In addition to training part-time tutors and developing teaching materials, Kate taught and tutored low-income students through her involvement in partnerships with the NYC Department of Education. In 2014, Kate was promoted to manager of content and curriculum, spearheading product and course revisions for the 2015 PSAT and 2016 SAT test changes.

After returning to tutoring full-time, Kate joined an elite, boutique firm in 2016 and quickly became one of their most requested tutors. From 2020 to 2022, Kate joined the company full-time and was not only the top-grossing tutor but also served as Director of School Partnerships and trained other tutors to work with neurodiverse students. Kate also singlehandedly wrote the company's e-book on Executive Function during this period.

Kate is well positioned to help students with a wide variety of learning differences. In addition to her extensive experience as a tutor, she is a lifelong activist for the Autism community, and has been volunteering with children and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder since her childhood. Kate holds a Professional Certificate in Learning Differences (LD) and Neurodiversity with a Specialization in Executive Function through the Landmark College Institute for Research & Training.

In early 2023, Kate recruited an elite team of like minded tutors and founded Kate Fisher Tutoring (KFT) because she believes that one-on-one tutoring can transform students' lives and their relationships with learning. KFT focuses on effectively connecting families to top private educators who help their children efficiently meet—and exceed—their goals. KFT prides itself on organic growth generated through word-of-mouth referrals based on the success of the work Kate and her team do whether EF coaching, test prep, or academic support and enrichment.

Find Kate at katefishertutoring.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros and LEAP. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Mary Bassey, a multi-passionate professional whose education and experience has spanned multiple subjects and standardized test types in the tutoring industry, in traditional education, in presenting literature from neuroscience spaces, and in music. After 15 years as a tutor, she founded Tutoring With Mary in 2022, a business that offers academic support in STEM and English-Language Arts school subjects, test prep support, college essay coaching, and scholarship essay coaching. When she is not tutoring, you can find her playing the flute and piccolo with the Los Angeles Symphonic Winds, the LLS Orchestra, and other music groups throughout Southern California. Mary loves to curl up with a good book, dance, sing, write, and snuggle with her cats Bo and Persephone.

Find Mary at tutoringwithmaryonline@gmail.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros and LEAP. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Dan Cozzens. Dan has worked at Bespoke Education for almost twenty years: first as a Tutoring Associate, then Operations Director and now COO and Head of Tutoring. Building on individual subject tutoring mastery (including the standardized tests, Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Humanities, Executive Function Coaching and Homework Help), his experience now extends to most facets of the tutoring world: hiring, training and managing tutors; building relationships with families and schools; developing curriculum and materials; practice testing; and spokesmanship: sharing Bespoke's institutional expertise both internally and externally to support our tutors, families, and other partners in their educational goals.

At Philadelphia's Germantown Friends School, Dan won a National Merit Scholarship and the Senior Award. At Harvard he received his B.A. cum laude in Biological Anthropology, served as President of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, and won the Louise Donovan Award for outstanding contributions in the arts. He is a proud resident of Brooklyn and even prouder father of two great kids.

Find Dan at dan@bespokeeducation.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros and LEAP. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Reema Chitalia, a dedicated test prep expert passionate about shaping the futures of students pursuing education abroad. After earning her Master's degree in the United States and working as a consultant at Deloitte, she recognized gaps in global education systems and utilized technology to tackle these challenges. Before long, she established Edufit, an innovative online test prep platform that offers bite-sized lessons designed for Gen Z, ensuring thorough understanding and lasting retention. Having trained over 5,000 students, she is committed to transforming the way we approach standardized testing. As an international educator, she specializes in SAT and ACT preparation, while also having extensive experience with AP exams, Olympiads, GRE, GMAT, IBDP Bridge Courses, extended essays, and much more. Currently, she is in an exciting phase of expansion, actively seeking collaborations with international schools around the world for mutually beneficial partnerships.

In addition to her entrepreneurial pursuits, she is a TEDx speaker and motivational speaker, engaging with teenagers on essential topics such as success, character building, and resilience.

Find Reema at rchitalia@edufittestprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros and LEAP. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Sara Kohn, who was raised in South Florida and attended Florida State University, where she obtained a degree in marketing. She later pursued a master's degree in exercise science. About two decades ago, She began tutoring about 20 years ago and eventually established her own company, Ready Set Prep - now called Advanced Test Prep, focusing on high level preparation, particularly for National Merit and the PSAT/NMSQT. She has conducted successful programs across South Florida, contributing to around 10% of all semifinalists in the state annually. Expanding on her passion for education and helping students achieve their academic goals, Sara's journey in the field of tutoring and test preparation has been both fulfilling and rewarding. Through her company, Advanced Test Prep, she has been able to make a significant impact on the educational landscape of South Florida.

Sara has had the privilege of assisting educators and school districts nationwide in establishing their test preparation programs, aiding them in seamlessly incorporating test preparation into their existing curriculum. Additionally, she has collaborated with organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club, the Salvation Army, and the FIU Upward Bound Program. This enables her to offer elite private school services to individuals who may not have access to them otherwise.

Find Sara at www.advancedtestprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros and LEAP. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Josh Kutchai, a private SAT/ACT and curriculum tutor. Josh teaches all sections of the SAT and ACT as well as curriculum mathematics up to and including calculus BC. Josh grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he spent a lot of time playing basketball and piano. He then moved to New Jersey to attend Princeton University, where he majored in mathematics and minored in music. After struggling to become a famous rock 'n' roll star, Josh decided that his temperament was better suited for education! He obtained a masters degree in mathematics from Rutgers University, worked as a mathematics professor for a few years, and ultimately became a professional tutor in the year 1999. He fell madly in love with the profession and has never looked back.

Josh still loves music and has recorded multiple albums during the course of his career. He also passionately follows college and pro basketball. He is tired of all the flopping!

Find Josh at Josh.Kutchai@gmail.com.

PLAYLIST

Listen to all of our profiles of outstanding test prep teachers, tutors, and innovators on our Test Prep Profile playlist.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Kartik Sarda. At 25, Kartik's journey is a promising one, marked by an intriguing blend of entrepreneurship, education, and creativity. It all began at Streamline Learning, where Kartik spent three years juggling roles, from tutoring to handling their digital marketing and product development.

His entrepreneurial spirit then led him to found two startups: Saathi Global Education Network and Seven Square Learning. Saathi GEN was an ambitious venture aimed at creating a global networking platform for schools. Although it was eventually closed due to pandemic-induced financial challenges, the experience added a significant chapter to Kartik's story. On the other hand, Seven Square Learning, a test-prep company, focuses on tutoring American high school students for SAT/ACT while emphasizing their mental health.

Currently, Kartik is pouring his energies into creating a comprehensive SaaS platform for tutoring companies, a tool that will streamline operations, invoicing, CRM, schedule management, and automatic grading and test reports. His first-hand experience with tutoring gives him a unique perspective in building a product that directly addresses the needs of the industry.

Traveling and cricket are two of his passions outside work. Having lived independently in five cities since he was 16, Kartik's travel experiences have enriched his perspective and equipped him to adapt quickly to new environments. And when he's not working or traveling, you'll likely find him engrossed in a cricket match or exploring the intricacies of virtual reality. In all, Kartik's journey is one of constant learning, adaptability, and exploration. And it's only just begun.

Find Kartik at kartik@sevensquarelearning.com.

PLAYLIST

Listen to all of our profiles of outstanding test prep teachers, tutors, and innovators on our Test Prep Profile playlist.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Maria Harmon. With an MIT degree and love of all things STEM, Maria knows the value of curiosity and its power inside and outside the classroom. She attended a vocational high school, studying under electricians for 4 years. Her Environmental Engineering degree led her to visit farmers in India, get dirty with waste-pickers in Nicaragua, and chase volcanic smog around Hawai'i. Yet every experience has built her passion for unlocking student potential. Since 2011, she has continually tutored, first for work-study, then the Americorps program City Year, then as a full-time career.

Maria has a passion for unlocking potential not only in grades and conceptual understanding, but also in self-esteem and the joy of learning. She loves to help students combine vulnerability and effort to invigorate their academic lives as well as their emotional, social, and/or faith lives.

In any given tutoring session, you may find Maria:

– becoming overly enthusiastic about percents and fractions, – convincing skeptics that tests are fun, or – sharing openly about life lessons she wished had been taught in school.

Fun Facts: Maria is a jack of all trades. She is quite handy around the house, makes chocolate board games, and loves singing a cappella. She is very involved in her church, especially helping to run a homeless and refugee resettlement ministry.

Find Maria at mariaftw@alum.mit.edu.

PLAYLIST

Listen to all of our profiles of outstanding test prep teachers, tutors, and innovators on our Test Prep Profile playlist.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Keith Brown, Ph.D. With a strong foundation in standardized tests such as ACT, SAT, and PSAT, Keith is committed to guiding students toward academic excellence. His teaching journey commenced at CalTech, where he earned an MS and Ph.D. in Biology, amassing extensive tutoring experience exceeding 4000 hours. Having served as a Teaching Assistant, he has mastered the art of instilling self-assurance and motivation in students, nurturing their autonomy in learning. Keith holds degrees from Grambling State University and CalTech, equipping him to mentor students across diverse subjects, encompassing Biology, Genetics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. His unwavering enthusiasm for facilitating student achievements is evident as he witnesses their conquest of challenges and assimilation of novel concepts.

Find Keith at keith@onlinetestpreptutors.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

Meet Claudia Chesler, a visionary educational specialist at Potomac Education Center with a proven record of achieving exceptional results. Claudia has 15+ years of experience tutoring, coaching, and mentoring students to reach their fullest potential and elevate their PSAT, SAT, ACT, GRE, and LSAT scores to the greatest degree.

Claudia graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania at age 20 and graduated from GW Law at 23. A former presidential appointee, She now focuses her energies on the vagaries and nuances of the SAT and ACT.

Find Claudia at claudiabeth@mac.com or potomaceducationcenter.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Edward Antoine, the founder and president of Antoine Education, a Brooklyn, NY based provider of test preparation tutoring and classes for the SAT, SHSAT and academic tutoring in math. Ed is also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Test Prep Association.

A graduate of Princeton University with a B.S.E. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Ed Antoine has personally taught test preparation for high school and college admissions for more than 30 years.

Antoine Education's SHSAT course is offered privately and at New York City public middle schools. Over the past 10 years, the course has helped hundreds of students prepare for the SHSAT and gain admission to the NYC Specialized High Schools.

Find Edward at http://www.antoineeducation.com/

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Rob Pollak, an expert SAT and ACT tutor with a passion for helping high school students and their families navigate the standardized testing process. In 2012, Rob founded Pollak Tutors, a private tutoring company that helps students in NJ, NY, and CT prepare for and achieve their goals on college entrance exams.

Rob is a graduate of Hamilton College, Fordham University School of Law, and the ACT Certified Educator program.

Find Rob at rob@pollaktutors.com, 617.285.3210, or www.pollaktutors.com

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Kenny Tan, who has been working in test prep since 2010. Kenny founded Kenny Tan Test Prep to empower students with the grit, resilience, and curiosity necessary for a successful academic and professional career. He specializes in the SHSAT, ISEE, SSAT, SAT, and ACT.

Kenny, the son of Chinese immigrants, graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City and received his B.A. in Economics from Vanderbilt University. His hobbies include an interest in aviation. He received his private pilot certificate (airplane single-engine land) in 2016. Some of his favorite flying experiences are featured on his YouTube channel.

Find Kenny at kennytan.nyc.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Paul Pscolka, the founder of Ivy Masters, an organization based out of New Jersey devoted to helping students improve their SAT and ACT scores and get accepted to their first-choice university.

Paul teaches SAT and ACT full time (since 2003). His students have scored perfectly on the SAT and ACT as well as countless others who have scored within 100 points of perfect on SAT and within 2 points of perfect on the ACT (which is average for Harvard and Princeton). Many of his students have received thousands in scholarship money as a direct result of their scores.

Paul was a division 1 student-athlete at an Ivy League School. He earned his B.A. in Sociology and his M.S. Ed. at the University of Pennsylvania.

Find Paul at https://www.ivymasters.com or 732-485-6480.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Mary Thomas, founder of Test Prep Simplified, who has implemented her 24 years of experience in education to create simple, proven, and unique ACT and SAT Prep programs. Mary has helped thousands of students from hundreds of schools via classroom, tutoring, test prep, consulting, and curriculum development experiences.

Mary ranked 4th in her high school graduating class and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor's Degree in Education from John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. She has taught and tutored thousands of students ages 4 through 18 both nationally and internationally. As a mother of three teens, Mary is also personally invested and entrenched in the testing and college admissions process.

Find Mary at www.testprepsimplified.com or 216-387-MARY.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet David Lynch, the founder of StudyLark Test Prep. He has been working with students worldwide since 1999 on the LSAT, SAT, ACT, GMAT, and GRE tests, and he's taught Chemistry and English as a Second Language.

David is the author of the StudyLark Guide to SAT Writing and Language as well as several other books on the LSAT and other standardized tests. He works with test preparation shops large and small to create high-quality custom teaching materials, and he has served as technical editor for study guides by nationally recognized brands. StudyLark provides individual tutoring for college and graduate school admissions.

Find David at studylark.com or info@studylark.com.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Jason Robinovitz, the Chief Operating Officer of all Score At The Top Learning Centers. Jason oversees each Center's day-to-day operations, ensuring the delivery of top-quality educational support and guidance services to client families. As team leader for a staff of more than 100 educators, Jason is in charge of strategic decision-making, including best practice policies, customer service, staffing, training, marketing, systems, and technology.

Jason is also involved in educational consulting services for college, boarding school, and law school clients. Meeting with students, Jason specializes in directing pre-law and future law-school students toward the extracurricular activities that will help position them for success. Skillfully guiding them through the application and essay process, Jason helps students distinguish themselves from the rest of the applicant pool. He also works with families seeking therapeutic placements for their children, identifying the "best fit" schools and programs for them and interfacing with these schools and programs to ensure successful placements.

Jason is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the National Test Prep Association. As an active member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and the Secondary School Admission Test Board, Robinovitz is part of a professional network of admission directors, educators, psychologists, and other educational consultants.

Jason graduated from the University of Denver with a BSBA in Finance and concentrations in Real Estate and Leadership. Three years later, he graduated from Emory University School of Law with a concentration in business and corporate law. Jason practiced medical malpractice law for five years before joining Score At The Top. He is a member of the Florida Bar. Jason is the son of Judi Robinovitz, founding owner of Score At The Top Learning Centers.

Find Jason at jason@scoreatthetop.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Jeanne Lucas. After over two decades of experience in education, Jeanne is no stranger to standardized testing. During her 17 years as a high school English teacher, Jeanne taught in several settings, including a suburban, Catholic high school; an urban, private, alternative high school; and a diverse, inner-city public high school. From 2016 to 2020, she taught GED classes for several Aspire programs, preparing adult learners for all sections of the high-school equivalency exams. She also served as an adjunct instructor and tutor at Bowling Green State University's Firelands College.

Jeanne's first foray into test prep happened in 2003, when she began tutoring for Townsend Learning Centers' test preparation programs under Amy Seeley's supervision. Jeanne relocated the following year. While browsing LinkedIn over a decade later, she spied a posting for the Seeley Test Pros and was reunited with Amy Seeley once again, making her the only tutor Amy Seeley has hired twice! Jeanne tutors students in all sections of the ACT, PSAT, SAT, HSPT, and ISEE. In early 2020, Jeanne left all of her "side hustles" to focus exclusively on test prep. She has never once looked back. :)

Jeanne holds two Bachelor's degrees in education from Capital University and a Master of Music degree from Bowling Green State University.

Find Jeanne at https://seeleytestpros.com/.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Silvia Eufinger, co-founder of Edison Prep, based in Atlanta, GA. Silvia graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2007. While an undergrad, she enjoyed serving with Uncle Joe's (a peer counseling group), the Each One Teach One tutoring program, and AXE, a chemistry pre-professional organization.

Silvia completed her doctorate at Emory University in 2013. She is an active member of Washington University's Young Alumni chapter in Atlanta, as well as the WashU Alumni Admissions Interviewer Program.

Find Silvia at https://www.edisonprep.com/.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Carmen Fernández de Tarrago, the founder of SATPrep DR, based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. A high school math teacher with 25+ years of experience, Carmen is a provider of test preparation tutoring and classes for the SAT/ACT and academic tutoring in math. She is devoted to helping students improve their math SAT scores and for the last 5 years, many of her students have scored perfect or nearly perfect scores on the SAT getting accepted to Ivy League schools and receiving handsome scholarship money as a result of their scores.

Carmen earned her B.A. in Economics at PUCMM in Santo Domingo and her M.S. Ed. from Framingham State University.

Find Carmen at c.tarrago@drnetwork.net, 829-272-5914 or IG @SATPREP_DR if you want to get a peek at what goes on in her classes.

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Meet Scott Greenspan, the founder/president of Span Test Prep in Glenview IL, which is located in the north suburbs of Chicago.

For the last 25 years, Scott has helped over 4000 students reach their goals on the ACT and SAT. He especially enjoys working with his students on motivation, mindfulness, and mastery of the content. He and his staff also do academic tutoring and college admissions coaching.

Scott is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a BA in math, and he earned an MA in teaching from North Park University. His hobbies include tennis, skiing, and hiking.

Find Scott at sgreenspan@spantestprep.com or https://www.spantestprep.com/.

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Christopher Sanderson is Sanderson Test Prep's Founder and President. In 2011, when starting STP, Chris established a company and elite teaching team that caters to academically competitive students who are serious about success.

Chris was born in Miami, FL and attended the University of Notre Dame. Prior to founding Sanderson Test Prep, Chris taught for Kaplan where he was responsible for hiring and training new teachers and was twice named Teacher of the Year. He now lives in San Antonio with his wife and their 3 dogs 🙂

Chris specializes in a wide variety of academic subject areas and standardized tests.

Find Christopher at https://sandersontestprep.com/ or 305-878-TEST.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Shane Bybee of Bybee College Prep has spent over half his life teaching. Along the way, he has worked with thousands of different students teaching everything from remedial 7th grade English/Language Arts to Dual Credit English IV and AP Language and Composition and even remedial Algebra I. Every year, no matter the subject he taught, his students outperformed the campus average on standardized tests. He has written curriculum, presented topics at the state convention for English teachers, and created professional development sessions for colleagues and school districts.

While earning a masters degree in Educational Leadership and getting certified as an administrator, he started Bybee College Prep. He did research into how schools could help more students achieve National Merit recognition. His research grew into a tutorial service that has helped dozens of students reach National Merit Semifinalist status.

As an educator, he is certified to teach Gifted and Talented students and has completed courses for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs. He has also served on test item review committees multiple times for the companies that write standardized tests and helped write online curriculum used by major test preparation companies. He understands what goes into crafting these tests.

Shane is also the co-founder of Parent University and host of the Let's Talk College Podcast.

Find Shane at http://bybeecollegeprep.com/.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Ariel Akselrad Lieberman, the founder of Your Best Prep, a tutoring company based in Westchester County, NY that helps high school students, both neurotypical and those with learning differences, master the standardized test prep process and achieve their academic goals.

Prior to founding Your Best Prep, Ariel wrote SAT and AP curriculum for Ivy Consulting Group in New York City, where she also worked as a GED tutor for young adults in the criminal justice system as a member of the Ivy League Tutors Foundation.

Ariel has an M.Ed from Manhattanville College School of Education, where she studied Secondary Special Education and was a recipient of the Dean's Award for Innovative Teaching, and a B.A. in history from SUNY-Purchase College, from which she graduated summa cum laude.

Ariel is currently pursuing a Professional Certificate in Learning Differences (LD) and Neurodiversity with a Specialization in Executive Function through the Landmark College Institute for Research & Training.

Find Ariel at http://www.yourbestprep.com/

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Robin Satty, Ph.D., a graduate of Brown University with an Sc.B and Sc.M in Biology. Robin began her career in test prep in 2010 at Revolution Prep and began teaching science full time in 2011. Since then, she has taught Biology, Chemistry, and General Science at the middle school and high school levels, while tutoring for the SAT and ACT in the evenings. Since earning an Ed.D in STEM Education from the University of Pittsburgh, she has stepped back from full-time teaching to focus on curriculum, consulting, and tutoring.

Robin is a certified teacher in three states and several subjects. She has contributed to several books on test prep and is currently working on an ACT Science workbook. She has developed NGSS- and CCSS-aligned STEM curriculum and consulted on STEM programs across the US. Robin's strengths lie in efficiently collecting data to determine the highest-leverage ways to help individuals and programs reach their goals, including higher grades and scores for an individual, improved learning in a school, or better teacher satisfaction and retention in a district.

Find Robin at https://stemsmartconsulting.com or robin@stemsmartconsulting.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Alexis Avila, the founder of Prepped and Polished tutoring and test preparation in 1999. Headquartered in South Natick, the company helps elementary, secondary, college-level and adult students improve their grades and test scores and has served thousands of students across the globe. Through his 20+ years in business, Avila has been an innovator within the tutoring industry, creating over 300 free math, English, and test prep resources through his YouTube channel and podcast. The podcast is also a resource to help families deal with stress, make the most of time during quarantine, and demystify the college admissions process.

Alexis's commitment to community extends beyond his company. He's a member of the Wellesley Chamber of Commerce board of directors, was one of five finalists for Big Brother of the Year through Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America, and is involved with Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Mass Mentoring and Community Servings. He was recently honored as one of the 50 most influential business people of color by Newton Needham Regional Chamber.

Find Alexis at http://www.preppedandpolished.com/.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Sheri Elmore is the Vice President of LEAP. Growing up in Cincinnati, graduating from Sycamore High School then Miami University, teaching high school mathematics for 12 years, and earning a master's degree in educational administration from Wright State University, all paved the way for Sheri to be an integral leader at LEAP.

Sheri started with LEAP as a tutor in the early years of the company. She has added additional responsibilities over the years. In 2009, Sheri was elevated to Vice President of LEAP and serves as LEAP's ACT-SAT Director. Sheri works closely with families to put together highly individualized testing timelines and prep plans for students to reach full testing potential.

Most days Sheri is found engaging with clients by phone, email, and in-person presenting for LEAP and at local schools.

Sheri and her husband, Bill, reside in Lewis Center north of Columbus where their three boys attend school and are active in a variety of extracurricular activities. Her oldest son is now in college.

Find Sheri at info@leaprogram.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Vince Kotchian, who grew up in small-town Connecticut and completed the honors program at Boston College, graduating with a B.A. in English Literature. Vince moved to San Diego in 2007 and has been working full-time as a test-prep tutor ever since. Vince has scored a perfect 170 in verbal (twice) and a 167 in quant on the GRE. He is the founder of both Vince Kotchian Test Prep and GRE Verbal Precision.

Over the years, Vince has written some test-prep books and courses, but still enjoys GRE tutoring: "When a student texts me that she aced the test or got into her reach program, I still literally jump up and down and grin."

In his spare time, Vince likes traveling using miles and points (Japan is his favorite country to visit), reading (favorite authors include Haruki Murakami, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and Philip Pullman), watching The Great British Bake-Off (and sometimes actually baking things), hiking and camping, and rooting for the Red Sox and Patriots.

Vince first appeared on the podcast on episode #197 to talk All About The GRE.

Find Vince at Vince Kotchian Test Prep.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Laura Link, the founder of Link Private Tutoring. Laura is passionate about meeting every student where they are so they can access opportunities that fulfill their dreams. As a sought-after test prep expert, Laura has traveled the United States training teachers how to help students raise their ACT and SAT scores.

Now, she is both a full-time ACT Prep teacher in a Louisiana public school as well as an active tutor helping students earn the scores they deserve so they can get into the schools they dream of. Laura has also created the online course The Link Method to ACEing the ACT.

Laura is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the National Test Prep Association.

Find Laura at www.Facebook.com/linkprivatetutoring.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Marina Yalon, who has spent over 15 years in the education sector, propelled by the belief that all students have the ability to learn and deserve access to quality education! Over the years, she's helped build schools in Guatemala, measure student achievement in over a dozen countries, and worked with more than 1,000 students to help them achieve their goal scores on the SAT & ACT. She is a graduate of Rutgers and Georgetown Universities. Through more than 10,000 tutoring hours, logged in-person and virtually, in the US and abroad, she's developed effective methodologies to beat these tests and help students achieve their goals. In addition to helping with test prep, Marina also has a proven track record of helping students develop robust math skills, increase their math academic performance, and develop math (and life!) confidence. She likes to say that she helps her students see that math (and other challenges) are all figure-out-able!

Find Marina at https://www.learnwithmyprep.com/.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Jim Wismer, the Director of Ivy Experience. Jim first started tutoring for pay in eighth grade, and he has since earned a broad range of experience in secondary and higher education. Jim taught Latin and Ancient Greek and served as a T.A. in Greek and Roman history and mythology courses while earning his M.A. in Classics at the University of Notre Dame. After graduating with his Master's, he helped a small independent school develop a K-12 Latin curriculum. Jim has been tutoring primarily test prep (but still some dead languages) since finishing graduate school, when he came on board as a tutor for Ivy Experience. One year in, he was promoted to Director, transitioning into a managerial role involving training and overseeing tutors, planning with families, creating marketing materials, and various business functions. If you had told Jim as a young scholar that he would one day be a reasonably successful businessperson, that would have been quite the surprise to him.

Jim enjoys digging into the way students' minds work, whether that means finding just the right way to help them "get" an SAT math problem or brainstorming how to develop their own most time-efficient method to memorize Latin conjugations.

Jim doesn't really have hobbies, preferring temporary, all-consuming obsessions. Over the years, these have included yoga, Super Smash Bros Melee, camping, fantasy football, the Wim Hof method, and darts, to name a few.

Find Jim at https://myivyexperience.com/contact/.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Susan Powers, the founder and CEO of Woodlands Test Prep, a tutoring company based in the Houston area that improves students' scores, supports students' academic success, and helps families navigate the college admissions testing process with much less stress.

Susan started teaching SAT and GMAT classes for Kaplan in 1994 as a hobby while an executive for a large oil and gas equipment company, doing strategy and acquisitions. The arrival of children put hobbies on hiatus, and she was able to return to tutoring in 2011, founding Woodlands Test Prep. The company has grown from a solopreneur to a larger company with multiple tutors. Susan delights in all aspects of the business from tutoring to curriculum and resource development to process improvement to hiring those few rare gems and teaching them how to help students too!

Susan was a National Merit Scholar and has a B.A. in French and a B.B.A. in Finance from Southern Methodist University and an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, focusing in entrepreneurship.

She lives in the country with her partner, Joe, and three dogs, a cat, and a parrot named Monkey. Her two children now live adventurous lives in the mountainous West. She loves to travel around the world, play day-long board games, sing, write poetry, garden, and read a couple of books at a time.

Find Susan at www.woodlandstestprep.com.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Alex Robayo, whose background in advanced Physics gave him the tools to break down complex concepts into simple teenage language. Originally working in Bell Labs on fiber-optic transmissions, he transitioned into education after the tech bubble burst of the early 2000s. There he found his true calling. While helping scores of students in extra help sessions, Alex was offered his first tutoring gig. The rest is history!

Over the past years, Alex has helped countless students improve their study habits, comprehension, and test-taking skills. As a result, these students have earned better test scores, grades, and have grown in self-esteem and confidence. He currently teaches AP Physics and runs Success Prep llc in the afternoons. His tutoring meat and potatoes are the SAT and ACTs but also specializes in math, physics, and chemistry.

Find Alex at http://www.success-prep.com/.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Lori Tofexis. Lori grew up in NY and NJ and attended the University of Pennsylvania, earning a degree in Communications. She worked in television for a while (behind the scenes) and then took a job in Florida. Eventually, Lori started selling sailboats in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, which provided her the opportunity to go sailing every chance she had.

After raising her family, Lori decided to become a math teacher. She enrolled to get the credits needed to re-learn all the high school math that she had forgotten. This was actually fun for her, allowing her inner nerd to come out. She started tutoring kids in math. Eventually, one parent asked if she could help their daughter with the SAT. "Why not?" she said. The rest is history.

Find Lori at circletestprep.com.

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Meet Leia LeMaster Horton, who has been an educator for over eighteen years. Her favorite subjects were Latin and Math. In the last seven years, Leia has focused her attention on preparing students for their college entrance exams and is the owner of Horton Test Prep. Through these years, she's helped countless students raise their scores hundreds of points and turn dream school into reality with dream financial aid packages. She is running on coffee and helping students have "aha" moments.

Find Leia at info@hortontestprep.com or on Instagram @hortontestprep.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Jennifer Henson a.k.a "The GOAL DIGGER", a nationally sought after test prep expert specializing in the ACT test. Jennifer, who was Winton Woods City School's (OH) Teacher of the Year in 2014, holds a Master of Education degree with a Bachelor's in English from Xavier University—where she was a walk-on tennis player. She's taught for 21 years and coached ACT prep for over 12 years– and has an army of teachers trained to assist her requests for tutorials. Her former ACT students now attend notable higher learning institutions, including Notre Dame, The Ohio State University, Texas A&M, The Naval Academy, and the University of Kentucky—among others.

Jennifer has assisted students from California to Connecticut—and states in between—to reach their personal ACT goals. No score is too low or too high, as she has doubled the scores of students starting at the low end, in addition to helping initially higher scoring students achieve the coveted 36 on every section of the test. Two young men playing D1 football had a composite score of a 9 originally, and scored 18 and 20 (respectively) after working with her.

Jen first appeared on the podcast on episode #57 to talk Test Scores and the NCAA Clearinghouse.

Find Jen at jenhensonactprep.com.

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Meet Adam Snoza. Adam graduated from Creighton University and was a high school English teacher for 9 years in both public and private schools. He has spent 13 years in ACT test prep with Aim High Test Prep in Omaha, NE. He is the lead instructor and curriculum developer, authoring his own 350-page instructional manual.

Adam is also an ACT Certified Educator (ACE) in all 6 certification areas: Basics, English, Math, Reading, Science, and Writing. Now, he is a trainer of the ACE program and works with teachers and tutors across the country on how to effectively teach the ACT test. In addition, Adam co-authored the 2021 update to The Official ACT Mathematics Guide.

Though every student he helps gain a life changing scholarship or entry into an elite college gives him great satisfaction, his greatest pride comes from working with multiple local charities to bring test prep to underserved populations in an effort to bridge the education gap.

Adam previously appeared on this podcast in episode 159 to discuss ACT Math Reporting Categories.

Find Adam at asnoza@aimhightestprep.com

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Alex Chip, the founder of Top Score Education, a boutique tutoring, test prep, and academic counseling company headquartered in Washington DC, in 2005. Over the past 16 years, Alex has tutored several thousand students in high school and college admissions testing, developed innovative project-based learning programs for students of all ages, and launched new branches servicing students in Miami, FL, and Durham, NC.

In addition to his work as an educator and entrepreneur, Alex is the author of Building Your Student's Story: The Parent's Companion to College Admissions Strategies, Standardized Tests, and Crafting an Exceptional Application. A graduate of Duke University (BA, English) and Johns Hopkins (MA, Nonfiction Writing), Alex lives in Washington DC with his wife and two children.

Find Alex at https://www.topscoreedu.com/.

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Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

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Meet Anna Solomon. Anna grew up in Florida and graduated with a B.A. in History from New College of Florida. She lived in Asheville (NC) and Richmond (VA), and now lives in Salisbury (MD). She worked for Huntington Learning Center, Tutor Doctor, and other private tutoring and test prep companies before beginning her own company, Flamingo Tutoring. Now she focuses on one-on-one tutoring for the SAT and ACT.

Anna is thrilled to be part of the NTPA and co-founder of the NTPA Book Club and Women of NTPA. When Anna isn't hanging out with colleagues (virtually) or working with students (virtually), she is out exploring with her three-year-old.

Find Anna at testprep@flamingotutoring.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Steve Feldman. As Founder and Managing Partner of Private Prep, Steve initiates and manages strategic partnerships. Steve also leads Private Prep's growth into new geographic markets and additional services. Since founding Private Prep in 2006, the company has become recognized as one of the leading personalized education services in the NY Tri-State Region, the Washington DC Metro Area, South Florida, Los Angeles and Internationally. Private Prep has made the Inc 5000 list for fastest growing privately-held companies, for five consecutive years, ranking as one of the top growing companies in the education industry. Additionally, Private Prep has been recognized as one of the 100 best places to work in New York by Crain's Magazine.

In addition to a MA in education from the Steinhardt School at New York University, Steve brings over 20 years of tutoring and a deep love of learning and connecting with students. He is focused on maintaining the high level of personalized care students and families have been experiencing since he began tutoring students himself. Growing up in Bethesda, Maryland, Steve has been a coach, teaching assistant and tutor since 1993. After graduating on the Dean's List at Emory University, Steve moved to New York City and worked in finance at UBS while moonlighting as a math and test prep tutor. After two years, his enthusiasm for education, combined with his students' success, inspired him to build a private tutoring service. After over a decade in NYC, Steve now lives In Bethesda, MD with his wife, Lauren, who was integral in the launch of Private Prep, and their children Spencer, Poppy & Dylan.

Find Steve at steve@privateprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Ian Siegel. Ian started Streamline Tutors in Baltimore, MD, in 2013 and has been tutoring full-time for a decade, primarily as an SAT/ACT tutor and college essay coach. Ian consistently gets some of the highest score improvements in the country on the SAT and ACT. He attributes his success to his ability to act as a mirror to his student's actual potential, something that's obscured by realities in school and society. Most recently, Ian has made a study of our learning potential as humans, the most common impediments to authentic learning, and specific techniques for unearthing the incredible authentic learner in us all. This investigation is captured in his manuscript 1-on-1, The Future is Ancient History: A Manifesto on Human Learning, which he hopes to publish in the next year.

Find Ian at https://streamlinetutors.com/.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Pranoy Mohapatra began tutoring as a high school sophomore for a local company after finding joy in helping classmates at the Academy of Allied Health and Sciences study for tests. Pranoy found he learned by teaching and explaining concepts to reinforce them, and often viewed standardized tests as puzzles. He continued to tutor through college and his first year of medical school, before leaving medical school and officially starting his tutoring company PMTutoring LLC in 2015.

Pranoy's approach to test prep focuses on in-depth understanding and recognition of concepts, as he found the "memorize and regurgitate" methods taught in many classes frustrating. His objective is to provide the tools necessary for any student with goals the opportunity to reach them.

Pranoy is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the National Test Prep Association. He first appeared on this podcast in episode #36 to discuss Techniques to Motivate Unmotivated Students.

Find Pranoy at www.PMTutoring.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Alice Humbracht. Alice is a premier tutor with over 16 years of full-time experience tutoring standardized tests. She spent six years at The Princeton Review honing her skills, and then she started her own tutoring office in 2011.

Alice specializes in ACT and SAT, but has helped students improve their scores on a variety of standardized tests including the ACT, SAT, GRE, GMAT, SAT Subject Tests, CSET, CBEST, AP Calculus, LSAT, DAT, ISEE, SSAT, PRAXIS, ASVAB, and others since early 2005. In short, if it's an acronym, Alice can tutor it!

Alice teaches not only test content (math, reading, punctuation, grammar, essay writing, logic, etc.), but also test-taking strategies (pacing, calculator use, and what types of answers test writers prefer, to name a few).

Find Alice at http://www.tutorwithalice.com/.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Nikki Highfield, owner of Helping Hands Educational Services. Nikki is a native of Cincinnati, OH. She holds a B.S. in Elementary Education and an MBA from Xavier University as well as a M.Ed in Special Education from St. Joseph's University. Nikki spent 15 years working in the financial industry before returning back to the world of education. She started Helping Hands Educational Service in 2014. She focuses on ACT/SAT test prep and academic subject tutoring for students.

When Nikki is not helping students, she is spending time with her children either at a Broadway musical or a Xavier basketball game. Nikki is excited to be a member of the National Test Prep Association! She looks forward to continuing to develop relationships with other test prep professionals and growing her business.

Find Nikki at nikki.helpinghands@gmail.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Ashley Boggs, the owner of Problem-Solving Math, LLC located in Parkersburg, WV. She holds multiple degrees and teaching licenses in elementary education, secondary mathematics and science education, and school administration with a Master's degree in Educational Leadership. A National Test Prep Association member, Ashley is also the only ACT-Certified Educator in the region and helps students reach their test score goals to earn college admittance and scholarships.

Before opening the tutoring center in 2020, Ashley taught middle school math for several years but actually started tutoring others when she was in middle school. Currently, academic math tutoring and test prep are provided to learners of all ages through individual, small group, and virtual settings. Ashley enjoys helping students build a solid foundation and confidence in their abilities and problem-solving skills. Resource development and sharing instructional strategies that work have become additional ways for her to contribute to the educational field. The "aha" moments witnessed, scholarship offers celebrated, and referrals received are the best motivators as she continues to build a practice preparing her community's students and virtual students around the country for their next steps.

Find Ashley at http://www.ProblemSolvingMath.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Shayda Moshirvaziri, the founder of Pivot Tutors. Shayda graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Biomedical Engineering in 2003. She was accepted at MIT, John Hopkins University, Stanford, and UCSD for Ph.D. programs in Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering on full fellowship. She chose to attend UCSD for graduate school and received her Masters and Doctorate in Bioengineering in 2007 and 2010, respectively.

Shayda has over 15 years of teaching and tutoring experience with all levels of mathematics and science for middle school, high school, and college-level students. She has a passion for teaching young students and has taught undergraduate courses at UCSD, including Introduction to Bioengineering, Human Physiology, and Computer Science. Before starting Pivot Tutors in 2012, she developed an ACT boot camp course for a private high school in San Diego and taught as a premier level ACT and SAT instructor for different test prep centers.

Pivot Tutors, LLC is a premier private academic and test prep tutoring company serving San Diego middle and high school students for the past 8 years. With nearly 1000 students under its wing, Pivot has helped its students excel in their academic classes and standardized tests.

Find Shayda at pivottutors.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Ten years ago, Manjri envisioned a tutoring service that would meet the needs of the whole student. She developed Axios Tutoring, a Pittsburgh-based educational center where students come for a range of services including higher executive functioning coaching, college admissions counseling, subject tutoring, diagnostic testing, and standardized test prep. At present, she manages two centers, one in Pittsburgh's North Hills and one in the South Hills, and her business is growing. Manjri's goal is to help students navigate school, standardized tests, college admissions, and transition to college with the skills and confidence that lead to the careers and lifestyles they envision. She says, "It is rewarding to watch them grow beyond the distractions of adolescence into the forward-thinking adults of the future."

Not only does Manjri treat every student and family as if they were her only clients, but she has also hired a staff that works as a team, using a mentoring model and on-board training to utilize her tutors' strengths and match their teaching styles to students' learning styles.

Manjri understands that everyone learns differently. She makes it her work to find the right path for each student. She monitors their progress closely and keeps parents in the loop. If something is not working, she goes back to the drawing board and refines the strategy. The lesson of her grandfathers is never far from her mind: learning is a lifelong journey.

Find Manjri at mgupta@axiostutoring.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Travis Minor founded Open Door Education in 2011 with the goal of building the best and most impactful tutoring company in Massachusetts. Travis, who earned his B.S. in Secondary Education at the University of Vermont and his M.Ed. at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, began his teaching career in West Philadelphia, where he became acutely aware of the profound impact of enthusiastic, rigorous tutoring and test preparation. As a 2005 graduate of Concord-Carlisle High School, Travis understands the pressures and challenges facing students attending competitive high schools, and he also knows the life-long benefits of learning to rise to overcome these obstacles through patience, grit, and a willingness to ask for help (something he is still working on).

When he's not at Open Door, Travis serves as the chair of The Scholarship Fund of Concord and Carlisle, the Vice President of Ethics for the National Test Prep Association, and as the Education Entrepreneurship Teaching Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Travis is a founding Board Member of the National Test Prep Association.

Travis first appeared on the podcast in episode #21 to discuss Implications Of An Environmental Context Dashboard.

Find Travis at travis@opendoor.education.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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A Georgia native, Blake Shealy attended high school in Cobb County at McEachern High School. While there, he earned valedictorian and STAR student honors and attended the University of Georgia in 2004 as a Bernard Ramsey Scholar and a member of the honors program. After graduating in 2008, Blake began a career in medical research and worked in labs across the U.S. including Harvard Medical School, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Arizona. In Arizona, he began teaching part-time at a local college and quickly decided to pursue this full-time. Since then, Blake graduated summa cum laude with a masters in public health and later spent ten years teaching as both a high school science teacher and college professor.

In 2018, Blake made the decision to pursue test prep full time, and his days are now spent furthering his expertise in both the SAT and ACT.

​Blake Shealy enjoys spending time with his wife and two kids but still tries to catch as much college football as he can in the fall. He trains as an amateur lifter in his spare time and has coached baseball and track/field in the past.

Find Blake at https://www.insight-tutoring.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Olivia Jones, a native of Huntsville, AL who has lived in Eufaula, AL for the last ten years. She graduated from the University of Alabama in 2011 with a degree in Secondary English Education. After teaching at Eufaula High School for five years, Olivia decided to further her education and, in 2019, graduated from Faulkner Law School. While awaiting her results from the Alabama State Bar Exam, Oliva was drawn back to teaching at Eufaula High School where the skills she learned applying for law school found a new application: test prep. She currently teaches ACT prep full-time at Eufaula High School and tutors other students privately through her company, Impact Tutoring Services.

Find Olivia at Olivia@impacttutoringservices.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

Meet Julie Post, the owner and primary instructor at Brain-Grow Education. As an undergrad, she attended Columbia University and designed the first Education major there, graduating summa cum laude. She then moved on to Harvard University where she earned her Ed.M in Education. Julie has been teaching full-time for 18 years. She is a firm believer in hard work, implementing effective strategies, and designing a curriculum that is engaging and rewarding.

Find Julie at https://www.brain-grow.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

Meet Julie Blumenfeld, who has been helping students in Brooklyn and Manhattan improve their performance on standardized tests and in their math classes for over 25 years. While she taught middle school math in NYC private schools, trained early education majors at Brooklyn College to teach math and helped them pass the math section of their certification exam, provided professional development for math teachers in Catholic Schools, tutoring was a side hustle. For the past seven years, and the foreseeable future, test preparation and math tutoring is Julie's main hustle.

Find Julie at https://www.mathjb.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Anna Gazumyan-Silverman, a test preparation expert and tutor with over fifteen years of experience. She provides executive function support and tutors students of all ages and all levels for the ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, BCA test, TACHS, SHSAT, ACT, SAT, PSAT, GRE, GMAT, and MCAT CARS, among other tests.

Anna's executive function students learn to manage workloads and reach their goals without stress. Students learn to be great testers by mastering the necessary content and strategies for each section of the test. No detail is too small, and Anna guides her students (and their worried parents) to their target score every step of the way.

Whether it's Wharton, MIT, UPenn, Georgetown, or a state school, Anna's students have happily gone on to the schools OF THEIR CHOICE with top scores that earned them substantial scholarships.

Find Anna at anna@astest.us or astestprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

Meet Justin M. Menda, who has been a tutor and academic coach for 11 years. He holds a B.A. in psychology and a Master's in education from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Master's in biomedical science from Drexel University. Through his work on standardized test prep and academic support, he uses his background in cognitive psychology to help students meet their goals by playing to their talents and developing skills they can use anywhere.

Justin began as a tutor at a premiere Philadelphia-area test prep firm. In addition to quickly becoming top tutor talent, he became a go-to tutor for students struggling with motivation and stress, created and taught custom classes for school clients, and created innovative methods for tutor selection and training.

Justin has been freelance for over 4 years. His clients still include both families and institutions, but they have ranged from third graders to adults. For all of them, the mission is the same: to reach beyond academic prep and test prep to life prep.

Outside of work, Justin is a car enthusiast, self-development enthusiast, happy husband of 11 years, and delighted father of two young girls.

Find Justin at www.rocket-prep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Tom Ehlers is the founder and president of Method Learning. He is a passionate believer in online learning and has spent the last 18 years developing effective teaching methods that have helped thousands of students significantly raise their ACT and SAT test scores. Over 1,000 schools around the world use Method Test Prep's online learning platform to provide all students with access to effective ACT and SAT preparation and to help students improve their fundamental English and math skills. Tom works as an educational consultant to these schools to help them expand their online learning initiatives. Tom also trains dozens of groups of educators each year on how to encourage more students to take advantage of online learning tools as well as speaking to large groups of parents and students on the shift to online learning and how to benefit.

Tom graduated with honors from Princeton University and also completed the prestigious Princeton University Teacher Preparation Program. He is proud of his role as an entrepreneur in the world of education. Since he started Method Learning, the organization has grown to 60 people whose mission is to help students and schools achieve more academically.

Tom lives on Long Island in New York with his wife and twin 4th graders. Tom's hobbies include basketball, reading, tennis, podcasts, learning online, and travel.

Tom first appeared on the show back in episode #6 to discuss How to Make the Most of Online Test Prep.

Find Tom at https://www.methodlearning.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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John Henrikson, founder of Monmouth Test Prep, lives in Fair Haven, NJ with his wife and three children. John holds a BS in Biology and MS in Evolutionary Biology. He is the Chair of the Science Department at Seton Hall Preparatory School in northern NJ where he has been teaching AP Biology and AP Environmental Science for twenty four years.

John has been working in the test prep industry for more than 25 years. First employed by two of the leading test prep companies in the nation, John struck out on his own more than twenty years ago to develop a broad array of strategies for the PSAT, SAT, and ACT exams. He founded Monmouth Test Prep in 2011 and moved them to their current location in Fair Haven in 2018.

Find John at https://monmouthtestprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Joanna Dean, who has been a test prep professional for the last seven years specializing in SAT and ACT prep. Joanna, the owner of Dean Academy, began her career as a corporate trainer in a Fortune 30 company in Atlanta with a background in advertising, marketing, and television. In 2010, she became a homeschool mom to her three elementary-aged sons. While homeschooling, she discovered her passion for teaching and began teaching other homeschooled children in the Atlanta metro area. Over the course of 12 years, she has taught over 2500 students in the area of math, grammar, and writing.

Today, Joanna is solely focused on test prep with an emphasis on SAT and ACT, seeing around 80 students privately a month. Joanna Dean has turned what was initially done out of necessity for her own kids into a thriving career by helping students all over the U.S. achieve their testing goals.

Find Joanna at joanna@deanacademy.net.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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For Melissa Jumbeck, joy is inherent in learning. From the earliest days of her education, Melissa was blessed with educators who both challenged and inspired her; school days were always her favorite days, so it was no surprise when she decided to become a teacher. Now, Melissa has a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education with a minor in mathematics and a Master of Science degree in curriculum and instruction with teaching certifications in talented/gifted education and secondary English. For more than a decade, she taught in both private and public school settings: grades 1-10. Melissa has also enjoyed teaching adults around the country through the ACT Instructional Mastery program (formerly ACT Certified Educator [ACE]). Beyond that work, her passion project is her ACT prep company, Juku and Joy Prep. Melissa strives to integrate rigor and joy into every teaching and tutoring assignment, whether her students are youths or adults.

Find Melissa at melissa@jukuandjoyprep.com or on Instagram as @jukuandjoyprep.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Ethan Kopelman is a graduate of the University of Florida and an Emory Law School dropout whose dream job is caddying on the PGA Tour. He has owned EK Prep for nine years and is most definitely a test prep nerd.

Find Ethan at ethan@ekprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Find Michael at https://browardtutorial.com or michael.eldeiry@gmail.com

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Blaire Richter from Three Keys Learning Studio in Cincinnati, Ohio. Blaire helps high schoolers get into college and college students get through their programs. She has been a tutor of high school and college-level math, writing, and test prep for over 23 years.

What Blaire loves most in life is her family, her great big goofy dog, and puzzles of all kinds.

There are puzzles everywhere. People are puzzles, math is puzzles, standardized test questions are puzzles, helping a person write their best story?-- also just an open box of a puzzle, waiting for the pieces to be put into the right places.

Integrating those puzzles together is key to academic success. Blaire weaves together her lifelong interests in behavior analysis and test-taking skills to coach students toward their successes.

Find Blaire at 513-484-4675 or threekeysstudio@gmail.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

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Meet Valerie Erde, founder of Greenwich Connecticut-based VeridianPrep. Valerie is an ACT/SAT/AP language arts tutor and one of only two tutors personally trained by Erica Meltzer, expert tutor and author of the highly acclaimed Critical Reader ACT & SAT books. As a

published writer and avid reader, herself, Valerie found she had a knack for helping teens find and tell compelling stories and added Common App. essay and supplement advising to Veridian's tutoring and test prep practice. Each year, VeridianPrep students gain acceptance to a wide range of colleges, including the most selective schools in the U.S.

Prior to becoming a test prep professional and academic tutor, Valerie had a long career in the

publishing and media industry, first as a management consultant and later as a multimedia content developer at HarperCollins, Penguin Books, and EdTech Company Brainscape, where she was a managing editor for two adaptive digital flashcard study guides for AP U.S. History and AP U.S. Government & Politics. Valerie holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science and French Language from NYU and an MBA in Business Policy from CUNY's Zicklin School of Business, including a semester studying applied economics at The Universite de Paris, Dauphine.

A recent empty nester (except for the dog!) Valerie lives with her husband in Old Greenwich. A continual learner herself, when she's not tutoring or brainstorming college essay ideas, you might catch Valerie performing at a local open mic, paddleboarding on the Long Island Sound, or fueling her bubble tea and Asian food obsession.

Find Valerie at valerie@veridianprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Rob Margolis is the founder and president of Stumptown Test Prep, LLC. He has been a professional tutor since 1997, beginning in the Washington, DC, area, then in Manhattan, and, since 2004, in Portland, Oregon. He has dedicated approximately 25,000 hours specifically to one-on-one standardized test preparation and has been featured in U.S. News and World Report's America's Best Colleges, Newsweek, and Education Week. In addition, he has taught mathematics, history, and English to grades six through nine at public and private schools in Washington, DC; Santa Fe, NM; and Portland, OR.

Rob graduated from Yale University with a BA in History, and subsequently earned an MA in Liberal Arts from the Graduate Institute of St. John's College. He is an avid Crossfitter and wishes he had more time to read Cormac McCarthy.

Find Rob at rob@stumptowntestprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Luis Smith-Rosario, owner and founder of Hartford County Connecticut-based Just Solve It Tutoring. Luis founded Just Solve It in 2009, and he has since expanded his business to employ a range of skilled STEM tutors and to provide tutoring for students taking STEM courses and standardized tests, offering coaching at all skill levels. Luis is an SAT mathematics tutor who works with middle school and high school age students to improve their SAT math scores for college applications. His students often achieve score improvements of 100+ points on the math portion of the SAT, with many students earning over 700 on this portion. Luis is also a member of the National Test Prep Association.

Luis graduated with a BS from Central Connecticut State University with a major in economics and a minor in mathematics. Luis gained his teaching certification through the Alternate Route to Certification (ARC) program and previously worked as a public high school math teacher in the Greater Hartford area for many years while tutoring privately on the side.

Although he has transitioned careers to one of a private tutor, he is still committed to his goal of improving math literacy for students and helping them find academic success. Luis has one daughter and many nieces and nephews in Connecticut who have received tutoring and achieved success in math using Just Solve It Tutoring.

Find Luis at www.justsolveittutoring.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Andre Kiss started Critical Point Test Prep nine years ago, after falling in love with helping students reach their potential on the SAT and ACT. He graduated from Ursinus College Summa Cum Laude and shortly thereafter spent 9 months in the Amazon region of Brazil on a Fulbright Scholarship from the US Department of State. He has a Border Collie named Harambe who loves to play frisbee!

Find Andre at andre@criticalpointprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Patricia Brown, a native of the East Coast (New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Boston) who established Team Talent for SAT and ACT and ISEE test prep in the San Diego North County town of Rancho Santa Fe over 15 years ago, serving students from eight private schools and over a dozen public schools. Her word-of-mouth reputation gets clients who are friends of other clients and then who stay with her for all the siblings of the initial student. Her tutoring expertise is in all sections of all three tests.

When the opportunities present themselves, she loves using the test sections to impart life-long improvements in reading comprehension, to establish solid editing skills for student writing, and to improve operational math skills because she believes these are essential skills for college and careers. If she can plant the seeds to generate an interest in reading for pleasure (not easy to do nowadays) or if she can improve a student's confidence in math to the point at which the student might tackle a more math-intensive major in college, that's a source of extra job satisfaction!

Prior to her years of student test prep, she took a Liberal Arts degree in Psychology and (with the help of a high score on a standardized test taken during a job interview) parlayed that into a 25-year career in the Computer Industry serving Fortune 500 corporations, working as an Executive in Engineering, Client Consulting, and M&A for companies focused on database software, manufacturing application software, and neural network models.

Her early experience teaching corporate clients how to use novel computer software and her own personal work experience of having to learn new technologies and new job skills every few years have been very applicable to teaching high school students to reach their personal best on the SAT and ACT. Her analytical skills from years in the computer industry have been used evaluating curriculum alternatives for test prep and researching pedagogical strategies.

Her degree in psychology has been put to use each semester as she identifies and refers students for further neuropsychological testing. After working with a student several sessions, she can identify reading or math issues that are atypical and should be further investigated. These referrals have confirmed with a DSM-5 diagnosis learning disabilities that were not previously recognized by teachers. Given her underlying interest in psychology as it relates to learning, she has also reviewed the published research in memorization, reading comprehension, math pedagogy, and performance anxiety to establish methods and best advice to assist her students.

In her spare time, she is an avid non-fiction reader and Wondrium is her favorite streaming channel. After a long day of tutoring, she snuggles with her two Old English Sheepdogs. She enjoys hiking trips to Switzerland and sailing vacations with her husband who has taught her everything she knows about the outdoors since she would spend her time in a chair reading if he wasn't around!

Find Patricia at patricia@teamtalent.biz.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Emily Raphael is the mom in Testmom, the company she founded (she was very disappointed that the name Pro-Test was taken). She works primarily with high school students preparing for the SAT and ACT. She covers all sections of both tests. In past lives she has taught composition and loves talking and thinking about the writing process. She enjoys teaching and sharing "aha!" moments with students.

Emily has her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in English from NYU. She taught composition and literature at the University of Virginia and Queens College for a number of years. She lives on Long Island with her husband Steve and her dog, Malcolm, and has two grown children who refuse to move back home. She is involved in her community and was on the Board of Education in her town for two terms, with particular interest in the needs of children with disabilities.

In her free time (HAHAHAHAHA), Emily reads a lot of everything: heavy on fiction, especially if it's depressing, with large, fortifying doses of poetry, political biography, history, disability studies, feminism, and anything else that looks interesting. She is partial to old movies, the oeuvre of Bob Odenkirk, and the Beatles. Sometimes she writes things but rarely shows them to people because her work is too avant-garde for you all to understand.

Find Emily at emilyaschulman@gmail.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Erin Billy is the founder of Test Magic in San Francisco, California and the test prep forum Urch Forums. Since 1991, he has personally worked with thousands of students to help them get into great universities in the US, from the academic preparation in the early years to the tests and applications required to apply, both to under-graduate and graduate programs.

Erin worked in restaurants in Washington, D.C. during the 1980s and 1990s to support himself through college. He graduated from George Mason University with a degree in English Literature, after which he traveled for four years, spending a few months in Europe and three years in Rio de Janeiro. He is currently working on a Master's Degree in Education from San Francisco State University.

After working, and after preparing delicious, nutritious meals for his family, Erin is working on distilling his experiences running a business and helping students apply to college in books and websites

Find Erin at https://www.testmagic.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Dr. Kuni Michael Beasley has a BS from Texas Christian University (GO Frogs!), an MBA from Oklahoma City University, a Doctor of Ministry in Greek and Hebrew from Tyndale Seminary, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington. He has been helping students prepare for college for over 40 years. Dr. Beasley has helped students enroll in the top colleges in the country including Harvard, West Point, Stanford, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Pepperdine, and MIT, with many on full scholarships.

Dr. Beasley has an eclectic background. After earning his undergraduate degree, he served on active duty with the Army where he was the youngest commander in Europe in charge of a nuclear Field Artillery unit. When he returned to the US, he oversaw Officer Training and developed several novel training strategies that won him a medal for his efforts. While on active duty, Dr. Beasley earned his master's degree in fifty weeks attending classes at night. He left active duty to take a position with the Federal Reserve Bank where he was a Training Specialist, Management Systems Coordinator, and the Strategic Planner. While there, he worked on the new currency and applied creative ideas to operations and check processing. From there, Dr. Beasley was the International Management Consultant for Caltex Petroleum overseeing executive development and strategic training for executives in 55 countries.

Dr. Beasley left corporate America to pursue a personal passion to coach football. In his first year as a high school football coach, Coach Beasley's team won the 1994 Texas AAA state championship. He returned to coaching in 2021 and led his team to the state championship game again.

Seeing that many students were under-challenged, in 1996, Dr. Beasley started his own school in a rented Sunday School room at the First Baptist Church in Duncanville, Texas, with seven students. By 2009, there were 22 schools from Springfield, Massachusetts to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to Palm Springs, California. He initiated a College Readiness business taking his unique preparation process to public and private school students. His SAT and ACT prep programs were used in public schools in nine states.

Dr. Beasley taught college for sixteen years at several institutions including Northwood University, Dallas Baptist University, University of Texas at Arlington, and thirteen years at LeTourneau University. He is credentialed to teach at the graduate level in 14 subject areas, including Business, Political Science, Public Administration, Urban Studies, Economics, Psychology, Geography, and Military History. His Ph.D. is in Urban and Public Administration where he wrote his dissertation on the transition of the Federal Reserve in the late 80s. He earned his Doctor of Ministry in Greek and Hebrew studies concurrently with his Ph.D. Very few can bring a portfolio with military command, championship coaching, academic achievement, college teaching, school administration, and innovative entrepreneurship to build a nationwide business.

You can find Kuni at info@beasleycollegeprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Jeff Eisenberg, the founder of Long Island Test Prep, has been working as a test prep professional since 1991. He's a lifelong resident of Long Island. Having just retired from the classroom after a 31-year career teaching Social Studies at East Meadow High School, he's now working full-time to help students prepare for college by coaching them for all sections of the SAT, ACT, and GRE exams, and guiding them through the Admissions Essay process.

Having done the SUNY Tour, he has a BA in History from Binghamton University and an MA in American History from the University at Albany. He also enjoys working with students who ask for help preparing for Social Studies class.

In his free time, he revels in the joy of his family and friends, music and reading non-fiction. He also spends time being repeatedly disappointed by his favorite sports teams.

You can find Jeff at https://www.longislandtestprep.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Meredith Bagwill, the owner of Total College Prep, LLC. Meredith has 28 years of experience in education. Total College Prep, LLC. provides comprehensive tutoring services that enable students to improve test scores, navigate college admissions, and excel in academic coursework. SAT/ACT test prep courses and academic tutoring sessions are offered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and across the country virtually. Additionally, Total College Prep, LLC. partners with A-List Education to provide ACT & SAT professional development (in-person and online options available), classroom instruction, and content licensing to schools, organizations, and education-focused nonprofits across the country.

Find Meredith at 1-972-587-5005 or https://www.totalcollegeprep.net.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Huzefa Kapadia is the founder of Scalar Learning LLC, an education services company based in Los Angeles, CA. Moreover, he is a math video curriculum developer, math musician, and a private math tutor. His life is fully devoted to the art of teaching math, and all aspects of content creation are aimed towards helping students master mathematics for both school curriculums as well as standardized tests.

Prior to launching Scalar Learning LLC, Huzefa worked as a software developer for three years before attending law school at Northwestern University. He was then employed as a patent attorney for four years at two international law firms. After working as a software engineer and patent attorney, Huzefa entered the world of math education as an homage to his true passion: teaching mathematics.

Since founding Scalar Learning LLC, Huzefa has created hundreds of hours of digital content targeting math concepts for students across elementary, middle, and high school. He has produced and released 5 video courses on mathematics, 3 of which prepare students for the math portions of competitive standardized tests like the SAT, ACT, and ISEE. Additionally, he has written, recorded, and produced 17 math music videos, several of which have been featured on BuzzFeed, The Blaze, The Journal, and EdTech Digest.

Huzefa has also delivered a tremendous amount of hours of private math tutoring across the Los Angeles area. Additionally, he has spent over two years as a 6th-grade math teacher at Seven Arrows Elementary in the Pacific Palisades

Find Huzefa at tutoring@scalarlearning.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Kailey Ossanna, the proud owner of KO Tutoring, the test prep company she founded in August 2020. She is a graduate of Campbell University, receiving her BS in Biology. Kailey's path to KO Tutoring has had many interesting stops. From her time as an officer in the United States Army to overseeing quality control of the production of vital medical supplies to teaching math and science in Appalachia, Kailey has brought professionalism and passion to everything she has done. She is now using her experiences and love for education and education policy to provide excellent service to her clients and work towards uplifting all students by working within the professional tutoring community and local communities.

Find Kailey at https://www.kotutoring.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Stacey Howe-Lott, a 25-year teacher who now focuses exclusively on SAT and ACT test prep. She's been called the Dumbledore of SAT prep in the book The Perfect Score Project for creating customized score reports that can pinpoint students' weaknesses and help them achieve their goals. She currently works with students in the US and all over the world. She focuses on helping kids use what they already know to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

Find Stacey at https://www.stellarscores.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

MEET OUR GUEST

Meet Samiya Cogmon, who founded Horizon Star Tutoring Co in 2019 with a mission to bring the joys of academic achievement to others… the confidence that you take into adulthood.

The vision was born long before the company was. Samiya tutored students throughout

high school because school was something she always took pride in. But it wasn't until years later that everything fell into place. After graduating as Valedictorian of her high school and

getting the honor of Summa Cum Laude in college, Samiya wanted to continue to shift education for others. Horizon Star Tutoring is the result.

Now Horizon Star Tutoring accommodates students virtually as well. Making it possible for them to impact thousands of students across the nation, while still working in their home city, Las

Vegas. Whether in-person or online, Samiya takes pride in getting exceptional results for students and parents.

Find Samiya at https://www.horizonstartutoring.com.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST