An Early Christmas Gift Few months back I was depressed, my son was lost and we were thinking about the worst case scenario. My son, a good student at school, got his SAT scores back and it was at best average. With just one more chance at bettering his scores I was searching for a good tutor desperately. A friend suggested we try AJ Tutoring. My son was assigned David Griswold and he came home to tutor my son. He turned out to be nothing less than a God sent gift to us. He changed our life. Just after a couple of classes itself my son was able to feel the difference....And me too. His scores gradually increased, he developed confidence, he was relaxed and he was actually looking forward to the actual SAT exam. Not surprisingly he scored in the top percentile. David didn't just give him the lessons. He actually analyzed my son's strengths and weaknesses, customized a schedule and a plan of action and continuously encouraged my son to find ways to improve. He proved great at teaching him the key concepts, strategies and how to approach a question. I also noticed that my sons school grades improved. We rehired him for the subject SAT and hope to engage him to guide our second child. AJ Tutoring and especially David did turn out to be an early Christmas gift.....My son already got a confirmed early decision admission in CA. AJ Tutoring is highly recommended. read more

Both my daughters have worked with Ben Coupland at AJ Tutoring and could not have been more pleased with the work he has done with our girls. My younger daughter has been doing math 1/1 with Ben for a year and a half and will continue for Math 3 next year. Ben is patient, caring and great at connecting with my daughter and keeping her engaged and on task. In the past her attitude toward math was negative and her performance worse. Ben has really helped turn things around for her and she is thriving. Ben helped my older daughter, who has a reading disability, with SAT prep and her practice scores went up by a very large margin. While she was never able to take the SAT because of the pandemic, she feels strongly that her work with Ben helped improve her reading skills so that she is able to handle very dense reading material at the college level. She is still using the skills that Ben taught her. I really believe Ben would be a great tutor for any child. read more

As I have a number of friends in the Peninsula and San Mateo/Burlingame area, I had heard about AJ Tutoring quite some time ago. Their reputation for hiring wonderful counselors and providing great customer service was well-known. I had always hoped that they would open an office in the East Bay and was thrilled when they opened in Lafayette last year. I cannot recommend more highly David Griswold (ACT, SAT, and Math Subject Test) and Ben Coupland (Math and Physics academic tutoring). I have referred several other families to them and all the feedback that I receive is excellent. Not only is their tutoring and support exceptional, but their customer service and follow up is unparalleled. They are constantly communicating with families to keep them abreast of the process and updating on students' progress. They do this through phone calls, e-mails, and even hand-written notes. Their services are also quite flexible, offering in-office or in-home tutoring. read more

I am very pleased with AJ Tutoring for SAT prep. I had two older kids do other test preps - group setting - with mediocre results. The third time around I decided to try one-on-one tutoring with AJ. With smashing results! Not cheap, however. I can't say whether it was the tutor's style and the match to my child's learning style or if AJ has a great format in their process. My guess is it is a combo of both. About five individual practice tests were taken interspersed with one-on-one time going over strategy and reviewing the errors made on the previous practice test. From an initial pre-PSAT to the real SAT improvement was 190 points! Toward the end there was steady improvement on each subsequent practice test. Yes, it was time consuming but it worked for my child. So hats off to AJ tutoring. This chapter is now closed! I highly recommend AJ if your kid is willing to put in the time it takes. read more

From the moment I sent a request for tutoring services for my 4th grade daughter, the folks at AJ tutoring have been very easy to work with. Their response time to my request was within a few hours. I spoke to the Director David Massey. We discussed what areas our daughter needed help in, her personality type, and her learning style. He enthusiastically recommended Xana and explained how their services work, including a request to switch to a different tutor if their personality styles are different. Turns out his recommendation was SPOT ON. Xana and my daughter instantly clicked. Now my daughter genuinely looks forward to her meetings with Xana because their sessions are engaging and fun. Xana has been amazing in supporting our daughter's learning that she is gaining confidence at school and has matured academically and socially since the beginning of the school year. read more

Bharti Kapoor at AJ Tutoring has been a huge help to my daughter in both Math Analysis and Physics this year. Bharti has been there to walk her through her coursework and make sure she understands what she's doing. In the process, my daughter's confidence has visibly grown, which is the most important takeaway from this as she finishes her senior year and goes to college in the fall. Bharti is very enthusiastic and enjoys what she does, she brings that enthusiasm and energy into her sessions with my daughter. She has been available on short notice for some last-minute test prep sessions, and she has even done some late evening sessions to accommodate my daughter's work schedule. Thank you Bharti for all your hard work and your energy, my daughter's confidence has grown and she believes that she can do math, this was not the case a couple years ago! read more

I highly recommend Derrick Okubo for math tutoring. My 17-year-old daughter was really struggling mid-first semester but ended the school year with an "A", a love of math, and newly found confidence in her academic performance. She was very resistant to going to her first tutoring session - so I didn't correct her when she complained that it was going to be a "whole hour" on her Saturday (it's actually an hour and a half). I braced myself for a barrage of complaints when she finished - but, not so! She came out smiling and effusively describing how awesome Derrick was and how happy she was that she understood her homework. Over the past 6 months, she has never wanted to miss a weekly tutoring session with Derrick and has canceled social plans (on her own) to go. I don't know what magic Derrick is performing - but am so grateful for his help. read more

AJ Tutoring has been such a reassuring partner during the pandemic as we navigated learning loss and our middle schooler falling behind because of distance learning and teacher shortages. Michele assessed our son's level and quickly developed a plan for addressing the math skills he needed to make up for lost time, prepare for high school placement tests, and even to get ahead of where he would be without tutoring. She is encouraging and gives him just the right level of challenge. I get relevant feedback from her so that I know my son is making progress. She even went out of her way to support us by writing him a recommendation for high school, which was above and beyond. Thank you Michele, and thank you AJ Tutoring! read more

AJ Tutoring has been an amazing resource for my son. His ACT score rose by leaps and bounds from his initial pre-ACT results and exceeded all expectations. It was the direct result of the incredible guidance he received from his tutor, who was knowledgeable, friendly, and extraordinarily clear in approach. My son walked into the test room knowing exactly what he needed to accomplish because of the strategy he developed with his tutor. As a bonus, my son's study skills have improved as well! In addition, communication and support from everyone at AJ was phenomenal. We were in constant contact with not only his tutor but also the director and even the regional director! read more

We have worked closely with David Griswold at AJ Tutoring for several years. During this time, he provided our teens with SAT/ACT prep. Having worked with numerous tutors and teachers over the years, we would have to say that David is by far the very best. He is professional, warm and engaging. He is smart and skilled at helping others understand the concepts and strategies. He interacts well with teens, helping them learn as well as build their confidence. He is always prompt and super efficient with the time spent together. We have been very pleased with all of the support that David has provided, enabling our kids to do their best. Thank you, David! read more

I had Rhi Alyxander as my tutor for the ACT, and she taught me many useful strategies that helped improve both my accuracy and speed. As someone with a lot of extracurriculars, the homework is VERY manageable and also effective in solidifying these strategies. Also, Rhi super friendly and open-minded, which made me feel free to ask any questions on my mind and definitely enhanced my learning experience (she even came to my musical performance!). In the end, my ACT composite score improved by 4 points in comparison to my first practice test, and my parents and I were quite frankly overjoyed. I'm very grateful and highly recommend her tutoring services! read more

AJ tutoring has been so great to me this school year. I am currently a 10th Grader who was struggling with English and articulating my thoughts throughout most of the year. My previous English tutor was wonderful, but had sadly resigned. So, when AJ tutoring managed to provide another amazing tutor who could adapt in order to make lessons effective yet engaging, I was pleasantly surprised! Having such wonderful tutor's opinions and guidance on topics spanning from Korean War essays to applications for robotics labs and summer programs has really helped me grow as a writer and as a person. Thank you so much Xana!!! read more

this is my very first review ( but I have been surfing Yelp over 5 years) let's put this way: if you look for some true professional tutoring service( outstanding truthworth service!) go to the site and David is the best of all--his unique approach and sharp instinct is great) I was expect my daughter SAT score around 1460 area but turned out 1535!!! great service and he earned every penny of the tutoring rate ( come from one old-fashioned Asian American real experience) PS. we used David for 1. SAT then 2, SAT subject tests and will use he as ACT test on the Auguest charlie Chao read more

Yoni Cooperman tutored my son for AP Environmental Science. My son took the course outside of schol curriculum (self study), and Yoni was instrumental in helping him get that last push (taking practice tests, understanding concepts, tips and tricks of taking the test, not to mention benefiting from Yoni's immense subject matter expertise on the subject). As a parent, I found Yoni incredibly organized, on point with scheduling classes, flexible with the many changes we requested, and very responsive with his communication. It was a pleasure for both my son and I to work with Yoni. read more

Our experience with AJ Tutoring has been extremely positive. David did an excellent job explaining the process, costs and expectations of working with them. He then assigned a great tutor for our daughter - Michele. She was VERY professional and communicative. She showed up on time and got down to business for all of their tutoring sessions. Our daughter had some varying results on practice tests and worked through things with Michele to achieve her highest score ever on the actual ACT this February! We couldn't be happier and will use AJ for further test prep for sure. read more

I cannot say enough about the positive experience we have had working with AJ Tutoring. I contacted AJ Tutoring to work with my daughters on ACT prep and our tutor David was the absolute best! His positive attitude and patient instruction made a stressful process much less so! Through David's thorough and personalized approach, my girls saw improvement each week and gained tremendous confidence. Both of them had a 5 point increase in their test score after working with David!!! I highly recommend AJ Tutoring to anyone looking for an ACT/SAT tutor. read more

I had a wonderful experience with Maggie Maser at AJ Tutoring in preparation for the ACT. Maggie was thorough, supportful, and very helpful throughout the process of preparing for the ACT. I really appreciated how she would take different approaches to teach me a concept if one of them wasn't really sticking. Further, AJ Tutoring as a whole had really good resources that helped me use different strategies for different parts of the test. The company is organized and takes a strong approach to test preparation. I would give them six stars if I could! read more

Wow!! I love AJ Tutoring so so much and all of the tutors that I have had have been super helpful!! Megan Spears has been my favorite tutor and she always brings a super positive attitude and connects what I am learning to real world experiences or things I can relate to. She is also super funny and makes the sessions feel like a really safe space. In general, I have learned and improved so much with the help of AJ and would definitely recommend! read more

I just finished my final project for AP French, a presentation on a francophone country (Belgium), and I got a full score thanks to Paige! I'd originally prepared a script for my presentation, but right before I was about to present, I found out that it wasn't allowed. I had to improvise and give an impromptu talk, so the practice that I had with her really came in handy! I seriously can't thank Paige enough for her help over the past few months. read more