I had three sessions for SAT prep at Educational Breakthroughs before I decided that was enough for me. Deb (the owner), is extremely unorganized and unprofessional.
The second session I had started 30 minutes past the scheduled time. She ran over with the student scheduled before me, which I understand happens from time to time. What I don't understand is why she then had a 10 minute conversation with the mother of this student about vacation plans. Then when the session finally got started around 20 minutes later than planned I expected to dive right into the practice tests I had completed. Instead, she began telling me about how stressful her life was at the moment. A lot of the information she told me was extremely personal and I was not expecting to hear her life story while PAYING for an SAT prep session. When a certain issue in her life came up she asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said no. Then she said "Boys are no good anyways. It's best to stay away from them. They'll only mess your life up". She then proceeded to question me about my parents and if they were together or not. Note that this was my second session and at no point in time did I make an attempt to continue this conversation. My session ended up starting around 7:30. About 40 minutes later I yawned and apologized. She asked me if I was tired and I said "A little bit, but I'm okay", she then essentially told me that it was pointless for me to stay if I was tired and that I should text me mom to come get me. I insisted that I would be able to make it through the remainder of the session but she held firm in her belief that I would accomplish nothing that night and it was better to reschedule. We went over to her desk and she told me she was going to charge me for the full 90 minute session. Despite the fact that I had only had about 40 minutes of "instruction" with her I was somehow supposed to pay for the full 90. The word instruction is used lightly considering how all she did with me was read straight out of my SAT prep book. She argued that normally she still charges people who cancel their session. This confused me because she had been the one telling me to leave in the first place. She was not only unprofessional, but she made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
My third and final session was with the male college student. He was on time and very friendly, but unfortunately friendly doesn't make you a good tutor. We focused on math SAT prep the entire time which I had asked to do. We began to go over the questions I had missed on the practice test and he would write them out on a white board and solve them step by step. I'm not exaggerating when I say that EVERY answer he found was incorrect. He was doing these problems by himself on a whiteboard and somehow none of the answer choices ever matched up the first time he tried to explain them to me. This only further confused me about the topics I already didn't understand. It felt like the blind was trying to lead the blind.
If you're looking for a place to waste your money then definitely go to Educational Breakthroughs!! Personally, I think anybody would get a better education by reading an SAT prep book and using Google if they have questions. A textbook also won't ask invasive questions or be any of the following: unprofessional, disorganized or oblivious. read more
