My son has been going to Alpha College Prep for almost 2 years utilizing chemistry and math…read moretutoring with Robert, SAT test prep with Taylor and now college essay writing with Jennifer. Both of us have been quite happy with the tutors and staff at Alpha. Academically, my son has raised his gpa, test scores and equally important, learned the subject matter. The tutors understand how to work with teenagers and my son feels more confident in the subject areas after his tutoring sessions. Lastly, their rates are reasonable and hours are flexible to suit the needs of students. We've been to other tutoring centers in Berkeley and El Cerrito, but none of them has produced as great a result as Alpha.

During my senior year of high school, I went to Alpha College Prep to seek help with my college…read moreapps and help with the overall process that can be very overwhelming. I worked with Jennifer, who was absolutely wonderful, and she managed to help me write my college apps that got me into top universities like UC Berkeley, Northeastern, and UCLA. With this, I also got scholarships from other universities I applied to and had an overall amazing college application experience. She helped me facilitate and better explain my ideas on paper which helped a lot. Also, before the SATs got cancelled, I used the Alpha College Prep to mainly help with the math portion of the SAT and after the first session my score improved by 50 points. I would recommend Alpha College Prep for students who are looking for some guidance during the college admission process or looking for overall tutoring in any area. I will be a freshman at UC Berkeley this fall and thank Alpha College Prep for helping me write and formulate strong essays as I couldn't have done it without them.

Benji has been tutoring my daughters for a few years now. He's covered everything from Math 1 to AP…read moreStatistics (with a little bit of Spanish thrown in for good measure). I cannot recommend him enough. He explains things in a way that just makes them click. He is knowledgeable, thorough, and just fun to be around. Whether it's for ongoing tutoring or test preparation, if you have a student that needs some extra guidance you cannot go wrong with Benji. He's the best!

I highly recommend working with Benji for your tutoring needs. I recently worked with him for…read moresupport with a college level math class. I had not taken a math class since high school so I did not feel very confident in my ability and my skills. Benji not only helped me understand complex concepts clearly which resulted in my doing well in the course but he also helped me gain confidence in my ability to do well and understand math concepts that typically felt intimidating to me. Benji also brings a kind and patient energy to all the sessions and incorporates humor, making working with him very enjoyable.

We have been so blessed to work with Jayne. I have a fifth grade daughter, who has struggled with…read moremath for the past several years and we have worked with a handful of tutors-each of them have been great-but I would say, Jayne is truly exceptional. She has a very natural and sincere rapport with my daughter, which has helped to reduce much of the frustration and anxiety that can contribute to her math struggles. I believe that her approach has allowed my daughter to cultivate more optimism and confidence in her abilities and capacity.

Jayne has been my son's tutor for almost a year, and the progress he's made has been amazing. When…read morehe started kindergarten, he wasn't reading yet and now he's reading confidently, ahead in phonics, and even starting on math! Jayne is patient, kind, and truly talented. With her background in education, she's also given me great advice and insight as a parent. I really think having a tutor is one of the best decisions we've made, with all the hoops kids have to jump through at school, having such a seasoned tutor like Jayne gives them a real head start. We're so grateful for her!

I found myself a million years out of school when I decided to apply to grad school. I didn't know…read morewhere to start with any of it, least of all my essays. Like most of life's decisions, I turned to Yelp for guidance and found Carla. Carla's pricey (fear not, she offers a sliding scale) so it's good she didn't waste time mincing words or coddling. She consistently went the extra mile to ground me in what was being asked of each essay. She provided me with great resources and made thoughtful edits. Though meticulously reviewed, my drafts were always sent back quickly. Most importantly, her editing never compromised my voice, style or story. I highly recommend Carla to applicants! ***when reading reviews I always hoped the reviewers would add if they got into their school of choice. I'm happy to report I did!! :) :) Thank you, Carla!

I'm the parent of a student who worked with Carla recently, during the college application process…read more My son had many, many ideas for his common app and supplementals, but had a hard time putting into words what he wanted to convey. Carla helped him find his voice through her kind coaching and partnership with him. He looked forward to meeting with her, and Carla put him in the driver's seat, had him look within, and he was able to put into paper his thoughts clearly and with impact. As parents, we couldn't be happier with Carla's results. We knew he was in great hands. We hope our son carries his lessons from Carla forward to college.

1. Josh is a math guru! It probably has something to do with his fancy Yale architecture and Cal…read moreengineering degrees combined with his experience working with middle school and high school math students. Thanks to his test-taking strategies and math tips and tricks, I feel prepared and confident to sit for the GMAT exam in a couple weeks. 2. Although a bit embarrassing to admit, Josh's experience teaching high school math really came in handy. He is patient and has a clear way of explaining the material to a lug like me. 3. He is a great motivator. He went above and beyond just tutoring math by pushing me when I needed that extra kick and even encouraging me to apply to Top 10 schools. Josh could be a life coach! 4. He works with your schedule and his rates are very competitive. Josh is a godsend! Highly recommended!

From the owner: I am interested in working with all age levels and math subject matters up through pre-calculus, as…read morewell as SAT, ACT, GRE and GMAT (math sections) tutoring. I'm a former engineer who is now in my third year working as a public school math teacher. We can work on strengthening computational foundations (building a solid core of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), as well as developing a comfort with mathematical notation and equation writing. I will work to develop a "math sense" in your child. Additionally, I can help with enrichment activities for more advanced students looking to take their classwork a little bit deeper. My rate is $70/hour, I live in north Berkeley, and I am available to travel in the East Bay. I will happily travel to your house, or another location of your choice (library, coffee shop, etc.) If you are interested, please let me know your tutoring needs (such as grade level, subject matter) and location. I look forward to hearing from you.

When it comes to virtual teaching, Wes Carroll is brilliant. In fact, he is so helpful that even…read moreother educators continue to benefit from his tutelage. As a teacher, Wes knows his audience and is always enthusiastic about the subject matter. In addition, he not only offers well-organized online courses but also video-conference tutoring. As one who has witnessed one of Wes's virtual sessions, I have seen how his expertise with technology can reach multiple students and help them remotely.

We first heard of Wes through his math puzzle podcast, where we found out that he was also a math…read moretutor. That was a stroke of luck, since at the time we were looking for a way to extend our daughter's strong interest in math while shoring up her understanding in a few areas. I think it can be challenging to work with kids who are already doing well through natural ability but who might have further potential, because it can be difficult to know how to get them to go farther than they're already going. Wes has been an excellent guide in this regard in a number of ways. He's been working with our daughter for about nine months, helping her with self-study for acceleration in her school curriculum as well as exposing her to more advanced concepts and problems. He's approached our daughter on her own terms, identifying areas of strength and weakness, and tailoring his approach as he went along to fit her needs and potential. He's worked with her on the standard curriculum, but has also challenged her to go beyond it, putting her schoolwork in a broader context and giving her more insight into creative mathematical thinking by working on advanced math competition problems. In addition to working on raw math and problem-solving skills, he's also started to work on giving her tools and techniques for getting farther on her own, trying to figure out how to help her improve her own general learning processes. Besides being very strong at math, Wes is smart, thoughtful, efficient, encouraging, clear and precise in communication, and very pleasant to work with. He's very good at coming at a problem or concept from multiple directions to see what will work for our daughter. He's also very welcoming of parent involvement, and I've enjoyed learning from him too when I have the time to sit in on sessions. I'm looking forward to seeing how far my daughter can go as she continues to work with Wes.

I highly recommend Alice Chen as a college admissions consultant. We met Alice when my son was in…read more10th grade. When we first met her, we knew she was the right person to help our son with his college application. She planned everything ahead and kept my son on track with all the application processes. She was always creative and shared new ideas from different aspects of the applications. She was tireless in her enthusiasm and generous with her time, especially during the holiday season. She gave my son the most considerable support. The competition is fierce for Asian male engineering students, and she helped my son create the strongest application possible. My son has already been accepted into an Ivy League university and another Top 10 University. She is an outstanding mentor - she works not just on the essay but on developing the potential of each of her students.

I am very grateful to have worked with Alice throughout the college application process!…read more Before I met Alice, I felt very unsure and stressed with deadlines, having gone through many different ideas/drafts for my essays. By asking specific questions and providing prompts for thinking, she helped bring my writing to life. In addition to providing advice/direction, she also always eased my stress and was a pleasure to talk with. With Alice's feedback, I was able present my best self to my colleges, helping me get accepted into my top choice school early.

Maca is brilliant, a gifted natural teacher. She is able to engage my 2 wild boys in 45min lessons…read moretwice a week, and they love her! She makes Spanish fun and rewarding, AND she holds them to high standards of grammatical correctness, pronunciation, and expanding vocabulary. I'm forever grateful and in admiration of Maca's skill.

Maca has greatly improved our 10 year olds Spanish. We were in Mexico recently and our daughter was…read moreable to speak and understand Spanish so much better than before we found Maca. I highly recommend her!

Tilden Prep has been transformative for our son, who's twice exceptional. It offers greater depth…read moreand breadth of curriculum and more highly educated staff than its competitors, like Fusion Academy. For example, Tilden offers Multivariable Calculus and Linear Algebra. While such courses are offered at a community college, having the option to learn 1:1 is critical in giving a student a more solid foundation before entering a 4-year college. At the same time, the rates make more sense than Fusion Academy, which is on a trimester system and 30% more. Tilden is run like a school rather than a corporation. It's more pure to its cause. Good job Tilden. Keep up the good work!

Our son had a great experience at Tilden. He is very bright but struggled to organize his thoughts…read moreand get them down on paper. We enrolled him in English 9 at Tilden and had him take the rest of his classes in his public high school. His Tilden teacher, Dave Locey, helped him learn the steps of writing and feel good about his progress and talents. He said Mr. Locey was the best teacher he'd had :). He wanted to get ahead in math (because the common core track forced him to take math slowly with a lot of boring repetition) so we enrolled him in Geometry through Tilden over the summer. Even though he could have taken Geometry online for less money, we felt the one-on-one instruction and monitored pacing and instruction helped him stay on track and thus made it more likely he'd succeed. He got through the course very quickly and is now starting Algebra 2 at his HS so he'll be able to take Calculus before he graduates. His Tilden math teacher was also very knowledgeable and positive.