Went here for SAT prep for two months last year and got the score I wanted. I recommend!read more

After estimated and interviewed with a few pretty expensive high-profile college admission…read moreconsultation companies on both west and east coasts, we decided to go with the B2A in Austin, hoping that face-to-face in-person touch could help my younger son, P, go through the strenuous process of applying for colleges. There were hiccups on the road but the result turns out terrific. P has been early admitted by his dreamed school. We started to work with B2A in late June due to P's summer camp schedule, and the counselor initially working with us found another opportunity and would leave B2A in 3 weeks. Thankfully, after we informed Emily of the situation, she quickly assigned André to work with P. We couldn't be more grateful for this transition. André has helped P develop essay topics most relevant and resonant to his personal experience and kept encouraging him to be himself. P is strong academically but not much a leader type kid. His essay is touching but by far inspirational. P had disagreement with the head counselor after final-review, and after some back and forth email exchange and amendment, decided to submit without the head counselor's final endorsement by the end of October. Now we look back, it would be helpful if we had started to work with B2A weeks earlier in June. Hope our experience with B2A could benefit other incoming seniors.

Dr. Liz Ghini is a rock star instructor! U of Chicago PhD, bachelor's in math from Stanford, 99th…read morepercentile test taker for both GRE and GMAT ... and yet she's humble and friendly! Very patient instruction, the course materials are as thorough it gets, and online materials are very useful as well. If you want to crack the 700s on your verbal and quant sections of the GRE, go with Manhattan. They will be offering "New GRE" courses this summer and they also offer online options if you can't attend class in-person. The GMAT course is also excellent. HOT TIP: use promo code ATXGRE for $100 off enrollment.

I agree with Erik's review. Hastings Wyman was an excellent instructor. He was extremely…read moreenthusiastic, helpful, and entertaining. The course is very interactive, and Hastings tried to get everybody involved to solve problems together. Although this course is one of the most expensive I've seen, I think it's worth it. Not only do you receive a ridiculously large amount of study materials, you have access to Manhattan GMAT's online resources. Their online student system is very user-friendly, and they are extremely quick to respond to inquiries. I would definitely recommend this prep course to students who are serious about taking the GMAT and enrolling in business school.

Ann Connally is a Godsend to our family. I will spare you all the details of our 3 year learning…read moredifferences saga ,but in short, Ann was the third professional to evaluate our daughter in a 3 year period. I will also add she is the only professional who actually gave us accurate and helpful information.Ann has the amazing ability to pinpoint the exact learning "breakdown" in your child. Once she identifies the areas that need work,she will design an individualized therapy program for your child's specific needs. There is a reason it's called Austin Learning Solutions, she offers brilliant solutions!!! As parents isn't that what we all want??My child's confidence has soared,and she has truly been transformed under Ann's guidance. Book your evaluation today!!

My husband and I cannot say enough positive things about Ann. Our son struggled with learning to…read moreread in Kindergarten. Learning sight words was particularly problematic for him as was identifying rhyming words and following multi-step directions. I am a former teacher, and my bag of tricks was not helping him. Ann evaluated our son in March of his Kinder year and quickly identified fundamental areas that we needed to address. We also began a Listening program using sound therapy to target sensory motor issues. Ann is the ultimate professional, but she is also a great motivator and coach. Although my son had started to shut down at school and with us at home, he was willing to work for Ann. She is just the right combination of no-nonsense and positive encouragement. She knows her stuff. I immediately felt that my son was safe in her hands and that our money was well spent. As a parent, I learned so much from watching Ann work with my son, and she gave me the confidence to implement what she was doing with my son at home. My son worked with Ann throughout the summer after his Kinder year on reading (in addition to doing a sound therapy program). The progress he has made with reading is truly remarkable, and I cry when I think about the difference in my boy in less than a year. We were already beginning to hear him make comments that he wasn't smart and that reading was too hard for him. Under Ann's guidance and instruction, our son's confidence has soared. Not only is he reading, but he views himself as a capable learner and reader -- HUGE!!

After 3 private lessons with Christian, my daughter's ACT English and Reading scores went up 8…read morepoints! She is now eligible to get into almost every school in the State of Texas and eligible for scholarships. She is retaking the SAT and ACT again on August 25 and September 8 and hopefully she will get higher scores again. I would love to for you to experience the same benefit for your student. If you sign up for classes or private lessons with Love the SAT, your student will receive a private lesson free, worth $150, and so will my daughter. Please call them and tell them Donna Nielsen referred you.

My daughter took an ACT class with Christian and then took three 1:1 sessions with him in the two…read moreweeks prior to the exam. Her ACT score increased from a 29 to a 34. Can't beat that! We are both delighted. The office is easy to find off Spicewood Springs. It is definitely not a beautiful space, but it's functional and well worth the investment. Parents, if you have to drive your kids, there are lots of other places very close by where you can wait or get in a quick grocery run to Randalls.

The LSAT was a true beast for me. It was so very hard. I was sitting at a 165. After working with…read moreRachel for half a year while working full time, I got a 173 on the real thing. I give Rachel a lot of credit for that. If you're like me, you take an online LSAT course, read several LSAT prep books, take a bunch of practice tests, then plateau in the low-160s. The LSAT did not come intuitively for me, and as all LSAT takers know, one question may translate to one or maybe even two points. So, if someone can give you a tip to help you get an additional question right, that literally translates to an extra point on the test. Below are several tips Rachel gave me specifically for what I struggled with: 1. A necessary assumption question's answer may also be a sufficient assumption; don't get confused. 2. For strengthening questions, Imagine you're giving a PowerPoint presentation trying to convince your audience of something. 3. Using shapes is a powerful method for attacking certain logic games. 4. Try doing LR questions backwards. For some people (like me), the psychological benefit of doing easier and easier questions as you move along may help. 5. For splitting game boards in LG, split them using rules that form the biggest "blocks". 6. For some people (like me), diagramming frequently in LR actually slows you down way too much. Rachel pointed that out to me; I never would've realized it. I never thought doing away with diagramming would actually increase my speed and accuracy. I imagine Rachel would give you different tips based on your specific weaknesses. After all, the tips above were provided to me based on my particular weaknesses she observed. Importantly, the LSAT is already a struggle, and you don't need a tutor who's just there to make some money on the side. Rachel is not like that. She shows up eager to help more than anything else. Thanks a lot Rachel; I owe you one!

Rachel is pretty unique compared to most other tutors/prep companies. When I worked with her, it…read morewas the first time that I was taught completely different (and more intuitive) ways of studying that weren't just derivatives of powerscore. All of the tutors that I discussed with before had their individual methods, but at the end of the day they were all just repackaged techniques developed by the big companies (like powerscore, manhattan prep, etc.) The thing about Rachel is that she doesn't fight the qualities that make an individual student unique; she embraces them and develops strategies that consider the quirks of a student & turns them into an advantage. For instance, when I was just starting out with Rachel my studying habits were all over the place. In particular, I had a tendency to hyper-focus on mundane/unimportant parts of the text. To combat this, Rachel didn't just tell me to "stop doing that"(which is typically what everyone else says); rather she worked with my bad habit and turned it into an advantage. She worked with me to utilize hyper-focusing for speeding up my processes with the easier material while also helping me form strategies to redirect this focus when things go south, which are all based on a very simple framework of attacking questions. I didn't have a very solid strategy for studying reading comprehension before, but now I actually have something that works for me that isn't one of the cookie cutter methods that most companies teach. I've been able to identify and break many bad habits, as well as learn to use my ADHD specific "powers" to their advantage rather than detriment. I honestly think I would have plateaued at 165 if it wasn't for her, her pin-point accuracy for detecting my problems were unreal. I've always been wary of tutors as a self-studier, but Rachel is just built different.

Not to be confused with The Prince Revue, which is an all-male strip show featuring the likes of…read moreme, Tatum and McConaughey, and we dance to When Doves Cry and Kiss and all sorts of other Princely Prince songs. TAFKAPFTW. Who doesn't love the Princeton Review? But it's not actually based in Princeton apparently? Or at least maybe for this region, it's based right here in this mall, just seconds from UT campus. Pretty interesting. Pretty cool actually since it's basically on campus. It closes earlier than the rest of them though so most of the times I've been here I haven't been able to check it out. Anyway it's more Barbie's thing than mine because she went to the Ivy League and is actually proud of it, whereas I went to Oxford and am indifferent to it at best.

Update 5/26/11: my daughter just finished her first year at a top Ivy League university. I…read moreguarantee the Princeton Review, which upped her score considerably, was a big part of her getting into a class with a 9% acceptance rate. Not to mention, the university offered her super financial aid, so it ended up being very, very affordable. Our investment in the PR course ended up paying off in a huge way. Original review from Feb 2010: My kid took the SAT prep course, and it made a substantial difference in her score. I'd bought several test prep books that helped a little, but there is something about the in-person experience that really makes the info sink in, so this is absolutely worth the time and effort. It's expensive, so look online for promotional codes which can save some money. It does involve homework, so be sure to budget time appropriately. The only caveat is their system for the essay - though she's a particularly skilled writer, she followed the PR instructions to the letter for this test section (instead of doing her usual thing) - and it actually cost her points. If we did it again, I'd tell her to ignore them on the essay bits but pay close attention for the rest. Overall, we enthusiastically recommend Princeton Review.

I've hired a few other tutors before hiring Planting Seeds with Chris. My son has always been…read morechallenging in wanting to study and complete his homework. His English grades have mostly been close to failing. However, Chris has found a way to motivate him and got him on track to put some effort in. Chris is the most organized, encouraging, and well rounded tutor I've hired for my son. Because of this, my son's study habits and grades have significantly improved. Currently he is making an A in English and I'm grateful to have hired Chris to help.

Prior to Planting Seeds Tutoring & Test Prep, my younger brother struggled with reading. Despite…read moretrying out several methods, nothing seemed to work for him as his teacher informed me that he would only answer 2 out of 38 questions correctly during his mock STAAR reading tests. During that time, he would take up the whole day whereas everyone else completed their assessments within 4 hours. Fortunately, my mother and I found Planting Seeds Tutoring & Test Prep on Thumbstack. Chris was very quick at responding back to my emails. Within a few days, he introduced us to India. She served as my younger brother's tutor for a month up until the day before the actual STAAR reading test. Within the first meeting, she assessed my brother and determined how many hours per week he required to gain maximum help. During the tutoring sessions, she tried her very best to make it fun and interactive for my brother to learn new reading and writing skills. She also communicated with the teacher in order to accommodate her lessons with his reading performance in school. Within the third week, he successfully answered 27 out of 38 questions correctly during another mock STAAR reading test. While going over his exam, I noticed all the analytical notes my brother took alongside each reading passage. He then proceeded to tell me how they greatly helped him answer the more difficult questions. Overall, there were several aspects that I greatly liked about Planting Seeds Tutoring & Test Prep: 1. Chris informed my mother and I about the financial matters behind their services prior to the first session with India 2. India always informed me whenever she was running late and always made up by staying in a few minutes extra 3. Compared to the more expensive tutoring services in Houston, their prices made it easier for my mother to afford additional tutoring sessions with India 4. My mother and I found it very convenient that they offer at-home tutoring sessions. India provided consistent tutoring sessions that worked well around our schedules 5. India usually supplied additional homework that further helped my brother gain reading tactics necessary to pass the STAAR test 6. Everyone from Planting Seeds Tutoring & Test Prep are very professional and courteous. Even though we are not currently utilizing their services, they are more than willing to help out my brother during the remainder of the school year and beyond! We are currently anticipating my brother's actual STAAR reading results from TEA. We're truly hoping their services aided my brother in attaining a passing grade!