Frequently Asked Questions

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When should my junior take the ACT and/or SAT?

Students usually take the ACT and/or SAT exam two to three times and try to be done with it completely by mid-fall of their senior year at the latest. Many prefer to be done no later than June at the end of their junior year, though, so that they can turn the page and begin working on their personal statements, essays, and applications. A lot of colleges and universities have early decision deadlines of November 1st or December 1st, so you would rather not have to submit an incomplete application that shows a score still pending from a last-ditch effort in October of the senior year. When you factor in sports, clubs, activities, part-time jobs, AP/ACC courses, and so on, the junior year becomes very full, very quickly. Having a plan in place for your standardized tests ahead of time can help smooth out a few wrinkles that might otherwise turn into huge hurdles.

Uh-oh! My child is a senior! WHat should I do?

Don’t panic! Please call our office at 314-344-9010 to discuss how we can be of help.

What is the difference between strategy-based test prep and content-based test preparation?

How does private tutoring compare to a course in a classroom setting, and how do I tell the difference between test prep companies in terms of what they offer versus what they charge?

Just over 4 points on the ACT (or not even 200 points on the SAT)? That’s not very much, is it?

Okay, you’ve convinced me that 4 points would be great. How does KEG’s 4+ point improvement compare to other test prep companies?

How do we register for the ACT or sat?

I still don’t know what is the right thing to do for my student. Can you help?

There are two different schools of thought when it comes to preparing for standardized tests. The first and most common is content-driven prep, which is designed to review foundational principles of the subjects that constitute the ACT and/or SAT exams. Content-based test prep can be very helpful, especially if your student has struggled a bit with any of the subjects included on the test. Many students find content-based test preparation to be a positive experience overall, even if it does not necessarily move the needle on their ACT or SAT score, but there are two limiting factors inherent. First, if your student wrestled to master one or more of those foundational concepts the first time around, a short review may not be enough. Even if there are only a couple of basic grammar or mathematical principles that present a bit of trouble, the pace of content-driven prep seems to be much too fast for concepts not quite grasped the first time and way too slow when plodding through those concepts which are already well-known by your student. Secondly, if your son or daughter mastered all of the basic principles just fine, has the A in the class to prove it, but is now missing 15% or more of the questions on an ACT, a content review will usually do little to bridge that gap. It is not uncommon for students to begin content-driven prep with the best of intentions but eventually fade away from it or drop out altogether, labeling the pace of the class or the tutor either too fast or too boring – or both! – but rarely do they consider it just right.

The second school of thought when it comes to test preparation is the method which breaks down the standardized tests into their pedagogical goals, analyzes their structure, and develops strategies for either removing or hurdling the pacing roadblocks built into the question order within each section of the test. This approach is called strategy-based test prep. Dr. Kleitz did not invent strategy-based test prep, but he is the brain trust behind a number of new and different strategies for both the ACT and the SAT. In addition, he has developed specific and unique tactics so that, while the students are practicing his strategies, he (and all of our tutors, who use Dr. Kleitz’s approaches to standardized tests) can help address content weaknesses and deficiencies as much as possible within the time available to them. The idea is to combine essential aspects of content-driven prep – but only on an as needed basis – with what we believe are the absolute best strategies, techniques, methodologies, and tactics necessary for success on these tests.

When Dr. Kleitz or any of the Kleitz Education Group tutors prepare an individual student for an ACT exam, students usually work one-on-one with their tutor for somewhere in the range of 14 to 18 hours, do 2-3 hours of homework for every hour of tutoring, and see an average score improvement of roughly 4.5 points over two administrations of the ACT exam. We see a similar movement with the SAT: Students meet with their tutor for 12-15 hours, have 2-3 hours of homework after each appointment, and average a score improvement of approximately 190 points over a couple administrations of the exam.

Our private test prep tutors meet with only one student at a time, and all of them cover all areas of the applicable exam (Verbal and Math for the SAT; English, Math, Reading, and Science, as well as the Writing section, in the rare cases when it is requested or required, for the ACT). About 50 minutes of the student’s hour with the tutor will be interactive, with the tutor reviewing the student’s homework from last time, introducing and explaining new strategies, addressing content weaknesses or deficiencies, and the student both asking and answering questions, analyzing misses, highlighting successes, etc. There is almost always a stretch of time, maybe 5-10 minutes, when the tutors ask students to work through a few sample problems to demonstrate that the session’s new strategy or strategies are completely understood before going off to do the homework at home on their own time (and not on your dime).

KEG does not have contracts or tutoring packages for one-on-one tutoring – families pay only for the time that their students actually need and use. The only exception to this is if a student does not show up for a scheduled appointment or cancels or reschedules without 24 hours’ notice, for which they will be charged. Our goal is to have your child complete the tutoring in as few hours as possible so that he or she peaks on test day, not three weeks early and then starts to burn out. This may mean that a student and tutor end up agreeing to cancel a scheduled session or two, perhaps, or requesting that a time may be found in order to add another or session or two in an effort to align the tutoring more closely with the anticipated test date.

Our private tutoring rates are dependent upon a tutor’s years of experience with our company, but they begin at $100/hour and can go up to $275/hour. Other private tutoring options for test prep here in St. Louis tend to run from $30/hour for content-only and/or undergrad tutors, with most companies and independent tutors falling in the $75-$175/hour category, but it can creep up to $450/hour with some of the bigger franchises. Our tutors are professionals in their own right and in a variety of areas – lawyers, doctors, professors, and engineers, just to name a few.

When ACT preparation is done in the smaller group or classroom setting by our KEG tutors, the goal is to have roughly 12 hours of course instruction time scheduled to help handle the additional questions raised by the students. As with private tutoring, the classroom time is pretty interactive, with at least ¾ of the time together spent analyzing homework, asking and answering questions, introducing and demonstrating new strategies, covering common content deficiencies, and so forth. The students will have 2 to 3 hours of homework each week, sometimes a little bit more, during the course, and our group options begin at $595 per student. For the sake of comparison, most ACT preparation courses here in St. Louis run from around $200 to $3000 per student, depending on the hours included in the class. Content-only classroom prep tends to stay more in the $200-$750 range, although some area high schools offer it to their students either for free or for a significantly reduced fee near the $50-$100 mark. There are always going to be exceptions to these price ranges, at both the higher and lower ends; we simply wanted to provide a mostly inclusive range for you to use in order to compare apples to apples as you research a number of different test prep options.

Classroom-based preparation is not necessarily the best test prep format for all students. If your child will be granted testing accommodations (such as extended time or untimed pacing and/or will have scribes, readers, etc.), or has scored a 15 or below on a practice ACT, then you might choose to reach out to us immediately to discuss alternative approaches to his or her testing preparations. It may be that classroom prep will still work quite well for your son or daughter regardless, but we want to have that conversation beforehand and be certain. This is also true if your student has scored a 1280 or above on the sophomore PSAT and/or a 27 or above on his or her practice ACT. These students usually need a much more specific level of assistance to break through to the 99th percentile scores that tend to be their – sometimes as yet unstated – goals.

Private tutoring may be more effective overall, but, without a doubt, classroom-based tutoring is the more cost-effective option. Please do not hesitate to ask us to help break this down further in light of your student’s scores, goals, and availability, not to mention your family’s budget.

It may not seem like much, but each point in a composite ACT score represents a whole lot of hard work on behalf of the student. As an illustration, to move the English score on an ACT just 1 point, you have to answer approximately 3 additional questions correctly. So, to move the English a total of 4 points, which will move your composite score, or overall score, by 1 point, you need to get about 12 additional questions right. There are only 75 questions in the English section, which means that you need to get 16% more of them correct than you did last time. Doing this is like asking a student who routinely gets an 80 on English tests to go in and get a 96 next time . . . and then do that on Math, Reading, and Science, too, please, while at it . . . and in a single sitting of about four hours’ length . . . with a solitary break of 10-15 minutes after English & Math but before Reading, & Science, and perhaps Writing, too . . . without disrupting any time devoted to extracurricular activities, clubs, games, and practices while preparing for it . . . nor while taking away anything from the regular schoolwork routine when getting ready for this test . . . and, as is the case for many students, doing all of that while also holding down a part-time job throughout the entire test prep window.

It sounds a bit more difficult now, doesn’t it? Yet that is exactly what we are asking our 16-year-olds to do, all while telling them that this is one of the most important tests that they will ever take. Their scores here will either dramatically increase or drastically reduce their choices of colleges, which will have an almost immeasurable impact on their careers, lives, and livelihoods, too. Really, though, could they please just hurry up and fix that ACT score right away so that we can all move on to answering all the rest of these questions about their futures? Alli often tells parents that this entire scenario – starting from how a simple question about moving one section score up 4+ points ends up deep into a conversation about the ways that the rest of a young person’s entire life can play out – well, this whole thing always reminds her of David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, and Queen: Under Pressure! That was a long answer to get to this point, but, yes, score improvements of 4+ points are pretty good.

Around the greater St. Louis area, the average score improvement for strategy-based ACT prep is usually placed at roughly 2.5 points for 12+ hours of one-on-one private tutoring and about 1.5 points for a course. Content-only private tutoring returns an average improvement of about 1.5 points, whereas content-only prep courses tend to show an improvement that hovers right around 1 point, give or take a couple of tenths. Nationally, the overall average ACT score improvement (figuring courses and private tutoring) is roughly 1.5 points after between 20 and 25 hours of prep.

Here at Kleitz Education Group, our average score improvements are comprised of students who do indeed only go up 1 or 2 points, as well as students who move their scores 5 or more points. As a company, the KEG average score improvement 4.5 points for private tutoring students who are pursuing full-prep and usually over two administrations of the ACT exam. This is true whether a student begins with a 12, a 22, or even a 32, and anything in between. The average, or mean, is one way to measure student score improvements, but another way to gauge success is by reporting the mode (or the most common score improvement). Over 65% of our one-on-one students see an improvement of either 3, 4, or 5 points. Many parents find this reassuring, as it indicates that our 4+ point average improvement is not the result of a few, oddly fantastic score improvements that are raising the entire group’s mean. Rather, it is representative of solid, consistent, routine improvements.

The score scale is a bit different for classroom prep, as the instructor needs to keep the class moving at a pace that is effective for most of the students in the room. Our KEG average score improvement for classroom-based preparation is 2+ points, and this holds true whether a student begins with a 16 or a 26, or anything in between. As indicated earlier, students who are coming to us with a score of 15 or below, or someone beginning with a 27 or above, may wish to discuss their scores with Alli or Jane prior to enrolling in one of our courses or smaller groups.

It is quite rare for our students to see no improvement at all, but a stagnant score does happen, as much as we wish it could be otherwise. Even if a score does not budge at all on the first or second test, with additional practice and repetition within the testing environment, almost every student will eventually see a score improvement on test day that is more in line with their practice section scores. Usually, the student does not even need to meet further with the tutor for this process, as he or she knows exactly what to do and is able to do it in practice routinely, and our tutors are happy to give the student as much practice material as they could possibly want or need. Sometimes, the parents and students do choose to continue meeting with one of our tutors, almost as more like a coach at this point, to give the students someone to whom they can be accountable in terms of completing practice sections. The additional practice and growing confidence finally pay off, and the needle will move on their scores. Roughly 10% of our students have this happen to them (needing a third, fourth, or further test to see their score improvement materialize on test day), but the end result is still an average score improvement of 4+ points; it just takes them an additional administration of the test . . . or even two or three additional exams. However, sometimes the anxiety or self-doubt is simply too ingrained to be overcome, and, despite the combined efforts of student and tutor, there is no score improvement at all. Again, these situations are rare (fewer than 100 students out of the 20,000+ students with whom we’ve worked since 2006), but they do occur.

To register for a standardized exam, you first need to create an account for your student on either the ACT.org or the CollegeBoard.org website, whichever represents the test you wish to take. Although ACT and SAT suggest that the process takes about 40 minutes, we want to warn you that it might in fact be more likely an hour or two, simply because you will be asked for all of your student’s high school course information and grades by semester, which may not be easily accessible. You will also need to upload a headshot photo for the admission ticket your student must print and bring along on each test day. Students are regularly turned away from test sites for a poor photo or an improperly uploaded photo, so it’s worth the time spent to do it correctly. Once the regular deadline has passed, there is usually a 2-week window in which you can register late for a test. An additional fee is assessed for late registration. Please reference ACT.org or CollegeBoard.org for official testing dates.

Alli, Jane, and our office staff are always willing to chat with you about your student’s situation in greater detail, and we are happy to lend an ear if you simply need someone to play the devil’s advocate. We may not have the answers, but we are familiar with some of the questions that you will want to discuss with your junior, so we will always do our very best to help you develop a plan to navigate this whole process. Our office hours are from 9am to 6pm, Monday through Friday, and we are also available most Saturdays from 10am to 2pm. Please do not hesitate to give us a call and speak with any of our office staff.