“As prep taught me, achieving my goals starts with my mindset, and I want everything I accomplish to be started with positive thinking, determination, and self-confidence.”
– Tina, Test Prep Student
Claire Russell started RTC because she wanted to do tutoring differently than other tutoring companies. First, we get to know our students. We pride ourselves on learning their strengths and needs so that we can help them achieve. That may sound standard, but you’d be surprised how many tutoring companies don’t do that. The majority put profit before student achievement.
In test prep at RTC, we work with students who want to work, and that means we can help them achieve amazing things! We are different than “test prep” companies so many ways.
Before we start test prep, we do a thorough assessment, which will begin with your student taking a full-length SAT and ACT that you proctor at home. As soon as you submit your student’s tests to us, we will spend 90 minutes on a video Student Interview with your student, learning in-depth what kind of test-taker they are so that we can determine if SAT or ACT is their best-fit test.
Based on our assessment process, your student’s starting score, and their personal score goal, we will design a customized test prep program to meet their needs. There is nothing cookie-cutter about what we do: we don’t sell “packages,” because our programs are entirely designed based upon your student’s needs. We’ll talk about your student’s customized tutoring plan at a video Family Meeting with you and give you time to decide if it fits your family’s needs.
Our curriculum focuses on test content, test-taking strategies, and test design. Your student will learn what’s on the test, how to take the test, and then practice to develop muscle memory. Your student will become a specialist at beating their best-fit test, the ACT or SAT.
RTC understands that the mental game of test-taking is just as important as test content, test-taking strategies, and test design. In every one of our test prep programs, we teach scientifically-based mindfulness and relaxation strategies to our students to help them manage the unexpected on test day, in the exact same way we teach them geometry so they can manage triangle questions. We know that calm and focused test-takers take their best tests!
Extremely confident test-takers work with their test prep tutors to learn a toolkit of strategies; most test-takers work 5 or 6 times with one of our certified Mindfulness Coaches to ensure they are set up for success on Test Day. If we assess that a student has a particularly high level of anxiety or low level of confidence around test-taking, we incorporate Mindfulness for Test Prep as part of that student’s regular test prep program. You are welcome to let us know if you believe your student would benefit from mindfulness.
All of our Test Prep Tutors are experienced professionals. Most test prep companies barely train their tutors and then “turn and burn” them every few months. (They underpay them so badly that tutors don’t last.) We hire experienced tutors based upon both their qualifications and their kindness, train them comprehensively, and value them highly; our tutors stay with us for the long term. When we get to know your student, we will find them a great tutor match!
We understand that test prep is about so much more than taking your best test! For us, test prep is college prep, a comprehensive tutoring program that ensures that a student has all the skills they need to succeed at college: critical thinking and reading skills, test-taking skills, time management skills, study skills, self-advocacy skills, and an investment in self-care.
Our RTC test prep students average four times the national average score gain on both SAT and ACT, often higher! At RTC, Your child’s future matters to us.®
For more information about test prep tutoring at RTC, as well as general information about the SAT and ACT, please visit our FAQs and Resources for Test Prep, as well as our Policies and Procedures for tutoring. We invite you to contact us!
