SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's Taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. He went to Princeton, scored a perfect SAT, and has logged over 30,000 hours of tutoring. He literally writes the Barons SAT and ACT books that hundreds of thousands of students use every year. If anyone knows how to beat these tests, it's this guy. Welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Sebastian. Families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college prep without wasting thousands of dollars and years of time. And the answer usually involves finding the people who figured out the rules of the game that schools aren't telling you. That's why I'm thrilled to have Brian Stewart here today. Brian is a Princeton grad, perfect SAT scorer, the best-selling author of Barron's SAT and ACT and PSAT Prep Books, and the founder of BWS Education Consulting. Brian, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it. Well, thanks for writing the books. We happen to use them in our program and supplement as well. So appreciate your contribution to the education space. So I've given them kind of the highlights, but give us the quick version of who you are and what you do for students and families.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah. So I am an educator through and through. Come from a family of educators. I was a high school history teacher and started doing tutoring part-time while I was teaching high school social studies. And just the business sort of grew. And uh I decided I had to make a decision as to staying with my day job and going the entrepreneurial route and decided to take the leap. And from there written books and I have a new website, freetestprep.com, and find that I'm able to really reach lots and lots of people that way and really enjoying the just teaching in any way I can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

But you don't just teach the test, you've actually written the books, and let's talk a little bit about how that's a different perspective and probably gives you a unique perspective that most tutors don't have. So, man, you're a guy after my own heart. You were a high school AP and IB teacher, history teacher. Very, very familiar pathway there before gotten you into test program. So I guess when was the moment that you wanted to make that or that you realized you're gonna have to make this switch and left the classroom?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah. Well, it really came when my son was about to be born and just decided, okay, I had to make a decision. So right about uh 2011, decided just have to make time balance family and work and everything. And so that's worked well for our family. And uh, we've homeschooled our two kids and then kind of tutor them by day. My wife and I tag team everything and then do a lot of the tutoring and test preparation classes in the evenings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

And your wife, Caitlin, she actually has a doctorate in occupational therapy and helps you with the abilities of other materials. That's uh that's a unique partnership there. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, she has a doctorate in occupational therapy. When we're working with students, many of whom have IEPs, 504 plans, she does a great job in helping myself and then our other tutors on staff customize her approaches to best reach their needs and make sure all the books we have. One thing I'm really proud about with the books is that we do have resources in the books for students who have extended time accommodations to make sure we're reaching everyone who needs help in the way that works best for them.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah. So Barron's actually tapped you to write their SAT and their ACT book. So how do you go from classroom teacher to author of one of the biggest prep books in the country?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah, so unfortunately, I was sort of right place at the right time. Uh they were doing a nationwide search for new authors of their ACT books in 2014. And I had written a number of materials for some classes I was doing here in the Columbus, Ohio area. And I sent those along with uh sample chapter and heard back from them four months later. And then uh there have been other opportunities to do the SAT work and PSAT work uh along with the ACT book. So uh yeah, I was just very fortunate to have that opportunity and they they like what they saw and took it from there.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

So you've written multiple editions of the Baron's digital SAT guide. What's fundamentally different about the digital SAT compared to the old paper test?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Well, there are a number of differences. I think one of the biggest differences is when it comes to the reading section, you have just the one single passage with each question. So the passages are no longer than 150 words each, single question accompany each of them. And then the old SAT had questions of about uh like you'd have like 10 questions or so depending on the passage, and you'd have uh passages of up to 750 words or so. So that fundamentally adjusted the strategy. Uh, a big misconception about that change, though, is just because you have shorter passages doesn't mean it's easier. The passages you have on the the reading are very in-depth, require careful thinking all the way through. So I didn't think I'd find a lot of application for my philosophy degree, but I find just the way you read in philosophy, breaking down arguments, being very thorough with it tends to apply very nicely on that. Um, so that's one big change. Then also you have the Desmos calculator built in to the digital SAT. So that affects a lot of the ways you might approach some problems if you're working with graphical problems, parabolas, lines, systems of equations, it introduces a lot of new strategy to how things would have been a few years ago.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

And that adaptive format is now kind of throwing families off. How should students think about it as they prepare for their exams?

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Well, when the test was being redesigned, uh a lot of us in the test press prep community were pleased to find that they weren't going to do a question adaptive format for high school students where after each question the whole test would change. It's section adaptive. So you do your first module, reading and writing, it's of moderate difficulty. And then if you score roughly about 60-65%, depends, of course, on the difficulty of the test that day. If you get above that threshold, you then go to a harder second module. And that change has enabled the college board to maintain the same standards and rigor, but to shave about an hour off the length of the test. Um, so I think how that affects students, they want to make sure they try to get to that second module. So you don't want to um, you know, just sort of lay low on the first module and say, Yeah, I can miss a lot. You every question really counts. And then when you get to that second module, the time constraints can be a challenge. So you want to make sure you're moving, not rushing through, but moving with more of a sense of urgency to get through everything. Uh to uh because sometimes students find it challenging to complete uh both the math and the reading parts of that second module if they get the harder ones.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

What strategies have changed now that the test is digital? Like does a prep book look different? Does the prep for it look different?

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, the the prep does change a good bit there with that. I think as far as you want to be very familiar with the interface. And something we've done in the Barron's book is a big portion of it, several dozen pages, is allocated to how to use the blue book interface and make the most of the adaptive blue book tests that College Board has. So if you use the Blue Book application, you could download that for free and you could practice several authentic SAT tests, a couple PSAT tests on there. So previously, in the the older version of the book, we sort of kept everything self-contained, but now uh we're trying to make it we've made it more as uh interactive with uh the college board resources. And so that's that's a gold standard. Doing those official blue book tests is uh really key to getting ready for the test.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah. So SAT versus ACT in the current landscape, how do you help a family decide which one a kid should choose?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah, I think one of the easiest ways to make a decision is to see where are your strengths. If you can look at previous test scores, academic strengths, maybe look at the PSAT, there's a fundamental difference in how their score. So the ACT, one-third of the score comes from math, two-thirds come from humanities with English and reading. And the SAT, half your score comes from math, half comes from reading, writing. So just doing the math there, if you're more of a math person, the SAT is definitely worth trying. And the ACT may not showcase your strength as much as much. That being said, I find it's easier to transition between the tests than it's been probably at any point over the 20 plus years doing this. Previously, you would see people wanting to do these diagnostics and think ACT versus SAT. But the ACT covers all the same concepts that the SAT does and just adds a few things to that. Uh, they cover algebra one, algebra two, geometry, grammar concepts, and the ACT covers some more advanced math concepts, covers some additional grammar concepts uh like wordiness, for example. Um, so it's it's pretty easy to switch between the two. And uh the test lengths as well, uh, they're similar in length now that the ACT has done its redesign. So I think most of my clients tend to want to try them both to see how things go.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

How do you track 30,000 hours for tutoring? How did you come to that number? Is that that after that?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Well, I do if anything, it's probably under count, but I want to be conservative. So you just look at tutoring hours logged and classroom instruction, everything along those lines, and you do it for a number of years and it adds up. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

So with potentially 30,000 plus hours of tutoring in this space, what's the number one mistake kids continue to make and that families should avoid when it comes to these types of practice?

SPEAKER_01 11:08

I think one of the biggest things is talking to clients who want to find tricks or hacks to beat the test in some way. And so much of it is just building those fundamental skills, reading comprehension, math problem solving, learning the grammar fundamentals that I think that if you try to go on the SAT, for example, and just go on autopilot and say, hey, I see this question, I don't even even need to think about it. This is what I do every time. That's when you start to get into trouble. They do such a good job of coming up with incorrect answers, ways you might think through the question if you're in a hurry. For example, on the math, if you're in a hurry and think that they're asking you to calculate area, when in fact they're asking you to do volume. It's amazing how students, when they're in the heat of the moment on the test, can rush through things like that and make a miscalculation or misread things. Yeah, I think focusing on the fundamentals uh and just building those academic skills is is really key to doing well on these. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

So there's no secret to the SAT prep or ACT prep. There's no hack or trick. It's gone.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, I I think there there definitely are important strategies. There are things that can help, like knowing certain grammar rules, knowing certain things. Like one example that's closest I might get to a hack or something like that would be when you look at the subject verb agreement on the grammar. If you see three answers that are all singular verbs, and one that's plural is probably going to be the plural verb. So sometimes you can use the answers to look for patterns more so than you would on a lot of other school tests. And uh there are other strategies too, like if you're doing the ACT reading, for example, I think going to read the actual passage first tends to work well for most students. But with the SAT, since you have a single question and a single passage, most students find it's helpful to start with a question first and then read the passage. So I think there definitely are some good strategies, but as far as getting shortcuts with that, you just as a high school student, if you haven't read a lot just on your own or for fun, it's it's tough to build fundamental reading skills in a short period of time. So I think if students can think about taking rigorous classes and developing themselves academically beyond just test prep, that that will have a big impact on their performance.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

What does your process look like when it comes to working with families that come to BWS? Can you describe how do you evaluate what they need?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

We try our best to look at any previous tests they've taken and then develop a customized approach to how we do things. I think a lot of what I we do is more of a Socratic style where we talk through, since what's important is how you think through these problems, how you set things up, how you are analyzing things as you read. So we try to model that for students and talk them through how to approach things. And so there's a lot of modeling, a lot of discussion and customization based on where students need a particular help. Um, you have students who might be stronger in math, stronger in reading, writing. If someone's a really strong math student, sometimes the grammar may not come as intuitively to them as it might for other students. So being very explicit and really breaking down those rules can be very important. And then for students where grammar is more intuitive, you don't need to spend as much time breaking down grammar rules and you can review other things. So we really try to customize things for students.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

This episode is brought to you by Supported Tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focused on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. A lot of families spend thousands of dollars on prep courses or tutoring, and some spend twenty dollars on a book. When is the twenty dollar book just as effective as expensive to get?

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah, yeah. So I think it depends on your goals, and it also depends on uh the extent to which you're able to have the discipline to do things on your own. There are more resources out there now, I think, than ever, if you're willing to do self-preparation, where a tutor can be helpful is just to give you that outside look in the same way a coach might, you might be at the gym doing uh practice and doing your your workout. But if you're not seeing the breakthrough you want, sometimes having an outside perspective to break things down for you can be really helpful. But there are great free resources out there, and we try to reach students at all different levels, all different price points. We have the free testprep.com, we have the books, and then we have classes and to and tutoring. So wide variety of approaches that that students can have.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

What about students with learning differences, ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety, the extended time accommodations? How does prep change for them?

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So I think test anxiety, that's a very common thing for students. And I've tried to include targeted advice for students with test anxiety because I do see it so frequently. I think when it comes to so just speaking generally about test anxiety first, if you go into a test like the SAT and feel like everything's writing on that one day, that one test, you're likely to not do well. So it helps to both in a realistically explain and then just sort of psychologically think about how the reality of the situation is. So for a lot of students in the Columbus area, the worst that can happen for a lot of them is they might go to a branch campus of a state school like Ohio State or OU, and they could transfer at a later date. I once had a student I worked with who was doing a full ACT practice every day of her summer before her senior year, just doing it on her own. She wasn't making any progress. And she was so worried about earning acceptance to main campus at Ohio State. Once she realized that the branch campus was an option, she was able to relax, do really well on the actual test because she was more relaxed and her intelligence could shine through because of that. And she got on into main campus no problem. I think it helps her students to think about that. Also to think about the super scoring aspect where you can take the best score from different parts of these tests instead of having to submit just one composite score from a single date. So that helps lessen the anxiety a bit. And I think it's important to see the test as just one component of the college application, that you have grades, letters of recommendation. It's not as though the test is the only thing people are looking at. Um now, speaking to other situations with uh ADHD, dyslexia, uh, there are there's a wide array of how that impacts students. So something I love to do with students is just to ask them when they're taking the test, what seems to be working for them, what seems to be challenging. I had a student with dyslexia whose skills of inference were such that she was able to pick up on what a reading passage is, what it said, just on reading the first couple sentences. She just had developed that over her years of school. And um, so for her, reading everything really didn't, well really wasn't necessary and it took too long. Um, and then for uh for students with ADHD, um, you you might have 50% extended time, 100% extended time. Uh I I find if you do have the 100% extended time, you can often take the test over multiple days, and that can impact your strategy because you're you can prepare a little bit before each test day instead of having to prepare for it all at once. Um so and then there are some students who like who have an accommodation where they can have the test read to them. A really nice thing with the new Blue Book is that when you're doing a practice test, you can select the option to have that audio experience. So the first time that you're going to take the actual test, you're not having to mess around with the technology. So I think that some of those updates to the technology they've embedded in Blue Book really make it more of a level playing field for people.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

So students have actually improved by 12 points on the ACT and 330 points on the SAT working with you and your team. What's driving those kind of jumps?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah, well, a lot of it depends on where your starting point is, of course. Uh, you know, if someone's coming in at a 1400, 1500, there's a limit to what they can do. Um, but I think when we have students who uh make sizable increases, what we tend to see is that uh a lot of students don't have the grammar instruction in school. Um, just where they happen to go to school, they haven't learned. Even identifying complete sentences for so many students, that's something that is lacking. And in fact, when I did one of my latest revisions, the SAT book, I added in quite a bit just about that concept because I was seeing that so often with students. So grammar is a big thing. Also, math fundamentals, if there are certain concepts they haven't learned as well. And when it comes to reading, strategy is a big component of that. Like if students often if they have heard sort of a one size fits all, maybe they've had a friend who said, Hey, I'm I'm doing the the ACT this way, or they've gone on TikTok or YouTube and say, this is the way to do it. And then we find out for their particular situation what would be a more suitable approach, and then implement that. And that that tends to help things out.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

So what role should the parents play in the prep process? Helpful versus helicopters? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Yeah. I think as far as the preparation goes, I think one of the most important things is just to acknowledge as a parent how stressful this whole process can be. College has gotten, especially for some of the more selective schools, it's gotten, we're talking three, four percent admit rates at a lot of Ivy League schools. I remember when when I applied in high school, the admit rate at Princeton was uh 20 plus percent a year, and now it's down to three or four percent a year. So it's a very competitive environment. So it's important to acknowledge that. I think if parents they can help in a couple ways. One is just making sure that the homework that students do Is realistic that they can say, hey, let's have you devote a couple of hours to this, no distractions, nothing else going on, that can be really helpful. If parents have personal experiences with taking major exams themselves and can share what they have done to deal with that, uh overcome stress and anxieties. A lot of parents, if you're in any number of professional fields, law, uh, medicine, engineering, you likely had to do some major standardized test for licensure or for grad school admission. So sharing those experiences with students can be helpful. And another big thing is just helping them get enough sleep. Uh, typical teenagers are supposed to get around nine hours a night of sleep. And often it's much less than that. It could be four or five hours for a lot of students. So in the days, not just the night before a test, but in the days before an ACT or SAT, prioritizing sleep hygiene, plenty of rest will be really helpful when you're going to do a test that has you think critically, problem solve. If you're exhausted, it you're not going to do as well as you could. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

For um a parent who's overwhelmed and their kid has APs, multiple APs, extracurriculars, social life, and now SAT, ACT prep, how do you help them find the balance?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah, I think sometimes people can talk to their friends and say, oh, everyone is doing this prep when they're really young. I was talking to a parent the other day who said she knew friends who had started doing SAT prep when they were in middle school. That, and I told her, I think that's really overkill. So you can think about it, if you're able ideally to go into the summer before senior year and have the testing in pretty good shape, that's a great place to be because then you can go into the summer, do college visits, work on your applications. But if you need to take it again, there are five SAT dates in the fall now, so plenty of chances to do it. I'd also say don't underestimate sort of the cross-training that can take place. If you're doing AP classes, and you know, the SAT, AP, they're all under the same umbrella of the college board. So if you're doing AP classes like AP Lang, for example, that's one of the best classes you could take to help improve reading comprehension since the test is so focused on reading skills. Yeah. So I think if you're doing AP classes, you're developing a lot of skills that can carry over to the SAT and ACT. And for reading comprehension too, the more background familiarity you have with a wide variety of topics, that carries over to your reading comprehension. If you're going into a passage you know absolutely nothing about, you've never heard about the concept, it's much more difficult to get engaged with that. But if you have touched on that topic in your AP Gov class or AP bio, then your reading comprehension is likely to be much higher, I'd say. Yeah. So it doesn't have to just be only test prep. A lot of this development can uh occur simultaneously as you're doing other classes and things.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

All right. We're gonna move into lightning realm. So just some rapid fire questions, first thing that comes to mind. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep. All right. One thing every SATACT student should do the week before the test.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

I would say just to recap what I said before, get plenty of sleep. Get plenty of sleep. That's one thing. And I'll actually add a second thing since I just mentioned that. If you've taken previous tests, review your mistakes. Look at what you did. You don't have to redo an entire test, but you can get a lot of leverage just by reviewing those mistakes that you made. So you have that at the front of your mind as you're taking the test for real.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Worst test prep advice you hear.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Oh, worst test prep advice I hear. Um, I think one thing that is a peppy for me is when I hear people say it's always the shortest answer on the English. A lot of times people say, Oh, it's you don't even have to think about it. You just get out the ruler, measure how long the answer is on ACT English, and you can figure it out that way. And that bugs me because it I just find, especially for students who are trying to do really well, there are so many exceptions to that, where you really need to look at what's in front of you and figure it out. So I just think just the advice that you don't even need to think, you just go in and do this one trick and you can figure it out. The test makers are are too smart for for you to get away with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

One thing parents overthink about standardized tests that you have to cram for them.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

It is more of a test of your overall academic skill. And that's why colleges look at it, where they're looking at are you ready for college-level work? So can you edit papers? Can you solve word problems in math? Can you read different passages? So it's more about building the skill than it is just cramming in a bunch of knowledge that you might need. Most common question you get from families and your answer. I think something we've seen a lot recently is students who are four point plus at their high school and they initially have not scored as well as they were expecting on the ACT or SAT. So I think it's important for parents to understand that grade inflation, unfortunately, is a widespread phenomenon. And that's why a number of colleges have gone back to using standardized tests because they want that metric. They want to see where students are. I think just because you have a four-point plus at a high school, that isn't a guarantee that you're going to do well on the standardized test. There's a a lot of other factors that go into that. Where is standardized testing headed? Yeah, I would say over the next few years that I could see a handful of schools going back to requiring them. But there's kind of a big pendulum shift where, of course, we had the pandemic and not as many people were applying to college. And so a lot of places want test optional, but then it sort of swung back the other direction where with grade inflation, having more applicants, colleges want a way to ensure students are ready for college-level work. And so we've seen a number of more highly selected schools return to testing. And the testing they've returned to isn't as burdensome as it once was. You don't have this SAT subject test. The SAT just takes a little over two hours to complete of actual testing time. So it's not a huge burden for the students or for schools that administer it. So I think it's a really valuable tool where in a little over two hours, you can get potential for scholarship recognition. It could be a couple of the most valuable hours you have. And for students who whose personal situations, family situations don't allow them the financial wherewithal to participate in a lot of extracurricular activities, doing a free in-school SAT is a fantastic way for them to connect to colleges and get opportunities that they may not otherwise have had.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

And um before we wrap, what's the one thing you want every family to remember from this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah, well, I think it's important for families to understand that test prep doesn't have to be really expensive or burdensome. There are lots of ways that you can do it. And that's why I've made it a personal mission to work on this free testprep.com website just to help level the playing field for students. Uh, and also books are available, libraries are available with uh a number of resources there. So hopefully it's something that can give you a lot of opportunities, but it doesn't have to be a big burden time-wise or financial uh-wise.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Well, Brian, this has been incredible. I really, really appreciate your time coming on. Um, I know it's a little late for you as well. Oh, this is great. No, it's fine. Yeah. For families who want to go deeper with you in terms of what you guys offer, where should they find you?

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yeah, three spots. Uh, we have the free testprep.com website. Also for tutoring classes, we have BWSeducationconsulting.com. And then also with books, if you go on Amazon.com and just search Barren's S A T, you can see some of the different books there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

All right. We will put all those links and information in the show notes and in the YouTube description. Brian, again, thank you for sharing the playbook with us. Appreciate you coming on. My pleasure. Thanks so much. All right, and we'll see you next time on the Supported Learning Podcast. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.