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. So, in a world where most colleges are going test optional, my guest today says the SAT and ACT are more important than ever. And he's got the data to prove it. He sits on the board of the National Test Prep Association. He runs two testing, two tutoring centers, excuse me, with 400 students. And he turned down a job with the CIA to do this. So we're going to get into it today. Again, 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 or spending hours and hours of time. And it 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 David Blowbaum here today. David is the co-founder of Summit Prep, a board member and director of outreach for the National Test Prep Association, a University of Chicago honors grad, and one of the most vocal advocates for why standardized testing is actually good for students. David, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Appreciate your time, fellow test prep company owner as well. So I, you know, I know I sent you over questions and we we have like a whole formal process, but I ask this now. This is my third University of Chicago guest on the podcast. So I have to ask, why does fun go to die there?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

So I hear it has changed. Um, but I mean, honestly, I it lived up to its name while I was there. Hate to say it. I mean, not that it wasn't fun, but visiting my friends at every other university, it did appear they had more fun than we were having. University of Chicago at least was and probably still is a great education. And it's a great education because they are exceedingly rigorous. I mean, they don't really cut you any slack. There were finals weeks where I had a hundred pages in papers due, you know, uh taking five classes or four classes and 25-page papers due in all four of them. And they're due in a week. It was intense, but it was worth it.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Right. Well, I appreciate your time. Um, before we kind of get into this whole thing, I have to ask about the CIA story. Well, as people that are actually in the CIA will say it's just called CIA. But but how does how do we get to where you are from that?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Yes. So I graduated in 2010 from University of Chicago. Really did not know what I wanted to do. Um, among the many places that I applied to, I applied to the CIA. And I was fortunate enough to get a conditional offer of employment to be a leadership analyst focused on Pakistan. But the long scope background check takes about nine to 12 months. So I needed something to do in the interim. Um, so just to avoid poverty, that's how I got into part-time tutoring, which very quickly became full-time tutoring. And it actually would have been a 50% pay cut at that point for me to go work for the CIA. So, you know, I just continued, I withdrew my offer of employment and continue full-time with test prep. And I mean, I I'm so glad that I did and I had the opportunity and it worked out.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

So you turned down the opportunity to be Jack Ryan. That's what I'm hearing.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

It was in a it was an overt position. So technically you could tell, you know, your family, um, it's not quite Jack Ryan, but yes, I mean, it it would have been awesome nonetheless, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Well, you would have been you would have been an analyst, right? He was an analyst, he was an analyst too, then he just got activated. So okay. I guess that's true. You uh well you because you actually graduated the same time I did. So you've basically been in the test prep game as long as I've been in education, which again, kudos to you for building uh, you know, two awesome testing centers and for the for making it through the uh the growth phase of the business, but the lasting power that you have. So I uh you started off doing test prep. When um when did you realize you had something more in terms of the the summit prep? Was it 2013? Like what you you got a co-founder as well, and I've heard you've been turned down by over 40 places looking for office space. What was that experience all like?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

So I mean, it was like most companies, it's rough in the beginning. And I think the smaller your company is, the rougher it is. I mean, people who have when people are just it's just them, sometimes they think, oh, well, I could never handle a much larger company. I think handling a larger company is so much easier because you can delegate and it's not all on you, and you have a team behind you. So, really, we were absolutely bootstrapping in those first two years. And I the company was just basically on the verge of going out of business for the first two years. But, you know, after that, we made a good investment in high quality admins, and they really helped us take it to the next level. So we had a great team of tutors. We've already had very high quality tutoring, but we didn't understand when we opened the company how important that support structure was for the tutors and the company as a whole and the service to clients. So it's really um, well, I mean, really, we didn't hit our stride until 2018, to be honest. So it's really like five years where it was terrifying to rough. Um, but in retrospect, you know, it you either sink or swim. And if you don't sink, you become a good swimmer. So it was, it was great practice.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah, it's kind of like, well, it's like then how they train you for the Navy. My grandfather used to, that's why I hate it. That's why really anti-Parl Harbor, the new movie with the Michael Bay one where the Navy, like the ships sinking, and they're like, I can't swim. And it's like my grandpa's like, the first thing they did when the Navy, they threw you in the water. They're like, you're either swimming or you're drowning. It's like you learn really quick. Yeah, I mean, it's it's definitely gonna be hard. And you're it sounds like your story is like you're brick and mortar, too. So you have the added stress of like making those payments too, right? The overhead.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yes. I mean, I don't find it particularly stressful because about 50% of our students are very adamant that they want in person. So it's a pretty easy decision. You know, we'd probably see our revenue be cut in half if we didn't have the brick and mortar. Um, but yes, to your point, seeing writing those checks uh is can be can be tough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

No, I mean, I just admit, I mean, in terms of like, you know, I'm a little bit earlier in the game of business as you saw. I I relate to the stress, but you said you got you hit your stride in 2018, and then a couple years later, COVID happened. So how do you how did you adjust towards that?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yeah, it was interesting how people adjusted to COVID. So for us, in the first year of COVID, we grew a ton, which was very counterintuitive because that's when literally, well, almost, almost literally every college in the country went test optional uh that year. But what we found, and it's kind of like an interesting business case of what people think are competitors to their product or um just why people are using their product, we found that the biggest competitor to test prep was a student's sports and extracurricular activities. So those were totally wiped out. People weren't, you know, students were stuck at home. They weren't going to their extracurriculars, they weren't, you know, doing those sports. So their parents were just really packing their schedule with extra tutoring to get an advantage while everyone else was, and just to get that supplemental education that those parents recognized those kids needed. So we grew quite heavily in 2020, surprisingly.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

So you mentioned test optional. A lot of schools went test optional, and now that is going away really, really fast. And I think where we have outdated beliefs, like a lot of times the the changes, the policies change before the practices catch up to it. Where are we in terms of test optional with the SAT and the ACT right now?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

So the vast majority of colleges are quote-unquote test optional. They're on some location of the spectrum of what test optional really means. So you do have the very highly selective schools, most of the Ivy League, except for Columbia, has gone back to requiring test scores for admissions. And then you have some other schools, mostly in the South, that have also gone back to requiring test scores. The rest of the schools in the country, probably 95% of them, they're again quote unquote test optional. So if it's a highly selective institution, let's say it's Vanderbilt, well, they're not really test optional, right? And these very highly selective institutions where they're denying, you know, 80%, 90%, sometimes 95% of applicants, they have to make some really hard cuts on student A or student B. That's particularly when they use test scores. And they're using test scores even more because grades are so inflated and they don't trust grades. So for those highly selectives, they're either test required or not really test optional. The more you go down the rankings, schools do become more, more truly test optional for applying. But I want to be specific about at that point, the school is not the most desirous institution necessarily, at least on the number of students that are applying and their admit rates. So those schools that have those lower admit rates, well, guess what? You might not need a test score to get in. But if you have a good test score, you're almost definitely going to get a merit scholarship or merit aid because they want to boost their rankings with good test scores. So test scores, they're either going to help you get in to a better college or they're going to help you afford college. And you could even trade going to a really prestigious school to going to a lesser-ranked school and probably get a ton of money from that school.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, we uh obviously we have we serve similar clientele base. And so we, you know, we we've helped kids with college missions. We primarily help kids with APs. And that is that conversation. There's so much misinformation out there, and that parents think they're all their kids are going to Ivy Leagues. And like, listen, if all the Ivy Leagues all they did was accept Val Victorians, there still wouldn't be enough seats at these Ivy League schools. And, you know, and we could include University of Chicago and Stanford into that. And so they're looking for diverse sets of students, but just that that next tier down, there's so much more money there. Like when you took when you bring in the merit scholarships that you can get from standardized testing. It's just so loot, it's just so much more powerful when you're making those financial decisions. It's funny because uh the Stanford, um, Stanford not only went non-test optional for SAT, they're also APs now required. If you have an AP on your on your transcript, you have to submit scores. And that's this year, 2025, 2026, use Chicago is next. They're gonna, they're gonna, they're they're changing their policy too.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

What um on AP exams or on SAT A?

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Sorry, on the AP exams.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Interesting. I had not heard that. I mean, you're very well informed. I mean, almost no one knows that Stanford and Caltech went to AP exam required last year. So you're very well informed. But I did not know that about University of Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Well, yeah, so this is what I'm so you mentioned grade inflation. So like it's never I didn't even know 4.5 GPA was a thing until I started tutoring kids. Like every like so grades are super inflated. And that's like, but so what happens is, and I, you know, I've been in the affluent schools, high schools, I'm talking about, is that kids will take a bunch of AP courses and then not sit for the exams. So they have they get the weight, they get they get the the prestige of it on the transcripts and they get to say they took a bunch of AP classes, but they don't they don't actually challenge themselves on the AP exams or don't do it. And it's like the worst thing you could ever do. But it's you know, in their mind, it's it is and so Stanford's like, we know the game, you know, and now it's put so much pressure, I'm sure, on you as well, or just in your field, like now to get top 10, you have you're talking 1500s now. There's like no question about it in terms of where they fall.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

So, how has that changed? I mean, what my essay, I guarantee you my SAT was lower than yours, but what was your SAT to get into you in Chicago versus what it is now?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

So I took the ACT to go to the University of Chicago. Um, I was really fortunate. I mean, I got a 33 on the ACT, which is a good score. It's a top 2% score, but it's it's like, you know, it wouldn't get you in today. Uh it would really wouldn't even get you in when I applied uh in 2006. Um, I did a interview at the University of Chicago, though, and the admissions rep, I mean, I'm blessed that whatever he saw in me, he told me at the end, he's like, yeah, you're gonna, I mean, this is when they still did snail mail. So he said, you're gonna get the thick packet in the mail. That was those were his last words to me. So I knew I was in and I didn't retake the ACT and the rest was history.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Yeah, that's awesome. Like, look at the common data sets now and that, like, yeah, maybe like a 1530. It's like you're, you know, just to scratch the surface, you basically we're talking mid-1500s.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, you literally to get looked like properly looked at, yes, I would say 1530 is really the cutoff to get your application sufficiently read at one of those top 10 schools. Really, you're probably looking at 1570 if you really want to get into a top 10 school. At least as an, you know, academic admit, not you know, not a recruited athlete or something.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Right, right, right, right. So you say SAT, ACT, standardized tests are actually good for students in an age where we've let kids kind of do whatever they want. Why why are standardized testing, why is that good for kids?

SPEAKER_01 14:54

So I think when and the University of California, San Diego recently came out with a report just at the uh end of 2025, and it pretty much provided all the data that um I had been saying was there, but didn't have the full data set. And the beauty of this report is it showed that um in the last four years, the percentage of uh University of UCSD, University of California San Diego students who are testing into remedial math went from 1% up to 12%. So 12 out as many of them are testing into remedial math. And again, UCSD went test blind. So they don't use the SAT or ACT scores and admissions. So they're admitting 12 times as many students who need remedial math. They weren't ready for college-level math. But not only that, those students, the school had to make a new remedial math course for them because it used to be just high school remedial math. They found that 75% of those students testing in remedial math, they didn't know elementary or middle school math. So, and of those students who didn't know elementary or middle school math but were going into college, a quarter of them had perfect 4.0 GPAs in math in high school. So they were getting four point, you know, A's in pre-calculus and calculus matriculating into UCSD, and they didn't know elementary middle school math. So we were not getting accurate signals from grades. They're just completely inflated. And that leads to mismatching, which people might say, who cares? Okay, now they're into UCSD. That's that's to their benefit. No, the report showed that those students are likely to progress through their major, let's say biology or particularly engineering. About them in biology will have to switch out of biology because they can't pass that last math class. And the report could not find one student who went to remedial math who was able to graduate as an engineering major. And so we're setting these kids up who want to be biologists or engineers, and we're setting them up for failure because we're mismatching them to the wrong schools and the wrong majors. It's not so much that they're going to drop out, that's a misconception, it's that they're going to train, they're going to switch into easier majors. And then they likely burned up one, maybe two years of classes in a major, couldn't finish in it. So now they're taking five years, six years or more to finish their degree. That's delaying their earnings, that's increasing their student loan debts. And it's really to their detriment. We could just use, I mean, I think we should use all available relevant information. The SAT and ACT help predict who will succeed in a given college and a given major. That's why I say that it's good for students.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

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 focus on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. So I'm trying to think of how I asked. So I guess here here's my perspective from inside the schools. I think it is the natural progression of education systematically of us passing the buck of not holding the line. So when I was in the classroom teaching IB history, my colleague and I, like everyone has to draw metaphorical lines in the sand. For us, because the nature of the IB curriculum, and they had to do an internal assessment, and we're like, look, if they our pass rate originally was 20%, it went up to a 90% by us just implementing two things that we like were consistent: a common framework for writing, where like you are not leaving our class unless you actually know how to write a well-structured essay with like our like almost research level paragraphs. And two, actually, how to properly cite your sources. Very, very basic things, but so easy to just be like, whatever. Not, and so like it's kind of like our hills to die on. And I just think that education proverbally has punted the hills to die on, in that you have kids that have been told they're awesome their whole life, that are in these high advanced classes, AP, IB, college, and the high school, and no one wants to ding their grades. No one actually wants to like see, like a C is like unheard of. Like I get kids, parents come to me with like the B's and they're panicking, you know? And it's like they're perfect GPA, they're perfect GPA. It's all they're all it's like so much more pressure now. I'm not trying to give anyone any off the hook here in terms of like, but like it's just we're just not holding the line academically. And so you have that level of inflated GPA for grade promotion, and that more kids are more educated, but no less. If they don't know, they don't critical thinkers. And now you're what you're citing is exactly where kids are going to college, not being able to do math, and they're dropping out of engineering programs. So it's this like silent academic epidemic that we have. And I don't know how we fix it without you know, without the competitiveness kind of taking down a notch.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

I mean, you've nailed it according to NAEP scores, so that's the nation's report card. And they they measure students at fourth grade, eighth grade, and twelfth grade. Um, on all those measures were at record lows. So for 12th graders, it's only 35% of students, of 12th grade students, are proficient in reading, and only 22% are proficient in math. The historic lows since this started being measured, which is a little over 30 years ago. Right. And yet grades are higher than ever. It's now 80, this is according to UCLA's higher education research institute. It's now 84% of students who go on to a four-year BA granting university had an A average in high school. So basically every, so grades are higher than ever, standardized measures of academic achievement are lower than ever. And when you Gallup did a poll of what percentage of parents believe that their kids are at or above grade level, it's 90% of parents believe that their kids are at or above grade level. And so to me, that is just robbing kids. It's robbing parents of the information and robbing kids of their futures. Because we also know from the data that when parents know that their kids are struggling academically, when they know that their kids are below grade level, most parents intervene and help get their kids help uh in school. But when they they're when they're getting grades back that are all A's, maybe some B's, they think their kids are fine. And they don't find out that their kids are fine usually until they take an SAT or ACT. Right. And that's when they but then they don't trust the SAT or ACT. They come in and they say, look, my kid has a 4.3 GPA. He's just bad at that testing. He's bad at the SAT and ACT. It's like he's not. Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, a small percentage of kids actually are bad at test taking, right? The vast majority of them are not. The vast majority of them, it's accurately measuring their grammar abilities, their rhetorical skills, mathematics, reading comprehension. And so I totally understand from a parent's perspective why the vast majority of them think their kids are at or above grade level, because just about that same percentage have an A average. So it's a, and to your point, how do you fix it? I mean, you could go back to grading on a curve where, you know, only 20% of kids get an A becomes very competitive. It would solve the problem, though. Another thing you could do is include a student's standardized measures in that class on their grade. So yeah, the grade might say A, but by standardized state measures, they might be at the 30th percentile. Now the parent has extra information to better understand what that A means. It doesn't mean much.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

So walk us through what you guys do at Summit Preps. What's your methodology? And when a new student comes to you, what happens? What's the process?

unknown 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

So our method, I mean, I am really obsessive about teacher quality. And so we source the highest quality tutors. We provide them 160 hours of training just on the SAT and ACT, I think is the most in the country. And then all of our curriculum, rigorously sourced, um, all evidence-based. And I take the test myself, both the SAT and ACT, just to make sure that everything in our curriculum and how we're teaching it is tailored to the test. When a student then comes in, we like, although not all families follow this, we like for them to take a full-length SAT and a full-length ACT, see which test they do better on. Now, it's not just which score is higher. It also depends where you which section scores are higher on the given exams. Overall, the ACT, because it's an achievement test, not an aptitude test, it's a little bit easier to prep for and get student scores up. But still, we like to go from those official test scores to figure out which test is better for students. And we're one of only about 50 companies in the world that has a license to use ACT's official content. So we're using that official content to diagnose what test is better for students and where are their weaknesses.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

What is the biggest mistake families make when approaching the tests for either one?

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Thinking that tips and tricks are going to get the job done. So if tips and tricks got the job done, everybody would have really high scores. It would be easy. Well, if it was easy, everybody would have high scores and you'd need even higher scores. So yeah, the the big box test prep companies, they try and tell you that the SAT and ACT only measure how you can take the SAT and ACT and that you can do tips and tricks. You can get a little bit from tips and tricks, a little bit. But if you're really, really going to significantly improve your score, you have to significantly improve and your knowledge and skill on all these core areas. And they're not random core areas. They're the areas that the SAT and ACT have done the research on that predict success in college. So that's why Opportunity Insights is the largest, uh, the most recent large-scale study. They looked at IV and IV Plus uh institutions. They found SAT and ACT scores were 3.9 times more predictive than a student's high school grades at how they're going to uh perform in college. Well, the reason they're 3.9 times more predictive is because they're measuring the core concepts and knowledge that students need to actually succeed in college. So there's no shortcut if you substantially want to improve. And these concepts and skills are very important if you actually want to succeed in college, which is the whole point. The whole point is not to get into college, it's to succeed in college and get out and achieve success in life. Yeah, that's that's actually really well put.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

I've had so many conversations. Uh, first off, I love the tips and tricks thing. Because like, you know, where I where I think we can align on is we align on a couple of places, but college emissions. Uh and we'll get into like test prep regulations here in a second, but you because what you just said in terms of some of the marketing gimmicks out there of tips and tricks, right? And that in the in the college coaching space, that is also true. That you just need a passion project, you just need an internship, you just need a research paper. What was your passion project to get into you Chicago, David? Right? So, like, and that, and it's like, no, you you actually need a really good academic profile. And it's like, if we're like, if you're saying you want, and and I'm gonna double on this for a second. If you're saying you want to go into a top 10 school, minimum GPA, 3-7 unweighted, minimum. Your SAT score has to be phenomenal, and you have to have fours and fives on your APs outside, like we're not that's like foundational one, and that college companies don't support the academic growth. You still have to hire tutors, but like, oh yeah, you're your three-one's fine, your three four is fine, you'll get in, we'll just give you a passion project. So, like, it comes to that authenticity, but then also what else did you say? Those tips and tricks really double down in terms of there's not, it's not a secret. It's really not, you have to put the work in. You have to actually go through the process, you have to get the feedback. And I think that's we're just such an instant gratification society. We're like, it's gotta be an easier way. There's gotta be a hack here, right? And you're so you're saying that's not, that's not, there isn't.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Exactly. I mean, I the the SAT and ACT are the shortest college admissions exams of any of the most economically developed countries in the world. So you look at other countries and most of their college admissions exams are eight hours long. Or, you know, I mean, you you look at the UK and they do A-level exams, which kind of like AP exams. And I mean, you might be taking 16 hours of A-level exams, maybe 24 hours of A-level exams. And we're complaining about what is basically a two-hour exam at this point, even though it's the shortest. So you're exactly right. We're always trying to, and it is it's tough. The SAT and HTTP are in a bind because they're they're they're catering to a consumer culture that wants it to be as fast as possible. But the problem is, is the knowledge acquisition is not fast. It takes a lot of work. So I'm I've had students go up 10 or more points. My lat, my um, last year, the student of mine who went up the most went up 14 points. She went up from a 20 on the ACT to a 34. The amount of pain and suffering that she had to go through to get to that is is something that 99% of people would not do. It was a remarkable increase, but it took remarkable, a stunning amount of work. So, yeah, if if it was easy, everybody would do it. And and that's how we should know that that is not easy. Um, and really the the marketing from test prep companies that it's tips and tricks that has really stuck in the American mind and eroded trust in standardized measures that is really just false. Um, and and the marketing preys on people's skepticism and quite frankly, their ignorance.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Well, I think it goes back to what you said earlier, two things you said earlier. My second point was gonna be what the why of like my first question, usually to kids who come to us either for AP prep college emissions or anything in between, and they say they want to go to a Harvard, they want to go to Stanford, they want to go like a why? Why, like, because you said staying in college and finishing college. I think most families, the way they approach college emissions is the the finish line is getting in, and it's not. It's like, and so like if you're if you're mindset my kid to get into Harvard and everything in life will work out for them. And it's like, actually, it won't because they're looking for who's gonna represent the brand of Harvard tremendously and know they can get through and go on to do great things. So, therefore, your why should be bigger than just getting into a school. It should be like what your purpose is. Why do you need Harvard to do that? Right. Like that's what we usually say. And that it sounds like we're kind of like talking about the same things, just in different aspects, is that the goalpost should be a lot further. It should be actually graduating through that Ivy League school, not just getting it.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Yes. And to be honest, I would even set the I would also set the goalpost to success in life because I I do think that, and I I see this from personal experience actually, because we interview a lot of people for tutoring positions. And the the people who didn't work out last year as tutors at my company graduate from Brown, graduate from Columbia, and graduate from Duke. And those were the only people that didn't work out, are like top, top, you know, graduated from the fancy university. And the reason that they didn't is because they were really unhappy in life, because they thought that the goalpost was getting in, and then they thought the goalpost was graduating. Well, I have, you know, I graduated from Duke. Like, and they think that they can just coast on that. And that's not reality. Whereas those really smart students who graduated from a state school, they're hungry and they're out to prove themselves. And they hustle and they end up on average being better tutors, actually. So, yeah, I mean, it's all these expectations around college and putting so much emphasis on the name. I'm I mean, the name can help, especially if you're a disadvantaged student and you go to one of those top schools, the data is clear that on average it really helps you. But if you're already one of those privileged students, if it might be a disadvantage to go to one of those top schools if you're going to get a sense of entitlement from it.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Right. So you've done about 70 plus media appearances talking about testing and emissions. What's the one thing you wish every family understood about the college admissions process? And then we've talked a little bit about it, but what do you think one thing that all families should know?

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Actually, that would be it, is it's about success in life. And so that's what people should be perpetually focused on is the actual end goal, not these intermediary goals that they get confused for end goals. So I've never talked, I literally, I've literally never talked to a former student of mine who was unhappy with where they went to college. It hasn't happened once. Right. They're generally just happy with, you know, and I mean some kids transfer and things like that. But on the whole, that's not what they're focused on afterwards. And um, I mean, life is about so much more than where you went to college. So I would say focus on being a good a good person, focus on working hard, focus on, you know, gaining those um academic and personal attributes that are gonna succe set you up for success in life. And then wherever you end up in college, do your best, work hard. Wherever you end up in that first job, do your best, work hard. Those are the keys to success is hard work.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

So do you um what I'm gonna say? Apologize. Oh, yeah. So so for families who think that, you know, expensive test preps only for wealthy families, what is your message to them? Of, you know, I can't, I can't afford any type of prep, but I want my kid to do good, or expensive prep only favors the wealthy. Well, how would you push back against that?

SPEAKER_01 34:32

I mean, expensive prep certainly favors the wealthy, right? Um, and so I I would I would there it's twofold, would be my reply. Um, one would be saying, yeah, there is an advantage because the wealthy tend to have better access to a quality education. And it is, it is better access to a quality education. And the SAT and ACT, they're not measuring wealth, they're measuring the quality of your education. They're not perfect, but they're they're they're quite good measures of academic preparedness. But what we also see is just having access to a high quality of education is absolutely not a guarantee that that student will end up knowing that knowledge and having those skills. Because you could give everybody a free access to a great trainer at a gym, how many people are going to show up and really put the work in and work hard? Not most of us. And that's exactly what we see in the data. So of the top point, the 0.1% income earners in the United States, so the the wealthiest of the wealthy, 7% of their kids get a top 1% score. So that is seven times higher than we would think, but that means 93% of them do not get a top 1% score. So it's not that you can just pay for a top score. No matter what, you had to put the time and the effort into getting that top one 1% score, which then broadens it out. So, yes, there's an advantage to wealth. So then we broaden it out to okay, well, they had to put the time in. They had to learn it, they had to gain those knowledge and skills. Can any student do that? Yes, because it's not hidden knowledge and skill. It just takes a long time. And you might have to learn it yourself, but you can learn it yourself. There's Khan Academy online that's free. There are inexpensive prep books. There's uh, what is it called? I'm blanking on the name. There's free tutoring services online these days as well from other high school students. So there are tons of resources out there. Hungry, disadvantaged students can give themselves a huge advantage even over the wealthy if they're able to work hard and put the time in. Because even the wealthiest kids, they don't usually put the time in and work that hard. Um, and and the last thing that I would say about that is the college admissions process heavily favors the wealthy. We know that the wealthy have more access to extracurricular activities. Their essays tend to be better, their teacher recommendations tend to be longer, higher quality. Um, they're more likely to be a legacy, they're more likely to be recruited for an Ivy League sport, on and on and on. All the things I just mentioned, they don't help predict success in college. And even though they don't help predict success in college, the wealthy have an advantage on them. So the place, and this is borne out by the data, the opportunity insights 2023, um the the vast majority of the, well, really essentially all of the unfair advantage that the wealthy have come from the non-academic factors. Whereas SAT and ECT scores, they're predictive of success. And any student can technically learn and gain the knowledge and skills to do well on them.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Well said. So let's let's finish out here with uh lightning round. So just rapid fire questions, first thing that comes to mind. Sound good?

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Sound good.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

All right. One resource every family should use during test prep.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

The official SAT and official ACT. So there's the blue book exams online for the official mock SATs. I would say do not use third-party tests unless you've run out of those eight tests online. For the ACT, there's also three official ACTs online. Use those before you use any uh third-party test, which is probably not that accurate and will not give you a very accurate score. Worst advice you hear families getting about standardized testing. You gotta go back to tips and tricks. So worst advice. If you hear, you know, hey, we give your kid all the tips and tricks, I would say almost definitely run if that's what they're gonna lead with.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

One thing parents overthink about college emissions. Everything.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

So like I like literally, I think they they overanalyze everything. I think they overanalyze test scores, the essays, I mean, literally everything we've talked about, right? I mean, I I think we get so, so rapid. I guess the overanalyzing the name that's on um the name, the the the brand name of the of the school. If your kid goes to the flagship public university in their state and works hard, they're set up almost as well, usually, as if they went to an IB league. I gotcha. Especially if they go to an honors college.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Sure. What uh one thing, well, most underrated factor in a college application?

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Say the additional information section at the end of the common app. So, you know, if a student, you don't want to have any question marks on your application. So if there's a C or something on there, or there's just something that will not make sense to the college admissions officer, use that additional information section to give further explanation. So ideally, there are no question marks to the college admissions officer. Don't assume that they're going to fill in the gap or fill it in uh accurately.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

And then what's the next big shift in testing?

SPEAKER_01 40:22

It's actually what you, in my opinion, you nailed it when you talked about AP exams. So you look even six years ago, and schools were really not using AP exams that much for the admissions decisions. You could get course credit from them, but they're really now fulfilling a role that actually SAT subject tests, they were discontinued in 2021. So most people don't even know what those are. But AP exams have really taken the place of SAT subject tests, especially at those top universities. So AP exams are just going through the roof generally. I mean, it's 37% of public high school students take at least one AP exam in high school. So it's no longer just this these exams for the elite 20% of students. No, it's over a third of students are taking at least one. And those students who are taking exams, it's just also going up. On average, they're taking more. So I think AP exams are the big thing in the future that we'll see. I think we'll also see colleges moving back towards tests required as well.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Well, David, this has been incredible. Um, I really do appreciate your time making time for it. For families who want to go deeper with like Summit Prep, learn out more about what you guys offer, where should they find you? Where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Yes. So they can go to summitprep.com. Uh, they can book a call to talk with us, or we have a contact form. Feel free to reach out if they have any questions. We love answering questions and we'd love to connect with them.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Awesome. All right. And uh before we wrap, what's one thing you want families to uh take away from this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 42:01

I would like them to take away that they have a lot more influence in their children's education than they might think, but first they need accurate information. So we see that families, when they understand that their child is struggling, they take action. They take action by helping their kid after school or maybe getting a tutor or showing up to school board meetings and demanding change. No one is going to advocate for your kids like you do. So I would say first you need to find the right accurate information and then take action on it.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Awesome. All right. Thank you so much, David, for being here. I appreciate again your time and your expertise and uh looking forward to uh another conversation in the future.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

All right, thank you. We'll see you all next time on the Supported Learning Podcast. Thanks for joining. 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.