I registered my daughter for 10 semi-private sessions. (But last 2 sessions were private sessions)…read moreThe tutors provided essential tips and strategies and helped her improve SAT scores. My daughter achieved the score that she wanted after completing all the sessions. Grayson cares about the students and he is very supportive in helping the students reach their goals.

Zenith tutoring is unbelievable!!! Grayson identified that ACT would fit my son better even though…read morewe hesitated initially. I would have never imagined he could get the perfect score of 36 after only a couple of months. I am so glad we made the decision to join Zenith. I highly recommend Zenith! Their program is really impressive: they characterize the general rules that are easy to understand; and drilled into each problem that my son missed and pinpointed a particular rule that he needed to work on. Thank you so much, Zenith, for improving my son's score to perfection.

As immigrants, we were looking for guidance to help our daughter navigate important aspects of the…read morecollege preparation process--course selection, essay writing, extracurricular activities, summer internships, and everything in between. As parents, we felt unsure and somewhat confused about how to guide her through these areas. We are very glad that we found the right support through UPI. The team consistently goes above and beyond to ensure that students receive the help they need. Their guidance has added tremendous value by helping our daughter for summer internships and program's and take a more holistic approach to choosing the right academic path and future career. Thank you to Mr. Gupta and the UPI team for your dedication and support.

My family joined UC Eazy / Upward Path in the summer of 2022 when my son was a sophomore. We were…read morepaired with a wonderful counselor, established a steady meeting cadence, and felt confident in the early guidance around majors and future direction. Right before my son's senior year, we learned that our counselor was leaving and we would be reassigned. From that point on, the experience became inconsistent and stressful. With the new counselor, few colleges were recommended, there was no meaningful progress on identifying academic interests or majors, and tasks like resumes and essays were discussed but never initiated. We found ourselves taking over major parts of the process, including researching colleges, managing the Common App, and trying to understand the UC Application timeline on our own. Important elements such as financial aid strategy, the CSS Profile, FAFSA timing, and college list strategy were unclear. Communication was intermittent, meeting notes weren't provided, and despite being told we were "on schedule," we frequently felt confused, rushed, and unprepared--especially when urgent requests from the high school counselor surfaced. My son also felt a lack of partnership with the new counselor compared to the strong relationship he had earlier. By application season, we felt uncertain and overwhelmed. My son applied to several universities, some aligned with his interests and others not as clearly, and the overall process felt rushed and more difficult than it needed to be. Today, my son is a sophomore at UC Riverside majoring in psychology and has recently submitted transfer applications to other UC campuses that better fit his goals. When Upward Path asked for feedback, I shared my concerns. To their credit, they listened and offered complimentary support for my son's transfer applications. This gesture was genuinely appreciated and helped him feel more confident in his essays. In summary, our experience began strong but became turbulent after the counselor change. Although we appreciated the effort to make things right at the end, the overall journey was more stressful and uncertain than we expected.

Great coaching. Structured methodical and patient. The instructors are fantastic worth every…read morepenny.

My daughter works one-on-one with UPUSH tutor Matt Pickup, and we could not be happier with the…read moreexperience. Matt brings deep knowledge, excellent teaching materials, and a highly effective approach to tutoring. He is an exceptionally qualified professional. Thanks to Matt, AP US History has become far more engaging for my daughter, and she showed impressive results from the very first session. Her overall performance in junior year has also improved as a direct result of his guidance. Thank you, Matt, for sharing your expertise with such dedication, passion, and care. We truly appreciate your work and highly recommend your services.

We were referred to John by one of our close friends and we are so thankful we did it. John and…read morehis team worked closely with our son for four years, from course selection to summer camp application, and eventually through the college app process. He put a lot of thought and paid extra attention to every details of the application forms. He is our guardian on meeting every milestone in this journey. John is more of a mentor to my son as well. He helped him navigate through his stress and anxiety, so that he could focus on making progress in his course work and applications. He also help bridging the communication between us and our son, which we deeply appreciated to balance our relationship during the crunching times. We would highly recommend John, he is the one you can count on!

Entering my senior year of High School and the chaos of college applications, I was very lost on…read morewhat a strong college essay and application looked like. I remember having different extracurricular experiences to talk about but there was a missing piece of how to word my essay and let alone start on my essays. I spent 2 weeks blankly starring at my document before realizing I needed more help than I expected. It wasn't until I started working with John and Jamie that I was able to talk about my life experiences and turn them into strong essays that reflects who I am and the type of leader I am in any community. Working with them helped me quickly understand how college essays are structured and how I can word my experiences to illustrate my strong characteristics as a student and leader. I really appreciated the weekly workshops provided by Jamie and John for extra time to spend on essays. As someone who had a hard time finding time and motivation to work on my essays, the workshops and set meeting times held me accountable for getting my work done before each meeting. I would 100% recommend John's service to anyone else struggling during this process. I am now committing to UC Davis and I couldn't be more grateful for the help provided by John and Jamie.

I am so grateful for the support and insight that my family has received from Green Ivy. Ana and…read moreBrandon worked remotely with my college-aged son to help develop his Executive Functioning and to provide structure during a challenging period. Using weekly Zooms with Brandon, my son's organizational and planning practices improved significantly (with an accompanying boost in GPA). Ana also provided helpful support and resources to me as the parent. We truly appreciate their expertise and support!

Inability to get work done on time, procrastination, mild depression as a result of being unable to…read morecope with school/ school work and constantly feeling overwhelmed were the classic ADHD symptoms that our child has faced in the last few years. As a way to support them with school work we approached Ana to see if she could help. She came highly recommended by our medical care providers and I had heard a couple of her talks. After a brief consultation with Ana, I was sure this is the type of support we needed. I am so glad we made the decision to send our child to Green Ivy. After just two sessions we observed that our child was allocating time every day for certain tasks, and had developed a sense of control over their schedule. After just a few months of Green Ivy their grades are the best they have been. Although grades were not the driver for us parents, the improvement in grades has done wonders to the fragile/developing self esteem of our teen. There is a sense of joy in going to school, learning new things at school. I have seen them get work done on Saturdays so they can spend time with friends on Sundays. School is no longer a drag and they have developed an air of confidence that is such a joy to see as a parent. I had not realized the extent to which executive functioning coaching can help a child like ours. I have no ambiguity in thought regarding that now. Without a doubt, Green Ivy has been the link between our child's high functioning brain and success at school. Green Ivy has been life changing for our child and therefore for us!

Test prep is ok, but advisors to support school application and essay are terrible. The advisor…read moreoften comes unprepared and not responsive when the student asked to schedule for consultation hours, and you have to request repeatedly and eventually made a compliant. Poor knowledge about schools outside of UC and advisors do not make effort to help or guide the students as how they can maximize their chance for the best school they can get in.

The counselors were very open to discuss and they provided the right advise at the right time…read more Cindy did an excellent job. So was Mr Joon. Thanks for the very long early meetings we had with him. I am very glad we picked this center for SAT, ACT prep and guidance.

Online only tutoring. My understanding is that Mr. Test Prep used to be great when he had kids come…read moreto his home. Now it is entirely online. My son (who actually does well with online learning) did the trial and felt he could do better on his own. I eventually got someone who did in person tutoring. In my experience, a lot of these online classes and tutors benefit the tutor but not the students. If you have a student who does well with online teaching, maybe this is okay. But if you want to pay big money, make sure you get results. For our family, the benefit of taking the SAT over and over was good. But not having any human interaction with the tutor or peers was not good. My son eventually scored a 1570 but with an in person tutor and taking the SAT five times.

It was divine appointment that we found Mr. Test Prep. I…read morealmost never use Yelp anymore to search for anything (sorry, yelp!) but I came on here just to see if there was any SAT prep service that could help my son. He had already sat for the SAT in his 10th grade, and had a decent 1550 score, but we wanted to see if he could improve it. Mr. Test Prep's approach and clear value proposition really stood out to me in the sea of the multitude of tutors and SAT prep services. We gave it a try, our son Ethan loved Michael's style, and format, and it was a good fit for our family's needs all around. Ethan sat for the SAT again in a few months of working with Michael, and his score was perfect. Of course, everyone's mileage may vary. For us , it was a match made in heaven :) Thanks, Michael

Amy is a wonderful counselor, writer and editor. I was part of Amy's earliest class and 10+ years…read morelater, I've enrolled my brother at Blue Stars. The best part of working with Amy is that she has "magic" in her writing and story telling. As the family of hard working students, we really want to help them put their best foot forward and have college admissions see their personality, grit and merits shine through (beyond the stats). Amy is the best at this! Her process helps extract the raw content from the student's experiences, focus in on topics and concepts that showcase "X factors," and polish and refine the writing piece so it not only showcases maturity in content but elegance in narrative skill. For first time college families, Amy's team helps a lot with time management. We started the process a little late this year but we worked together with the team to come up with an expedited timeline, set expectations and were able to execute quickly with time to spare. I think a family's level of involvement and the student's natural drive plays a big role. If the student isn't willing to put in the time- it could be a little more painful but the Blue Stars team will coach and push the student. If the student is extremely driven and wants the team to go faster they will 100% match that level of energy. With Amy and team's help, we were able to get into the dream school (4.4% admissions) REA. If Amy is in the business in 18-20 years (lol), I'll be back again and send my kids to her!

Over promised and under performed. Purchased 5 college package. My daughter got into only 1 of the…read more5 universities applied to and the university which did accept her was the least competitive at 48% acceptance rate. We already knew she would get accepted there as we are alums. Other schools that denied or wait-listed her were all 25% acceptance rate institutions, none were ivy league. While Blue Stars did spend many hours with my daughter, the essay topics selected were boring and routine -topics specifically mentioned to stay away from in Dr. M's blog posts (ex. Mission trip to Mexico). The editing by Dr. M only on Monday was a bottleneck. Two weeks before early action deadline, my daughter's essays were still very rough with a very polarizing thought not addressed and total lack of specifics on why the particular school was right for her. I lost all confidence and had to get involved. While Dr. M may say it was my involvement that sunk her acceptances, I do not agree!! I left one school, William & Mary, as a test. I did not read or review that application and the answer was the same...waitlisted. I feel we were swayed by Dr. M's amazing marketing/website/blogs etc. The reality was much different. Blue Stars is not worth the extra cost. For all schools selected, my daughter had grades and ACT scores that met their criteria. The difference was going to be made in marketing herself and her extra-curriculars. In this area, Blue Stars was lacking and did not deliver as promised. To date, we (as parents) have not heard from Dr. M. She made no post-application phone call or check-in. She got her payment and has moved on. In short, don't be sucked in by her marketing. Blue Stars over promised and under delivered, period.