This review is about Angela Sun's college counselling abilities. Our experience was exactly the…read moreopposite of what's written here and I would give negative stars if I could !! She was an absolute nightmare to deal with and has zero emotional intelligence or tact to deal with young teens !! She preys on parent's weaknesses and has clearly understood parents would do anything for their children as long as she says things like she got admission into MIT, Ivy's and self proclaims that she is the absolute best college consultant who will make your child write the absolute best essays he can ever write !! (I am paraphrasing it but she said something like that to me in our first meeting !). She made it amply clear even before I met for the first time that all she cares about is money and nothing else ! She charged me $300 per hr saying it's "the weekend rate" - whatever that means (although her website only mentions 250 per hr ). She was laser focused on the money in our conversations and showed zero interest in knowing my child before or after the meeting. Her website says parents will get a detailed report within 24 hrs of the first meeting, and we received no such report. The first meeting was a complete disaster. She was so rude (and please don't say she is strict/tough /good etc). No - she was plain rude and not good as a counselor !! My son was so scared of her that after a point stopped answering even basic questions ! She gave as little info as possible in the session and made it laborious by asking my son to type out literally every word that came out of her mouth (all of it was just general info and nothing anyone wouldn't know about college admissions)! Despite all these negative signals, I still tried to go ahead with scheduling a few more sessions, because believe it or not, my son insisted he wanted to try her a bit more before giving up ! I wanted to understand how many sessions my son would need and in her response she had the audacity to say my child was a "non high functioning" kid and hence would probably need many sessions (being vague and open ended of course to milk as much money as possible from me) ! The "genius" in her, inferred all this about my son from just the 1 hr meeting !! Not to brag - Honestly, my child is in a highly specialized gifted track at school and elsewhere and in fact the very reason I was looking for a counselor so early on was to make sure I give him all the advantages possible and guide him using the best counselors ! She quoted a ridiculous number of hours at the rate of $300 per hr and I told her , her website states she will only need 3-4 sessions for coming up with a 4 year plan and her response was "website is outdated " !!! (can you believe that ??) Parents, please be careful when choosing a counselor. Please make sure the counselor has the right emotional intelligence, credentials , experience to deal with your child in this vulnerable yet important stage of their life. Please don't select a counselor based purely on 5 star online reviews or what these counselors say they achieved for themselves. If in your initial interactions you detect the counselor's main focus is money, and not your child or if the counselor is rude, evasive about answering your questions , please take these red flags seriously and run miles away from her/him ! I am very thankful that I was able to detect this problem early on and not expose my child to a horrible 4 year counselling experience !

I agree with S A 's review. Not great at emotional intelligence with teens. I think she's got a…read moremethod and that works for some kids, she isn't into customizing for how the child learns. I am sharing that his score went down a full 100 points after - full 3 months of tutoring with her. Worst yet when we shared this news she never responded to us again.

This is a review written by my son, a student of Ms. Denise Boulanger…read more As a long-time student of Denise Boulange of over 8 years, I whole-heartedly believe that little can compare to the monumental improvement of my English skill spurred by the persistent efforts of Ms. Denise. She has critiqued my school essays, advised me on my SAT skills, and collaborated to form several fantastic college applications. The college applications were especially of note; while However, I must emphasize that Ms. Denise's expertise extends beyond merely tutoring: we have discussed and studied topics as foreign to me as philosophy. While not overtly connected to standard academics, I have found these niche subjects as bolstering my literary and argumentative expertise (and my school grades of course). In short, if you wish to truly expand and challenge your English mastery, Ms. Denise is certainly an apt choice.

Denise tutored our daughter as she prepared for her standardized tests in her junior year. This is…read moreour daughter's review: "Denise tutored me this past year and her teaching not only dramatically increased my test scores, but also improved my overall writing. The skills she taught me have helped me in school (especially with timed writing assignments and on the AP tests) and I know I will continue to benefit from the skills I developed under Denise even after I go to college. She is a patient and caring teacher and I highly recommend her."

Great place to find a tutor for your busy high school student. Signed my daughter up for help in…read moreGeometry and she brought her grade up next text and for the final exam. A friendly and very qualified Stanford student worked patiently to review her current study area and prepare her for homework and quizzes. My daughter was hesitant and loathsome, but she appreciates I do little things to help her achieve success.

My 2 teenagers have been participating in math tutoring at Learinka for a few months and we have…read morenothing but praise to give about this center - and it's owners/managers! Tony (the manager) addressed every need or request we had in the fastest and most successful way possible, with a very warm and caring attitude. Both my daughter and son have great math tutors who are undoing a lot of the damage school math teachers are doing while helping them to see some of the beauty in math. We couldn't have asked for better, and I highly recommend this place to anyone who wants his children to have a better experience with math.

As the founder of Academics Drive, I am a big fan of this business! Emma does her best to meet…read morefamilies and especially students where they are. She comes to your home, does a free initial evaluation/meet and greet to get a sense of the family and child. What your child needs to develop, she will cater the lessons towards. She has established systems to encourage children. Her end goal is for students to love and appreciate learning, which comes naturally as she connects with children and provides texts and material where there will be high interest. She creates meaningful assignments that engage the whole child.

Morgan had a session at the public library, and I was very impressed by her patience, thoroughness,…read moreand the fact that her pupil (middle / high school-aged child) became more confident and optimistic about doing math in just one session -- something that I've seen lacking in other tutors at the library (I'm very surprised at how many tutors have sessions in the library!). When he got something wrong, Morgan insisted to find out why and for him to understand the reason why as well, instead of just repeating that he did something wrong. Her pupil seemed to become a "bigger" person in a very short time -- rather than try to fight his personality, Morgan worked with it to help him grow into a better person. I learned Morgan also does ESL, I'm unsure how well she does that. I do know that she is extremely talented and competent in tutoring math and problem-solving!

My older son had a fantastic experience working with Jennifer over two years. She helped him…read moreidentify schools of interest, calibrate likelihood of admission so that he had a great mix of "reach" and "safe" options, and assess the pros and cons of different majors (really helping him define and articulate for himself what he wanted to study). She also helped him turn an initially disparate set of activities and extra-curriculars into something much deeper and coherent. She presented him with an amazing range of options (like online summer courses in entrepreneurship) which he enjoyed, looked impressive, aligned with his admission "narrative", and which we frankly would never have found without her. Finally, she was invaluable in compiling everything into the applications themselves and invested a ton in making each one as good as possible. This included essay ideation, rough draft reviews, and went all the way through to line edits with us of every final essay and application. I think I'm a pretty good writer, but the input and help that Jennifer provided my son was far beyond my expectations and much better than what I could offer. I believe that her effort, expertise, and attention to detail significantly increased the number of acceptances and options that my son ended up with. Throughout this, Jennifer was patient, persistent, encouraging, and comforting during a period when I know my son was stressed about both the admissions process and also moving into this new phase of life. Jennifer was invaluable to my son and he was delighted with the options she helped him get and is incredibly happy with the choice he ultimately made on where to attend school. We heard of Jennifer through word of mouth and are so happy that we did. My sophomore has just begun working with her and asked if he could based on the experience that he saw his older brother have.

Jennifer helped my daughter (and us!) with her entire college application process. We loved…read moreworking with her because she was very patient, supportive, communicative, non-judgmental, kind, motivating, and organized! I already referred my friend and her daughter to work with Jennifer. She really relieved a lot of stress for my husband and me. We are very grateful!

I do not recommend this program, especially for families seeking consistent support for children…read morewith ADHD. My son started off with a strong foundation in this program, and for the first couple of months, things felt really promising. But after the holidays, everything fell apart. We were unassigned from a tutor and left waiting on one teacher's return, while the interim tutor had no understanding of my son's needs and just gave him random, unstructured exercises. There was no communication, no continuity, and no accountability. The only meeting we had was one that I had to chase down and schedule. At that meeting, I was told we'd receive a follow-up by the end of March. It's now almost the end of April. I followed up again and was told someone would reach out. No one did. What's most frustrating is that we were sold a program that included regular performance check-ins, progress updates, and personalized support tailored to my son's executive functioning challenges. We completed all the onboarding and surveys with that in mind. None of that actually happened. The gap between what we were promised and what we received is massive, and this is after paying thousands of dollars each month. We were sold a dream: a well-rounded, thoughtful, and attentive program. What we got was inconsistency, poor communication, and a lack of care during a time my son genuinely needed reliable support. Parents, please be cautious. If you're looking for structure, follow-through, and actual accountability, I would not recommend working with this business.

Warning! Something has significantly changed with this company, and I am warning families to be…read morecareful with signing up for automatic payments or subscriptions. After cancelling our subscription, due to the issues listed below, we were told the payment would be refunded. Instead, they billed the next session to our credit card. After multiple attempts to reach someone with the authority to refund both payments, I finally called the credit card company to dispute and stop payment. Again, with many many emails and unreturned phone calls, even to the CEOs, the bank was able to settle the dispute after almost 6 months. The owners may be Harvard Grads, but something does not feel quite right, and they do not seem to be active in the business. After a year of sessions, I asked for an assessment of our daughter's progress. We received what seemed like a lot of "mumbo jumbo" of data and words, without evidence of progress that we could track. Within a week following the assessment, our daughter's tutor, with whom she had built a good relationship, was let go. With no notice, she was assigned a new tutor, and the only time slot they could offer was late Friday evening. We decided it was not a substantial value, so we cancelled. Eventually the site closed.

Dave tutored me when I was younger, and I don't have one bad thing to say about him. He's patient,…read moreand is truly committed to his students' success. Not only did I always struggle with the material I was learning, but I also never enjoyed school. Dave helped me gain the confidence I needed in the different subjects I was taking by teaching me alternative ways to approach my individual learning style. He is total 5 star service!!