Mr. Marchenko is simply amazing. Prior to working with him, I had been going to a different ACT tutor for the entirety of my Junior year. This first tutor was strictly conventional: she would hand me a practice test, I would do it at home, and we would review the answers together the following week. This tutoring method did not help me at all; I took the ACT on 3 occasions and received the same, disappointing score each time. Thus, I headed into my senior year in a shaky position: Northwestern University was my dream school, but I knew that my ACT score was still 2 points below that of the average student accepted. In the middle of September, I began to work with Mr. Marchenko. I only met with him 5 times, but I cannot begin to express how indebted I am to him for those tutoring sessions. During these sessions, he did not just have me go through practice tests and check the answers. While we certainly reviewed practice tests of the ACT very thoroughly, Mr. Marchenko added another component to my preparation process: he instilled within me confidence. Through constant confidence-building exercises and unrelenting encouragement, he helped me to realize that the only one stopping me from achieving greatness was myself. After pinpointing those areas where I still faltered, he had me focus my energies on confidently conquering those sections. He, thereby, trained me to be not only exceedingly well-prepared for the test academically, but also psychologically. So, on the last ACT offered before the college-application process in October--when my chances of getting into Northwestern truly hung on the line--Mr. Marchenko came through for me. That day, I raised my test score by 2 points, and today, I am a student at Northwestern University. I can say with the utmost seriousness that I am unsure whether I would even be at Northwestern today if it wasn't for the dedicated efforts of Mr. Marchenko. And for that, I am forever appreciative. read more