The ACES Value Philosophy

Before making plans for yourself or anyone you know regarding preparation for the college entrance exams such as SAT or ACT, you need to carefully consider the following information.

While ACES is a licensed business, all of our teachers are highly qualified to teach according to the individual needs of each student and are not merely prepared to teach "canned" programs.

Accordingly, parents and students should be willing and determined to ask the following questions to affirm the background and preparation of their tutors:

  1. What areas are your degrees in? Be specific, because you need to know if the tutor is academically prepared in English, or math, or whatever, as that background is essential.
  2. Does the tutor I will be working with have a master's or doctorate in the area he/she will be teaching? (Remember, no matter what anyone at the organization says, nobody is well prepared to teach in all areas of the SAT/ACT; you need someone with a math or math-related background for the math, and English or language- and reading-based background for the English.)
  3. How many years of experience do you and/or your tutors have in a certified school, teaching in the areas you or your tutors profess to be expert in? (If someone has not been teaching for at least five to ten years in an accredited school, that person is probably not a well-qualified teacher.)
  4. Can you provide references from that (those) school(s)?

If you are asked to pay $100/hr or more for the services of a tutor, make very sure of your tutors' qualifications and background. It is your money! Get value for your dollars.

At ACES we believe no professional educator should be teaching in all of the areas of the SAT or ACT , because that would require working in areas outside one's expertise.

Would you hire an ob-gyn doctor to perform your hip replacement surgery? At ACES, we would never hire a twenty-five-year-old man or woman with a bachelor's degree in a science area, but with no actual school teaching experience, and charge $100/hr for his/her sessions.