When Zachary Schubert was a sophomore at Sachem East, he knew he would be taking SAT prep classes through a private tutor, as his parents were teachers and his brother had experienced the same process.
Now just after completing his junior year at Cornell University, Schubert, an alum from the Class of 2008, will be teaching SAT prep classes in Sachem this summer as part of an internship with Revolution Prep, a company that specializes in SAT prep for high school students.
"We go to schools and try to leave literature in small businesses," Schubert said.
Schubert will be teaching classes through a Revolution Prep program called Ivy Insiders, which he said has proven to raise SAT scores by 254 points. It takes a score increase of 250 points to advance to the next SAT scoring tier, which ultimately can boost a student's chance of gaining admittance into an Ivy League school, depending on his initial score, Schubert said.
The classes, which take place in July and August, are two separate sessions of three-week classes, totaling to 18 hours of prep time per session. Schubert said a location for the classes has not been finalized yet.
Schubert said Revolution Prep is much different from its competitors, Kaplan Test Prep and the Princeton Review.
"The main faults we [Revolution Prep] see with them [Kaplan and Princeton Review] is that the classes are too big," he said. "We offer more...it's an intensive class. We offer more practice tests."
The classes, made up of about 12 students, are also taught by younger instructors, which Schubert said may give students a more personal connection with the teachers.
“When the students see us, they know we recently took the SATs rather than the adults,” he said.
Schubert said that in addition to standard prep for students, his classes will include in-class presentations and 5 full practice tests.
To Schubert, preparing for the SAT is crucial. He said he hopes to teach students and their parents how important it really is, as it will shape students’ futures.
“Right now it doesn’t seem as much, but it means a lot in later years,” he said. “I’m just trying to make them aware of how important it is.”
Schubert said he became involved with Revolution Prep after receiving an email from the company about an internship. A statistics and economics major looking for something geared towards finance, Schubert said he decided to take the position anyway so he had some kind of internship for the summer. Now, he said he is glad to be able to give back to Sachem students.
While at East, Schubert was on the boys’ winter track team for three years and held the position of captain his senior year. Also in his senior year, he won an award for AP Physics C. He graduated 5th in his class.
