[00:00:00] Shaan Patel: college is getting super expensive average costs now for private universities. 200, 000 student debt is near 1. I think it's 1. 7 trillion. So it's getting close to 2 trillion. And so my real Passion is helping students reduce or even eliminate their college costs. My favorite thing about prep expert is getting emails from parents and students saying, we took your course a year ago and we just got a full ride scholarship, or we just got a half tuition scholarship and worth a hundred thousand dollars. What a great return on investment
[00:00:32] Dori Durbin: So let's say your child wants to go to college. Could there be a way to attend their dream college potentially for free or at least for a greatly reduced rate? Yes. There is a way. And it might just come down to an sat or act test that was really well prepped for. So, if you're wondering what is the new sat format compared to the older one? Why do you sat and act scores even matter now? And how much can an organize study group like prep expert really helped my kids score. Well. I [00:01:00] have the right person for you. The founder and CEO of prep expert, Dr. Sean Patel will answer these questions and so much more on this episode.
Oh, did I mention that Sean was on ABC's shark tank as well?
Prep expert is a leading education company that has helped over a hundred thousand students improve their act and sat scores to get into top colleges and win over a hundred million dollars in scholarships.
Dr. Patel came up with this course after raising his own score from average to perfect. And now has over 20 years plus a prep expert experience. Listen now.
[00:01:31] Dori Durbin: Welcome to the show today. Sean Patel. It's great to have you.
[00:01:36] Shaan Patel: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here and discuss lots on this podcast related to education, test prep, college admissions with parents and listeners.
[00:01:47] Dori Durbin: This is fabulous information because I feel like as parents, a lot of times we're just guessing and using what worked for us, or maybe trying to persuade them not to do what didn't work for us.
[00:01:57] Dori Durbin: And so having a system is really amazing. I'm going to put you on the spot right away, if that's all right. I would love to know what test taking strategies you've seen people try to use that just aren't working for most kids.
[00:02:12] Shaan Patel: Yeah, one of the biggest mistakes that I see with respect to test prep is, parents and students will try or parents will often try to help their student, get ready for exams by going out and they'll go and buy the buy.
[00:02:26] Shaan Patel: 10 practice tests by Princeton review or Kaplan or Barron's or 1 of these test prop companies, or even prep expert, which is my company. The problem with using practice questions from 3rd party companies is that they are not as accurate or authentic as official test questions produced by the test creator.
[00:02:47] Shaan Patel: So I always encourage parents and students to go direct to the source. So if you're studying for the SAT, you want to use practice questions produced by the college board. And if you're studying for the [00:03:00] ACT, you want to use practice questions produced by ACT Inc. And that's really important because Perfect practice questions cost millions of dollars to create.
[00:03:09] Shaan Patel: There's a lot of statistical analysis and testing that goes into it. And if you go with the test creators questions, that'll be the most accurate representation of what your child is likely to see on test day. And this doesn't just apply to SAT, ACT, it applies to PSAT, AP exams, GMAT, MCAT, LSAT.
[00:03:28] Shaan Patel: Always go to the test creator for your practice questions. It'll give you a huge leg up In your test preparation.
[00:03:35] Dori Durbin: That's interesting. I never thought about the statistical part of the answers because, okay, I'll be honest I remember taking the test and thinking there's at least 2 answers that are probably right.
[00:03:45] Dori Durbin: But what you're saying is it's been refined enough that there really is 1 answer. And had you studied. The creators test and practice questions. You would learn that.
[00:03:56] Shaan Patel: Yeah, absolutely. So there are a lot of times third party questions. [00:04:00] They're either too hard, too easy, or like you said, have multiple answers to a multiple choice question, which just does not happen with these test creators that they, as I mentioned, they spend millions of dollars making sure they have perfectly accurate questions, which again, it's very confusing for students when they practice with questions that are much more difficult or much more, Easy than what they're going to see on test day, which is why I always try to go to the official test creator for your practice.
[00:04:29] Shaan Patel: That way, your student knows what to expect on test day. Like you said, sees only 1 answer. That is the correct answer. There's no debate. And, that's really the best way to do it.
[00:04:41] Dori Durbin: Yeah, I know the SAT and the ACT are set up quite a bit differently as far as what they're testing.
[00:04:46] Dori Durbin: Can you talk a little bit about their structural differences?
[00:04:50] Shaan Patel: Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of confusion among parents and students around SAT versus ACT. Which one's easier? Which one should my child take? And [00:05:00] really, there's no preference between colleges or scholarships. Your student just needs to take 1 exam and if they do well on it, they'll often it'll open up a lot of college opportunities and more importantly, scholarship opportunities in terms of the differences between the exams.
[00:05:14] Shaan Patel: The biggest difference is the A. C. T. includes the science section. There's no science section on the S. A. T. So if your student is more stem oriented, I would say the A. C. T. might be a good option. Now, 1 other kind of new wrench in all of this. is the new digital S. A. T. just came out in 2024.
[00:05:33] Shaan Patel: So that's a huge change to the S. A. T. But I think a positive one and a student friendly one for parents and students. What do I mean by that? So this new digital S. A. T. Is much shorter. So it's only a two hour and 14 minute exam. I don't know if you remember the S. A. T. Or the A. C. T. The paper based versions, they're 34 hour exam.
[00:05:54] Shaan Patel: So it's almost a full hour and a half shorter. So it's really nice. It's only 98 [00:06:00] questions, so it's under 100 questions. When you and I took SAT, it was like maybe 150 to 200 questions, depending on what version we took. Or ACT is still over 150 questions. The passages are a lot shorter. I don't know if you remember those really long passages that had multiple questions per passage.
[00:06:17] Shaan Patel: So there were like 750 words. Now they're down to 100 words with just one question per passage. There's no more obscure vocabulary. I know all parents, including myself, have those horror stories and having to remember those really obscure vocabulary, whereas that's all gone with. So I think there's some really positive changes with the new digital S.
[00:06:36] Shaan Patel: A. T. that will make it more student friendly. And I wouldn't be surprised if the A. C. T. soon follow suit by going digital and revamping their exam as well.
[00:06:47] Dori Durbin: I think I was reading that you still have to go to the location site. It's not like a take home, sit on your computer, take this test.
[00:06:56] Shaan Patel: Yeah.
[00:06:57] Shaan Patel: Yeah. So that's another common myth or misconception, which [00:07:00] is that now that the SAT is digital, you could take it at home. That would be really nice. Students could have chat GPT open in the background and answer all their questions and be, get a perfect score. But that's not how it works. So for the digital exam, you still need to go into a testing center, an approved testing center with a proctor You'll just be taking it on either your own device, a computer or laptop, our laptop or tablet.
[00:07:27] Shaan Patel: Or you can use the school's device. And you're going to be taking it on what's called the blue book application, which is the college board's official testing application. So it doesn't allow you to have any other applications open on your computer while you're taking it. You can't have chat GPT open in the background.
[00:07:44] Dori Durbin: Wow that's so different. And I love that it's shorter. It's more simplified. It's probably fairer to isn't it?
[00:07:52] Shaan Patel: Yeah, I think they've made a lot of changes to this new digital sat to make it more equitable, make it [00:08:00] more relevant to what students actually learn in high school, as well as test more real world skills.
[00:08:06] Shaan Patel: One of the. New question types on the digital sat is something called rhetorical synthesis. Now that's just a fancy word for They're going to give you a bunch of bullet point notes and then students have to decipher which ones are most relevant and I think that's a relevant skill, Like for example when you get a long email, you have to figure out what's the most important information and same thing with a lot of people's work is, you get large documents, you have to decipher it, summarize it and figure out what's really important.
[00:08:33] Shaan Patel: So I really like that they're testing skills that are more necessary for the workforce and students future careers.
[00:08:41] Dori Durbin: That's amazing. Did they change other categories or areas like that as well?
[00:08:46] Shaan Patel: Yeah, so the math is more relevant. They're no longer testing kind of obscure algebra 2. There is still some algebra 2 in trigonometry, but it's more relevant to what students learn in high school.
[00:08:56] Shaan Patel: And it's not these questions that we're trying to trick them. As I [00:09:00] mentioned, they got rid of the obscure vocabulary, many of those vocab words that we used to memorize you would never use again in your life. And yeah, I think there's a lot of positive changes here that make it more relevant and applicable to what students are in school as well as what they're going to be using in their future careers.
[00:09:15] Dori Durbin: That's great. I love that changes so positive. . Tell me something. I'm so curious. I was reading your bio and reading that you weren't all a student and yet you got a perfect score. So how did that happen and what did that end up leading to?
[00:09:32] Shaan Patel: Yeah, that's a great question because you know a lot of people they see me owning a test prep company and they think that I'm just some genius standardized test taker, but that's totally the furthest thing from the truth.
[00:09:43] Shaan Patel: I was like many of the, parents who have students listening to this podcast. I was a pretty, I was a good student. Don't get me wrong. I got straight A's in school, but I was like many students where I was not a good standardized test taker. I had a lot of test anxiety. I didn't know the [00:10:00] first thing about test prep college admissions scholarships.
[00:10:03] Shaan Patel: My parents didn't go to college here in the United States. And on the very first SATI barely scored above average, so that's when I spent hundreds of hours in the library studying for the SAT in 10th grade and 11th grade. And eventually when I got to 12th grade, I eventually was able to raise my SAT score 640 points and got a perfect SAT score.
[00:10:26] Shaan Patel: Yeah, it was pretty incredible. It's something that only 0.02% of all students achieve. It opened up life changing opportunities for me to attend top universities, get into or get half a million dollars in college scholarships. So I went to college for completely free. And that's really what inspired me when I got to college to want to write S.
[00:10:47] Shaan Patel: A. T. prep books and eventually start prep expert, which in the very 1st course that I ever taught, my students had an average score improvement of 376 points in over the course of [00:11:00] 6 weeks. So that's equivalent of taking a student from the 50th percentile and putting them in the 90th percentile.
[00:11:06] Shaan Patel: And so it was clear that it was working. And so parents and students wanting more courses and the rest is history over the past 12 years. We've helped over 100, 000 students now at prep expert. Improve their scores, get into top colleges and win over 100 million dollars in college scholarships. So it's been a, it's been an amazing journey, but it all came out of my personal experience.
[00:11:28] Shaan Patel: Like you said, to raise my own score, and then help students use those same strategies still to this day. Obviously, we've updated them now for the new digital version and things like that. But it's all, the foundation is still from my own experience, which is, which has been, an amazing journey over the past 12 years teaching students and parents.
[00:11:50] Dori Durbin: Yeah, and I think we'd be remiss to mention that Mark Cuban's part of your story as well.
[00:11:55] Shaan Patel: Yeah, that's the big highlight of the company, which is we were on Shark Tank. That, [00:12:00] about it was, it's been a while now, eight years ago, I appeared on Shark Tank. And I pitched my company prep expert for an investment deal.
[00:12:08] Shaan Patel: I ended up closing an investment with Mark Cuban. He's been an amazing investor advocate and partner for the company ever since. And yeah, it's really been a dream come true.
[00:12:19] Dori Durbin: That's awesome. That, that in itself speaks volumes of just, what people believe your prep program can do. And. I just need 300 points just for six weeks is crazy.
[00:12:29] Dori Durbin: That's amazing.
[00:12:31] Shaan Patel: Yeah. It's really important that, students. So we talked a lot about practice, right? So we talked about practice, super important. We do that weekly in the six week courses, but the other part of it is practice is not enough. So you have to learn strategies. Tips techniques to actually apply to that practice.
[00:12:50] Shaan Patel: So that's how students get those massive score improvements. They learn novel ways to solve math problems, new ways to solve read passages faster, [00:13:00] learn all the grammar rules for the writing section. And it's unfortunate that they don't learn all of these things in school and high school.
[00:13:06] Shaan Patel: So that's why, either you've got to do it from books like I did. And I've got a brand new book called Prep Expert Digital SAT Playbook, which is on Amazon, just went number one for SAT prep. So you can do it with the book, or you could do it with tutors and courses. And we have that at prepexpert.
[00:13:23] Shaan Patel: com, as I've mentioned. But you've got to do it, because it can make such a huge difference. Positive impact on your students future college career. And, for me, I really think scholarship prospects because as we know, college is getting super expensive average costs now for private universities.
[00:13:44] Shaan Patel: 200, 000 student debt is near 1. I think it's 1. 7 trillion. So it's getting close to 2 trillion. And so my real Passion is helping students reduce or even eliminate their college costs. My favorite thing about prep expert is [00:14:00] getting emails from parents and students saying, we took your course a year ago and we just got a full ride scholarship, or we just got a half tuition scholarship and worth a hundred thousand dollars.
[00:14:09] Shaan Patel: It's what a great return on investment to, spend six weeks or spend. Eight weeks, however long you're going to take to test prep with us to get your scores up. And then it just leads to so much real scholarship dollars in the future.
[00:14:22] Dori Durbin: That's awesome. Yeah. And honestly, you probably are opening doors to kids that wouldn't otherwise be going.
[00:14:28] Dori Durbin: Just by being able to get those scholarships and get that, even the confidence I think about kids taking tests and how much anxiety they have, and you're giving them skills to be able to take these tests, whether it's the S. A. T. A. C. T. or even just like we're talking earlier in college classes or high school classes.
[00:14:45] Dori Durbin: These are all skills that they can use their whole lives.
[00:14:49] Shaan Patel: Yeah, that's what I love about our courses and what really makes them unique is I try to teach students not just about test taking, but also we have a whole section in the course and in the [00:15:00] books called general strategies, general expert strategies.
[00:15:03] Shaan Patel: What I mean by that is strategies around time management, how to study effectively, how to be productive how to delay gratification even and have more self control, turn off the technology. These are all. Skills that are important, obviously for test taking, but more important for all of academics, all of your future college, even your career.
[00:15:23] Shaan Patel: I know that I, like I use the strategy, turn off the tech a lot because everyone's addicted to Instagram and Tik TOK and social media. These days parents included probably listening. And so we got to tune out all the noise. And when we have to really study or work in parents cases, I think it's really important to learn these.
[00:15:41] Shaan Patel: Not only for test taking, but for life.
[00:15:45] Dori Durbin: Now your book, I'm assuming your book is more of a overview and your courses are more in depth. Is that how the two work together?
[00:15:53] Shaan Patel: Yeah, so the book includes about 80 percent of the strategies we teach in our courses. So you get a lot [00:16:00] of what's in our courses just through the book.
[00:16:02] Shaan Patel: And so for the courses, the real differentiator is the instructor. So having the 99th percentile instructor teach you all the strategies, teach you additional strategies. As well as go through all of your week areas. So we use a lot of the course for reviewing practice exams and knowing exactly, what the hardest and the toughest questions and how to solve them easily.
[00:16:24] Shaan Patel: So I think that's really where a lot of the benefit comes from with the courses is being able to review your students actual practice series. But, yeah, I think, your student could do it just with the book. If they're really self motivated. And able to, but many parents and students prefer to go with the courses just because you get that guidance of a 99th percentile instructor taking you through all the content and answering your students toughest questions.
[00:16:48] Shaan Patel: And by
[00:16:49] Dori Durbin: 99th percentile instructor, do you mean that they themselves scored that percentage on taking the test?
[00:16:56] Shaan Patel: Yeah, so we have some of the, we actually have the strictest [00:17:00] requirements in order to become an instructor at PrepExpert. So many test prep companies will require that instructors have like 85th or 90th percentile scores themselves.
[00:17:10] Shaan Patel: On the tests they teach, we require 99th percentile, which is pretty strict and stringent. So it's sometimes hard to find enough instructors, but luckily, we got enough really good ones. And the reason we do that is, many of the parents and students coming to us are looking for the highest of highest scores.
[00:17:27] Shaan Patel: They want to get perfect scores. They want to get, 99th percentile score. So literally, 50 to 100 points away from a perfect score. And so we want to make sure that our instructors have the ability to a have already done that themselves, but B answer all of those really tough questions that are going to make or break a student from getting those top scores.
[00:17:49] Dori Durbin: It's interesting. We actually hired a tutor for a little while with one of my kids. And it was in prep for college. And I remember the tutor was somebody who I think had the [00:18:00] knowledge. They just didn't have the gift of teaching. And so the relatability, the awareness knowing what the kids needed specifically, cause it's so easy for the kids to say, Oh, I totally get it.
[00:18:11] Dori Durbin: I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there was no way to test that or no way to tweak that. So it sounds like that's part of your system. Yeah,
[00:18:21] Shaan Patel: so that's a huge component. And so the objective component of getting really good instructors, as I mentioned, is 99%, but the subject of component is that teaching experience and that ability to teach because I think there's a lot of smart people out there that have scored well on tests, but like you said, they may not be great teachers all the time.
[00:18:40] Shaan Patel: So we have to find that intersection of, a really great educator who's Also very knowledgeable and has scored well themselves. So it's not easy to find, but we have a good team now at prep expert that I, has been teaching for me for years, including myself. I do teach a course myself.
[00:18:58] Shaan Patel: And I think we found that right [00:19:00] balance, but it's, but like you said, it's definitely a gift of teaching.
[00:19:04] Dori Durbin: Yeah. And I'm just curious to do you ever have parents who they want to take this prep course, but they feel like. Maybe their kids won't do as well in college as they do on the test. So for instance, maybe they've spent all this time prepping for the test, but the parents are still maybe secretly or verbally aware that maybe their kids aren't going to do as well in college.
[00:19:26] Dori Durbin: Because they know how to take the test.
[00:19:28] Shaan Patel: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm the 1st proponent to tell you that, I don't think this test is a great indicator of how your students going to perform for the rest of their life. If they don't do well, don't sweat it. They can still be very successful in life.
[00:19:42] Shaan Patel: What I think the test does, though, is it does provide universities and objective measure. To help decide on admissions and scholarships. So that's why you're seeing so many universities, especially top universities. I think, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown just came out the last month, the University of [00:20:00] Texas at Austin, bringing back test score requirements and it makes a lot of sense, right?
[00:20:05] Shaan Patel: Because a lot of people thought. Okay removing test scores, it's going to help underprivileged students, but it actually had the opposite effect. So all the data now is showing that by removing test scores, it actually hurt low income and inner city kids the most. So that's very counterintuitive to what everyone thought.
[00:20:24] Shaan Patel: And the reason for that is actually. If you remove test scores, what are you going to value more? You're typically going to value extracurricular activities more. And so who can afford the best extracurricular activities in terms of the best summer programs, starting nonprofits, doing sports, like water polo and fencing and, it's going to be the wealthiest of the wealthiest families. And so what's nice about testing, although it's, I know not everyone's a good standardized test taker. A lot of people have test anxiety, but you can learn it. You can go to the library like I did for free and get books and train [00:21:00] yourself.
[00:21:00] Shaan Patel: It's not easy by any means, but you can do it for a low cost and or no cost if you go to the library and you can train yourself up and do well and then it'll open up a bunch of opportunities for you. Now, of course, there are wealthy families that can afford tutors, courses, et cetera, but I think that, the most important thing is.
[00:21:23] Shaan Patel: Your student does have the opportunity through books through free resources. All of the college boards exams are completely free for your student to take and go download the blue book app right now. And I think that it's not a perfect system, but it does. It's I think it's a better system than just using extracurricular activities, or even grades with grades.
[00:21:47] Shaan Patel: You and I were talking a little bit before this podcast. A lot of teachers have helped students over the past 20 years. In fact there's been so much great inflation in the schools over the past 20 years that now 47 percent of all high school [00:22:00] students graduated with an A average. Half of all applicants have a 4.
[00:22:04] Shaan Patel: 0 GPA. How can colleges really differentiate which college, which student to let in, and fairly as well as which ones to give scholarships to? It's really difficult if you don't have a test score.
[00:22:17] Dori Durbin: That's so true. I didn't realize it was that high for A's, 40 percent. 43 percent.
[00:22:21] Dori Durbin: 47
[00:22:22] Shaan Patel: percent. Yeah. Yeah. It's really high. I have A average. There's it's crazy. I see students now with 5. 5 GPAs. And it's what does that even mean anymore? And so how do you compare one school that does all this weighting of GPAs versus another? And that's really why standardized test scores were originally created, right?
[00:22:42] Shaan Patel: And it worked well for 100 years. And like I said, it's not perfect, but I think until someone shows me a better solution, it's not grades, as I just mentioned, it's not extracurricular activities. It is. It's not personal statements on college essays. Chat GPT can write your student's essay for you now, [00:23:00] right?
[00:23:00] Shaan Patel: So what is it, like I, I haven't heard a good alternative answer to that.
[00:23:05] Dori Durbin: Interesting. And hopefully chat will never be part of the SAT or ACT.
[00:23:11] Shaan Patel: That, the thing is that, I feel like there's gonna be even more grade inflation with students turning in all their work with AI now.
[00:23:17] Shaan Patel: So you have to have some format of testing without the AI there. So that is, again, SAT and a CT for now. That's the solution.
[00:23:26] Dori Durbin: Oh, okay. So debunk this myth for me, hopefully you'll be able to are AI products being used to grade the SAT or a CT.
[00:23:35] Shaan Patel: Not that I have heard of. So what's nice now is they're pretty objective tests.
[00:23:42] Shaan Patel: The writing section on the act. There's an optional essay now, but most students don't need to take it. Don't take it. And there's no essay anymore on the either. So there used to be a subjective measure of a grader would say, okay, the student's going to get this on the essay, [00:24:00] but now it's all multiple choice or free response, which has a yes or no answer.
[00:24:04] Shaan Patel: I don't think they're using AI for that, but it's probably just standard grading. Yeah.
[00:24:09] Dori Durbin: That would be a whole new battle they'd have to figure out. So hopefully they're not. Yeah. Yeah. And then as far as some of the dual enrollment classes or the AP classes, do you have any suggestions as far as studying and test taking go with those?
[00:24:25] Shaan Patel: Yeah, I think, one of the principles you can follow related to that, especially AP exams is again, go to the source for your practice questions. So who produces AP exams? It's the college board again. So you're going to go to the college board for their official test questions to really get a good idea.
[00:24:43] Shaan Patel: But then I would use another company. Whether it's prep expert, whether it's Barron's Princeton Review to learn the strategy for those particular AP courses and then apply that strategy to practice questions. That's really the key that comes down to any standardized test is use really [00:25:00] good practice questions.
[00:25:00] Shaan Patel: So from the test creator, and then apply really good strategies. And whatever company you decide to go with, whether it's ProfExpert, Barron's, Princeton Review, et cetera. Obviously, I'm going to be biased to ProfExpert, but you have to apply these different strategies, different content.
[00:25:15] Shaan Patel: It's not enough just to go through your high school coursework, because, some students or some teachers emphasize certain areas of content in a course, rather than other areas. And when you have a. Consolidated book or a consolidated course. It really helps your student review quickly, especially, I know we have AP exams coming up.
[00:25:38] Shaan Patel: Really important to do.
[00:25:41] Dori Durbin: And probably some of the teachers are more feel more equipped in certain areas of the test than other areas. So
[00:25:46] Shaan Patel: yeah, exactly. Exactly to that point.
[00:25:50] Dori Durbin: So if I was a parent and I was considering sending my kids to take some of these classes. How would I know if my kid is the right person to take the prep [00:26:00] classes or what would be some of the indicators that it would be a good idea?
[00:26:04] Shaan Patel: Yeah, it's really interesting and what I've loved about prep expert, at least over the, I can't speak to other companies courses, but a prep expert courses is, a lot of parents and students have this misconception that this is only for high achieving students. So this is for students who are, Aiming for the 99th percentile, etc.
[00:26:22] Shaan Patel: And that is not true at all. So you can benefit even if you're well below average. So we've had students improve their scores a thousand points on the SAT. We've had students improve their ACT score 10 points. I just saw a review from a student who said our new digital S. A. T.
[00:26:41] Shaan Patel: course improved their score from 900. So literally they started off below average because average on the S. A. T. is 1000 and they went up to 1200. 900 to 1200 1200 doesn't sound like a super high score on the S. A. T. but that's a 300 point improvement. So that totally changed that [00:27:00] students college.
[00:27:01] Shaan Patel: And scholarship opportunities for the rest of their lives. And they said they learned a lot about life and test taking and taking academics more seriously. So I really think that actually the most benefit can come from students who are not good test takers and who don't take academics seriously and who are below average because you're going to see the highest score improvements.
[00:27:20] Shaan Patel: You're going to see the most discipline come into that student. Obviously, we still work with the super high achieving students, but they might only get. 100 or 50 point improvements because they don't have that much left to go. But the students starting lower are going to see just massive improvements.
[00:27:37] Dori Durbin: And you said, I know you mentioned a six weeks course. Do you have other time increments as far as your classes go or your courses go?
[00:27:45] Shaan Patel: Yeah prep expert. The way we work is we offer S. A. T. And A. C. T. courses in every format. So what do I mean by that? So they're all online and we have live online courses.
[00:27:57] Shaan Patel: So you can work live with instructors. [00:28:00] You can do video based courses. So those are typically going to be courses that are video of me teaching all of the content and that's self pace. So students can go through that at their own pace. They can take a year if they want to go through all the content or they can do it.
[00:28:13] Shaan Patel: And unfortunately, what some students try to do is do it in 2 weeks. I wouldn't recommend that or even a week. And I wouldn't recommend that. That's not going to get you the best results. But our flagship course that I was talking about earlier is a six week program. We have four week courses. We have eight week courses.
[00:28:31] Shaan Patel: The most popular time to take these courses is usually in the summer. And the reason for that is because students, especially high school students are so busy. During the school year with their regular academics, their AP courses, their extracurricular activities, their sports, they're busier than adults.
[00:28:49] Shaan Patel: And to add on test prep during the school year, many students do it, but many students will push test prep into the summer when they have a little bit more time, a little bit more breathing room to really focus on it. [00:29:00]
[00:29:00] Dori Durbin: That's great. I wouldn't have even thought about the summer, but that makes a lot of sense.
[00:29:04] Shaan Patel: Yeah, I think that's where I typically see the best results too, because students during the school year, they're trying to, attend class. They're trying to do their homework and then to also attend class also do practice exams. It's a lot. It's a, even the highest achieving students have a difficult time.
[00:29:22] Shaan Patel: Not saying it's impossible. Many students will pull it off. But if your students got sports and a bunch of other extracurricular activities I always say let's wait till the summer When your student can really focus on this and make it a priority.
[00:29:35] Dori Durbin: That's awesome. That's awesome okay, you've given us a ton of information and great information I'm, just curious if you're a parent who is listening to this podcast and you're starting to think okay I need to check out decide what my kid needs to do next.
[00:29:51] Dori Durbin: What would be three to five action steps that they could take to improve their child's test taking or help them to prep for the ACT and SAT? [00:30:00]
[00:30:00] Shaan Patel: Yeah, so I'd say a few action steps that parents and students can take together in order to determine which exam to take and start prepping for it would first be for, for the S18 ACT.
[00:30:14] Shaan Patel: I think it's really important to figure out which exam you, your student wants to prep for. I don't think, you need to prep for the, Both at the same time or, for example, many students just choose one exam and really prep a lot for it. So how do you choose? The 1st step and action step that I would do is take a diagnostic test of each exam.
[00:30:35] Shaan Patel: Where can you get a diagnostic of the digital? S. A. T. As I mentioned, go to College Board. That's the company that makes the SAT. You can download their Bluebook application for free. You can take it in two hours and 14 minutes on a weekend. And your student can get a baseline SAT score. So then they'll know, okay, this is where I'm starting.
[00:30:55] Shaan Patel: And then I would do the same thing for the ACT, go to ACT Inc, [00:31:00] do one of their practice exams, and then you'll get a baseline ACT score. Then you can use concordance tables on Google to equip show the equivalence And that way, you'll know, which one your student had a stronger score in.
[00:31:17] Shaan Patel: And then whichever one they had a stronger score in, I would start your prep. So how do you start your prep? I think a good place to start would be PrepExpert Books. So as I mentioned, we have a PrepExpert Digital SAT Playbook that's brand new. We also have PrepExpert ACT Books if your student wants to do ACT.
[00:31:34] Shaan Patel: Or you can go straight for courses and tutoring if that's more your route and you can find that at prep expert dot com. You can find all the course formats. And we also have 1 on 1 tutoring at prep expert dot com. So I think, practice 1st, then strategy. 2nd seems to be a theme today.
[00:31:52] Dori Durbin: I think it's a good preparation for life though.
[00:31:54] Dori Durbin: Don't you?
[00:31:56] Shaan Patel: Yes, absolutely. I think, anything, whether it's [00:32:00] podcasting, as it's practice and strategy and preparation. You get better as you go, right? And whatever it is in life, whether it's business, podcasting, your career, it's all about practicing. And so that's what I love about standardized tests.
[00:32:13] Shaan Patel: I think there is a metaphor that's larger. I know they get a super bad rap about, they're not everyone's a good standardized test taker and, people have test anxiety, but, people, I think that's life. As you mentioned, no one is good at something.
[00:32:27] Shaan Patel: The 1st time they try it, whether it's a podcast or starting a business or whatever it may be, and no one's going to be. Maybe there's some people are good standardized tax takers. The 1st time they try it, but most people probably aren't including me. And so I'm evidence. You can train your student or yourself to do well whether it's on a standardized test or whether it's in their future careers and lives is you got to keep trying practicing and apply strategy and you'll get better at it.
[00:32:54] Dori Durbin: That's awesome. I love that because simply there are no barriers unless you put them on yourself. [00:33:00] So yeah, very good. Very good. Sean, where can they reach you, find your book and get in contact with you? If they have any questions,
[00:33:09] Shaan Patel: yeah, so my latest book prep expert, digital playbook is on Amazon as well as our books.
[00:33:16] Shaan Patel: If you're looking at as I mentioned, our courses and tutoring are at prep expert dot com and you can find us on social media. We're on all the platforms, either our handles either going to be prep expert or if you'd like to follow me directly, it's usually Shaan Patel. You'll be able to see. Finding me on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, all that stuff.
[00:33:38] Dori Durbin: Fabulous. I appreciate your, very wise information. So thank you so much for that. And I will anticipate people getting ahold of you.
[00:33:47] Shaan Patel: Yeah, no, I'm excited. I hope the audience got a lot of value out of it. I know it's a very stressful process, but hopefully today's conversation made it a little bit less stressful and hopefully some people are inspired to, to [00:34:00] help their student do well through this process.
[00:34:02] Dori Durbin: Oh, that's fabulous. Thank you so much, Sean.
[00:34:05] Shaan Patel: Yeah, thank you for having me.