By Brandon Ryu ’21 News Reporter
In 2015, Mercersburg Academy decided to collaborate with Marks Education, an educational consulting company out of Washington DC, in order to boost student scores on standardized college admission tests, the SAT and the ACT. Students usually take several lessons from a Marks Education tutor during their free rotations through the Zoom application.
Though many students find the program unnecessary or even as a waste of time, statistics—and anecdotes—paint a different picture. The collaboration showed an immediate effect: average SAT scores of Mercersburg students rose by 160 points (on the 2400-point scale) after a year of the tutoring program’s implementation.
Many Mercersburg students take standardized tests without any prior knowledge about them; Marks Education explains a general outline of the tests to these students, which is beneficial. Just knowing what one will be seeing can be enough to raise scores significantly. If one takes a standardized test without any prior knowledge, one would take much of the actual testing time just to figure out what one has to do. That is a pitiful waste of valuable time.
But Marks Education does more than help students without prior knowledge. There are also students who have already prepared for the tests through various programs. Though they may be more ready than other students, they can still improve. Marks Education offers them tips that can potentially bring the scores to the pinnacle. Kenny Hong ’21, who prepared for the ACT exam over the summer, recently started lessons from Mark Education. Hong initially considered Marks Education tutoring sessions superfluous because he thought he was already ready for ACT after taking a summer course. After the first lesson, Hong quickly changed his mind. Through Marks Education, Hong realized that he still had a handful of topics that he could work on. As someone who similarly studied for the SAT over the summer, I can also relate to Hong’s story. My Marks Education tutor taught me all the specific names of grammatical rules that I knew, which really improved my score on the writing section. Even if one seems to be ready for the exam, it is important to try to learn even more to reach perfection.
Marks Education is an effective program that every Mercersburg students can take full advantage of. Instead of treating it as a waste of time, attending the tutoring sessions with a more attentive attitude may even change one’s college admission outcome.