Ivy Bound

Ivy Bound (IB) is a for-profit American company that offers private instruction and tutoring for standardized achievement tests, in particular those offered by College Board, such as the SAT, SAT II, and AP tests. It also offers standard academic tutoring. The company was founded in 1999 by Mark Greenstein and is based in New Britain, Connecticut. It is not affiliated with the Ivy League.

Description

The central philosophy of Ivy Bound is that standardized tests are "coachable" [cite web|title=Ivy Bound Philosophies|url=http://www.ivybound.net/aboutSAT.html#phil|accessdate=2006-08-01] . The company offers courses across the United States. [cite web|title=Ivy Bound|url=http://www.ivybound.net/index.html|accessdate=2006-08-01] .

Ivy Bound differentiates itself from Princeton Review and Kaplan by requiring instructors to obtain a score in the top 1% of SAT scores nationwide.cite web|title=Ivy Bound compared to Kaplan and Princeton Review|url=http://www.ivybound.net/IBcompare.html|accessdate=2006-08-01] In 2005, Ivy Bound saw an increase in average SAT score of 125.9 points.

In 2004 the company's 41-hour SAT preparation course cost $1,050. [cite news |last=Chaker |first=Anne Marie |title=The New Math of Taking the SATs |publisher="Wall Street Journal" |date=2004-07-29 |url=http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB109105525944976995.html |accessdate=2007-08-13]

Criticisms

Like most test coaching services, Ivy Bound cannot accurately predict test scores, and cannot rely exclusively on actual questions. The grading on the essay portion of the diagnostics is done by Ivy Bound employees or instructors, opening it up to subjectivity issues. The general criticism of such companies is that students today are learning and paying great amounts of money simply for the purpose of standardized tests rather than focusing on day-to-day academics.

References

* [http://www.ivybound.net/index.html www.ivybound.net] - Official website