PhilipHawes@yahoo.com
Phone 408-250-7607
Philip Hawes SAT, PSAT, and ACT Prep
Interested in learning about our services?
Welcome.
If you’re looking for high quality and personal service, you’ve come to the right place.
I started tutoring the SAT, PSAT, and ACT in 1997, when I was putting myself through college by working at "The Tutoring Club." Since then I have worked for several high-end "boutique" tutoring companies, including three summers for Ivy League Prep, over two years at Ivy West (I tutored many clients for Ivy West and still keep in touch with some of my former co-workers and managers), two years at Sylvan Learning Center (Morgan Hill), a short stint at Kaplan, and over a year as a Regional Coordinator at Math+Think.
I also taught math (up to Algebra 2), English (8th grade), and US History/Government (8th grade) at three private schools in the SF Bay Area.
I tutor on my own now. I quit teaching in late 2008 and started tutoring full-time soon thereafter. In order to demonstrate my knowledge of the revised SAT, I took the new SAT in 2009 and earned an official score of 2390 (out of 2400).
I have all of my SAT and PSAT students use "The Official Guide to the SAT" by the College Board, the makers of the SAT. I have students take a practice test untimed and grade it on their own. Then I come over and go over every question the student missed or guessed on. So I go through the practice test question by question. I also throw in test-taking strategies that work on the SAT and PSAT. I know what these tests are really measuring, so I know which strategies work. Many people think the SAT is measuring only IQ or native intelligence, but in reality many people with average intellects get great scores. The fact is almost no one gets a great score on the test without having had good tutoring.
Due to my methods and experience, my clients make substantial gains. I measure their progress by seeing what they get on REAL SAT and ACT tests, not on those fake tests used by many companies. An average student of mine gains around 100 points on the SAT Math, 80 points on the SAT Critical Reading, and 120 points on the SAT Writing. Some of my clients make enormous gains. I had one student go from the mid 500s to an 800 on the SAT Writing. Not surprisingly, my students have been accepted to MIT, NYU, Stanford, and UCLA, among others.
In order to provide more help to students, I now do "SAT Consulting," which is not tutoring. SAT Consulting is as important as SAT Tutoring when it comes to raising SAT scores, AND SAT Consulting will let you "in" on how to get a BIG merit scholarship
When I took the new SAT (the SAT test was radically changed in 2005; writing section added, math section changed, two-passage comparative reading comprehension section added, scale changed from 1600 to 2400, and so on) in 2009, I walked in there without much prep (I was a teacher before this and got sick of teaching/principals/nonsense) and got a 2390 out of 2400 points, which is around the 99.9th percentile (and some of the highest scores are from cheating, so really I beat around 99.99% of the people who take the test. One math question kept me from getting a perfect 2400 (I scored: 790 math, 800 critical reading, 800 writing), so I guess I should have been more careful (I hate to proofread my own writing and usually do figuring in my head, so I am pretty careless really). Had I known then what I know now, I probably would have gotten a 2400, so my SAT Consulting advice and SAT prep tutoring can even help a 2390 scorer like me.
Go ahead and contact me. I don't charge for phone converstions! In fact, you might get some free advice and I don't mind talking on the phone.
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