Elite Educational Institute of Arcadia

This center is not too bad. But, beware of certain office staff.
I am not your typical Asian Tiger mom, but my son wanted to come here due to several of his friends’ recommendation! This place is too expensive! But, I guess that Elite does deliver the results. They better based on the $$$ fees they charge!!!

The office personnel (office manager to assistant director) are very rude, unprofessional, and not prompt at all when it comes to doing a business.
I emailed, requesting simple question to be answered; it never came on time. I left a voice message to respond by leaving my cell#; they NEVER responded back. I simply asked for a meeting to go over SAT bootcamp, but kept asking me to «wait» at least two more weeks since NO Counselors are available even though I was NOT asking for a Counseling session! I called this office three times and kept asked to hold each time. There were no genuine apologies… WOW.
They kept «excusing themselves» by saying «we’ve been so busy– really??», or «I never seen your email…» — right! And the worst part is no one is taking any responsibility over their unprofessional ism– transferring the phone to other individual (s) at the office and the very last person just «hung up» on me, the parent — how rude, daring, and stupid act is this? Is this kind of quality of education they provide?
If I were the director of this Arcadia office, or anyone who is financially responsible over this institution; I should be really alarmed (unless you are being blind about the daily business operation of this office) over my office people’s unacceptable behavior and manner toward any parent!
I am extremely unhappy with the ways these people (office people as well as counselors) handled admissions or any business with any parent. My experience with this Arcadia office people are terrible. I do not recommend Elite Arcadia to any caring and serious parents wishing their kids to be successful. Parents, stay away from this place and go look somewhere else!!!

Elite has moved from Temple City to Arcadia.
I enrolled my son in «book club» during his summer before 8^th grade to improve his analytical writing skills. (He is an amazing creative writing writer with impressive dialogue and imagery, but has difficulty with the structure and support in analytical essays). Wow! What an improvement in his analytical writing skills! Elite really broke down the 5 paragraph essay into portions that honed his structure with minimal homework because they’d work on a particular part at one time. In addition to the writing portion, «book club» also included reading 2 novels, vocab and grammar. Vocab and grammer were unneccessary for him, but made the course well rounded for other students, esp for students who speak English as a second language. Reading was good since he had to read 5 books over the summer for school, so it forced him to do 2 of them. All in all, a great course.

I went here supposedly for PSAT prep since they wouldn’t let incoming sophmores into their high end SAT classes. My scores only improved by a disappointing 9 (PSAT wise) /​90 (SAT-​wise). I felt cheated out of my money…
From this experience… I ended up just self-​studying (as motivation should always come from within and not forced by a bunch of capitalist Koreans.)
One good thing I can say is that their faculty is quite awesome, friendly and funny.
And so…
I’ve known friends that have come here… some have improved 150 – 300 points and maybe I guess it was worth it for them. You might be fine getting into their top classes, but that might be a problem if you can’t. If you can’t make it into their top classes… maybe don’t bother coming here as you’ll be stuck with people that’ll slow down your achievement.
I self-​studied and gained as much as if I were to go to this place ended up not spending a pretty penny unlike many others.
Update: 12/15/08…The results of my self-​studying now pay off… from my PSAT results…
Soph — after Elite = 154 ~ 1540
Junior — after self-​study SAT — 1950
^surely goes to prove that the best results and outcomes must be achieved from within and not from a prep place

(This is a review that might peak the interest of an Asian parent or two out there…)
My parents are not stereotypically Asian. They were okay with B’s (*gasp!*), I didn’t pay tennis or the violin (although I did play the piano) and I never went to Kumon as a kid. BUT, I was expected to go to a good university for college and thus, they shipped me off to SAT prep at Princeton Review.
Now, Princeton Review… how do I say this? IT SUCKED. When I enrolled, I was testing in the low 1300s (it was on a 1600 scale at the time). I went to their courses every week, they taught me «tricks» to test higher, and when I took the SAT right after that close to $ 1000 course, you know what I tested at? 1370.
At most, a 50 point increase.
Needless to say, both my parents and I were pissed.
Then I heard of Elite from a couple friends who had gone to Elite for SAT prep and were testing in the 1500s (not kidding — one got a 1570 and the other a 1560). So I figured, it’s got to be good. I couldn’t be any worse than Princeton Review! So I enrolled in Elite’s course for the writing portion of the SAT II.
Went in testing around the mid-​500s (out of 800).
What score made it to my transcript? 710.
An increase of a little under 200 points.
Why is Elite awesome?
Lemme sum it up in a single statement:
They’re run by a bunch of Koreans.
Koreans are Asian.
Therefore, if you send your kid to SAT prep here, they’ve got to meet/​exceed stereotypical Asian standards.
What separates Elite from the rest of the prep courses out there for your kids is that they actually TEACH. You have to test into a class and the instructors (who are amazing, btw) teach to that ability level (rather than having a kid testing at 1200 in the same class as one testing at 1400 and teaching to the both of them).
In terms of material, here’s a glimpse of the difference: my parents sent my brother to Elite when he was studying for the SATs (they learned from my mistakes). At Princeton Review, I probably had to memorize… eh…200 words to prepare myself for the verbal section of the SAT. My brother had to memorize 2000. Yes, he memorized TWO THOUSAND vocab words. Assuming all else equal (effort, intelligence, etc), if you have one kid learning 200 words and one kid learning 2000 words, who do you think is going to be more prepared?
The answer’s pretty clear.
Yes, I know, a bunch of you people out there are going, «This is dated information! You’ve been in and out of college — it’s been over 5 years since you’ve taken those standardized tests! How do you know they’re still great?»
Look at their results.
When I was taking my standardized tests, Elite had a program where they would GUARANTEE you a 1500 if you tested into their top class (and looking at their website now, I know they have an equivalent class for the new 2400 score SAT) — no other test prep can guarantee results like that (in the past or in the present). According to their website, they’ve had 40 students with PERFECT SAT scores (and their students only come from specific areas of California, Korean and Canada). God knows how many more tested in the upper percentiles…
Now I know, when I grow up and have kids of my own, I’ll probably be the same as my parents and not push them over the edge — I won’t be that Asian mom breathing down their necks — but you can damn well be sure they’re gonna have to deal with an Asian-​run SAT prep. And, seeing that they’re all around Southern California, there’s a really high possibility that it’ll be Elite.
(Yes, I realize that this review was really long — But what do you expect? I’m Asian!)