Pace Academy of Cypress

Oh, Pace… The lazy summer dog days of my youth were instead replaced with intensive SAT tutoring at Pace Academy. I don’t know about the credentials of the tutors, or the proven effectiveness of tutoring… My SAT scores were still pretty tragic, to be honest. They should really do a before-​and-​after study with their enrolled students, complete with charts and graphs. I’m sure all the helicopter/​tiger/​whatever-​you-​call-​it Asian parents would be all over that.

I think these tutoring centers have to do with the teachers, of course. And the students you’re with. It’s all about the people, right?
I went to about five different tutoring centers and I think this would be in my top two. One I liked because I actually studied, but out of fear since the guy would cuss us out and keep us «grounded» unless we aced his tests. I guess fear does work to a certain extent, but do you want to live that way? I don’t and I don’t want to raise others in that way either. There’s tons of studies on this but anyhows…
You really just take a bunch of tests at this center, which you can do on your own (though it’s harder to do the self-​study method). But this place seemed home-​y, it had a kitchen where my fellow peers and I would bring our fast food lunches after school and just hang out. Everything was such a chill atmosphere, but we didn’t take advantage of it. We did our work, had some fun, chatted up with the young teachers, etc.
What I learned from this place was that I am not the best test taker. She figured out that I knew all the material, I just sucked at taking standardized tests. After figuring that out it was all good, just like how figuring out the root of a problem helps you gain a solution (or at least a different strategy to tackling it).
Anyhows, it’s been a million years since I’ve been here, so it’s probably changed, though old habits die hard right? All those other tutoring centers still just reuse old tests and grill their students. I’d work here if I was in the area.