[ibimage==33759==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]
Conventional wisdom dictates that high school students preparing to take the SAT will benefit most from taking a preparatory course online or in the classroom. There’s some truth to this; the inherent structure and expertise can offer students advantages that independent study from a book can’t.
But these courses don’t come cheap. Depending on time frame and test level, complete Princeton Review or Kaplan SAT prep courses, for instance, can cost anywhere from $600 to $6,000. Discounts are available, but they’re usually limited to percentages of 20 or less. So where does that leave the students who can’t afford them?
Enter Prepify, a source for free online SAT test prep for aspiring college students. By providing gratis instruction, Prepify aims to narrow the opportunity gap between socioeconomically disadvantaged students and their more privileged peers.
“Although top colleges have been successful at recruiting across some dimensions of diversity, many still have a long way to go toward socioeconomic diversity. We wanted to change this situation. That’s why we created Prepify,” said co-founder Rena Pacheco-Theard.
In addition to delivering free instruction, Prepify offers curricula that are designed to be adaptive to a student’s learning style and rate of progress. They dynamically adjust in “real time” to a student’s strengths and weaknesses, presenting her with questions deemed relevant by proprietary algorithms.
[ibimage==33710==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]
“Most test-prep curricula [are] linear, so regardless of whether a student answers questions correctly or not, and regardless of how much time the student spends on each question, the student moves forward,” Pacheco-Theard said. “Prepify's goal is to customize itself to the needs of each individual student, so that beginners don’t move forward before they have mastered the material, and advanced students don’t waste time on beginner-level material.”
Of course, financial burdens for poorer students aren’t limited to SAT prep; once the SATs are done, there’s still the behemoth of college tuition to consider. Prepify plans to mitigate this problem by introducing students to college recruiters who can offer them financial aid.
But before this is implemented, the startup is working toward assembling a pilot group to test the curriculum on a Web-based platform, according to Pacheco-Theard. “We will then be reaching out to potential partner colleges and universities in order to share our findings and discuss collaboration opportunities. We’ve also already partnered with nationwide youth programs in order to spread the word about Prepify and insure it is made accessible and known to students,” she said.
The startup, which consists of four team members, generates revenue through corporate sponsorships and student referrals to universities. As it matures, Pacheco-Theard said Prepify will aim to cover preparatory instruction for the ACT and Common Core courses such as biology, finance, and calculus.
Despite the financial hoops through which underprivileged students must jump, Pacheco-Theard is optimistic about changing the socioeconomic landscape of the university system. “We believe [lower-income] students have the unique potential to improve their communities if they are able to connect with the elite resources, knowledge-banks and personal networks that exist on elite campuses. Simply put, we believe Prepify can help facilitate socioeconomic change by breaking down one of the most significant barriers keeping high-potential, low-income students out of the best colleges and universities: the SAT.”
