Aspire Education Project

We had a great experience with Aspire. My daughter is a strong student but was having trouble with standardized tests and doing poorly on practice exams. We were feeling quite discouraged when we discovered Aspire. I was heartened from my first conversation with Jack, in which he took a lot of time with me and seemed to really understand the situation. I was then happily surprised by the calm, focus and general happiness that characterized my daughter’s sessions with her excellent tutor, Rebecca Cohen. This was quite a turn-​around from the earlier, frustrated and anxious sessions of exam preparation. We also took advantage of Aspire’s proctored practice-​tests on the weekends, and I think this was a big help as well, since my daughter got very accustomed to the experience of taking the test before actually taking it. We greatly appreciated Mei’s warm and efficient administration of the practice tests and Katrina’s expert evaluations of the results. We received my daughter’s SSAT results two days before Christmas, and they were so good that we wrapped them up and put them under the tree for her to discover as a Christmas gift from herself: 96^th percentile. We will certainly return to Aspire when the time comes to prepare for the SAT.

I have had the pleasure of working alongside Jack, Katrina, and Sheidy over the past year. They are an amazing group of people and it’s a really well ran organization!

Our son has been tutored by Aspire over the last year and the support, instruction, organizational skills, mentoring have surpassed anything we could have imagined. Our son was diagnosed with ADHD early this academic year and really struggled with organization. He worked closely with Amy, one of the tutors, and she was instrumental in helping him gain organizational skills necessary for high school and beyond. But, it was not just the academic support that was so crucial — Amy has been a mentor to our son — helping him believe in his abilities. He has gone from grades in the D to C range to A’s and B’s. He is also excited about school again and feeling confident and competent. In addition to the wonderful tutoring and mentoring, Jack in the office has been a tremendous support for us — helping us sort out what our son needed. He was kind and considerate in all interactions. Additionally, they have provided us the tutoring at a reduced rate — we could not afford the full tuition and they worked with us to come up with a rate that we felt we could afford. We recommend them highly!

My daughter went to Aspires two weekend camp that they hosted at Bentley, she said it was amazing, she learned so much and her SAT scores improved. Then my daughter did 1 on 1 tutoring through Aspire, it was a great experience. It really helped to get her ready for the ACT test!

My high school son tutored preschoolers in east Oakland over the summer thru aspires reading buddies program. We’re hoping aspire will be able to continue this program during the school year. My son has had some struggles in school himself so being able to help younger kids has given him a big confidence boost. We live in an affluent suburb that feels like a bubble; coming to Oakland to work with kids who have fewer opportunities is a good reality check for my son. He loves playing with the kids and it makes him feel good about himself. It gives him a chance to develop non-​academic leadership and people skills, and feel proud of what he’s doing. It seems like program is well organized. My interactions with staff have been very positive.

Aspire did a great job! I used Aspire SAT tutoring for both my normal SAT and my subject tests. I also went to their two weekend camp that they hosted at Bentley. The tutors were GREAT! My tutor was insanely punctual, friendly and intelligent, not to mention she helped to boost my score substantially. All Aspire tutors/​employees are super friendly and willing to help!
I highly recommend Aspire :)

Excellent services. Very kind and helpful tutor. Very responsive. My son improved significantly thru the Aspire services. And his tutor was a great match, personality wise also.

We used Aspire for several tutoring sessions, a practice exam, and exam review for our son who needs to take the ISEE as part of the private high school admissions process. The one-​on-​one attention he received was invaluable and the cost was reasonable; but more than that, the flexibility to help our son even on a Sunday, having someone come in just to assist him, showed a commitment to his success that went beyond the other study services.
In addition to tutoring for these and other exams, ASPIRE, as a non-​profit, has a mission to enhance the opportunities for kids of low-​income families. For us, it meant that we were supporting a good organization even while paying for high quality tutoring services. There was no trade off between the individual attention and the high quality our son received on the one hand and, on the other, their non-​profit status. In fact, they complemented each other. It showed that this was more about Will’s success and not a business transaction.
Indeed, we were so grateful to the team there, we made a further donation to assist them in one of their programs: a volunteer-​based literacy program for low income preschoolers in the East Bay.
We highly recommend them.