About

Michael Scharf

I have been preparing students for the ACT and the SAT for nearly thirty years. It is not something I do alongside another career — it is the career. That is the main practical difference between this and most tutoring: I am not learning the material a week ahead of your student, and I have seen the way these tests have changed over three decades of revisions.

I work with students one at a time. There are no associate tutors, no franchise curriculum, and no classroom sections. The roster is deliberately small, which is why availability is limited at certain times of year.

How I teach

Directly. Sessions are demanding, expectations are high, and feedback is specific rather than encouraging-by-default. Students who want to be pushed tend to do very well here. Students who need a softer environment are better served elsewhere, and I would rather say that at the start than three months in.

What I am not interested in is tricks. There is a genre of test prep built on gimmicks that work on a worksheet and fall apart under time on a real test. The work here is knowing the content, recognizing question types fast, and making good decisions about where to spend the clock.

Measurement

I score every practice test myself, question by question, using scoring software I built for this practice. That sounds like an odd thing to mention on an about page, but it is the reason I can tell you that a student is losing four points to a specific category of Math question rather than telling you they should “work on Math.” Over a program, those reports are what the plan is built from.

Where

Sessions run in person on the Westside of Los Angeles, online, or in combination. Proctored practice tests are held in a conference room at 10801 National Blvd in Los Angeles; details are on the practice test page.