Hi Richard,

We have indeed checked for Sydney's scores, and they are wonderful! She got a 790 in math and a 730 in verbal! She felt just great about it, and her first thought was how proud of herself she was for having worked so hard with you! She's not even sure she ought to take the test a second time. (By the way, what are your thoughts on that? Is she not likely to do any better next June, especially since she won't have your tutorials freshly in mind? Or should she give it another shot? Any wisdom on this from your experience, and from what you know of Sydney?)

There isn't any question, meantime, but that these scores reflect your outstanding preparatory wisdom. Despite her great strengths in math, you helped her to cut down on small errors. As for the verbal, you made it possible for her to score WAY above what she would have accomplished otherwise. You provided her the strategies she needed to make up for such weaknesses as slow reading, and taught her to attack the analogies' section with gusto even when the word in question eluded her! (Frankly, your help here seems to me so important, I wonder at the usefulness of this part of the test for kids who don't have this sort of preparation.)

Sydney is one of the best students in her class in reading texts sensitively and in writing coherent, even elegant essays. And yet her verbal scores have never been great. (The tests we give in this seem to test in a way that is not to her advantage.) You have ensured she will not be penalized for this, and we are so deeply grateful!

But what Tim and I found most impressive is that you accomplished this marvelous help in sessions that were often a lot of fun. That is quite something, when you figure students like Sydney and Caroline are spending so much time already with homework and are hardly looking for more. They got a kick out of working with you, never doubted the usefulness or the wisdom of your approach to things, and ultimately felt empowered by the confidence with which you sent them away. When the test day approached, you made sure they felt great about themselves and about their preparation--felt they knew exactly what to do--indeed, couldn't wait to do it! That was marvelous to see! It allowed us to sit back, worry if we liked, and stay out of the way--Sydney had it handled!

Please accept our heartiest thanks for your work and your patience throughout! I'll give you a call soon, but wanted to let you know how Sydney had done right away.

With warmest best!

Deborah