Zenith Tutoring

Palo Alto, United States

5

20 reviews

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Telephone:
+1 650-823-4703
Website:
www.zenithtutoring.com
Address:
Serving Palo Alto and surrounding area
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Today

Today 7:00 am – 10:00 pm
Local time (Palo Alto) –

Business hours

Monday 7:00 am – 10:00 pm
Tuesday 7:00 am – 10:00 pm
Wednesday 7:00 am – 10:00 pm
Thursday 7:00 am – 10:00 pm
Friday 7:00 am – 10:00 pm
Saturday 7:00 am – 10:00 pm
Sunday 7:00 am – 10:00 pm

Description

Specialties

4 Point or 7 Point ACT Guarantee, 200⁄350 for SAT. Unparalleled score improvements.

Were famous (OK, somewhat famous) for our incredibly ambitious approach to the SAT. How ambitious are we? We believe that virtually all students can get a perfect (or, nearly perfect) score.

Most people think were crazy when we say this, but we believe it to be true. We also have the results to back it up. Interestingly, little Zenith Tutoring is responsible for approximately 1% of the worldwide perfect scores on the SAT /​ACT (at least for recent exams).

This is possible because of the highly fundamental approach we take to the test – not to mention that weve analyzed the SAT way more than anyone else has. We dont just want to teach you tricks and send you on your way; we want you to truly understand (at a fundamental level) every single question on the test.

Most test prep companies focus on beating the test, and teach tricks to help you bump your score. The problem with this, however, is that theres effectively a cap to how much you can improve; tricks can only take you so far. If you want a truly incredible improvement, you need to move beyond mere tricks.

History

Established in 2008.

Founded by a cadre of dapper MIT grads. We provide unparalleled coaching /​tutoring for SAT test preparation, ACT test prep, college admissions, and virtually all academic subjects. We approach tutoring holistically, defining education broadly and seeking to tailor our services to the needs of each student. We consider expertise a necessary but insufficient condition; our tutors are patient, friendly, and enthusiastic about the subjects they teach.

Our goal is to match students with the right academic coach so that they gain the maximum benefit from time spent together. We also are highly transparent, keeping parents apprised of our progress through our sophisticated online tools.

Meet the Business Owner

Grayson G.

Business Owner

Grayson has three degrees from MIT (M.Eng. Computer Science 2006, B.S. Computer Science 2005, B.S. Mathematics 2005), and got into tutoring originally as a hobby. Eventually, he found himself getting more and more popular, and had to hire others to handle the additional demand.

Today, Zenith takes a «Moneyball» approach to test preparation – heavily relying on analytics to make its student improvements better than those of any other company.

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20 reviews of Zenith Tutoring

No registration required
Place rating: 5
Palo Alto, CA
Yes! I give it 5 stars for Grayson who was persistently following up with my son. Grayson did not give up hope on my son. Finally after 1−½ years of studying my son improved his score by 630 points in his final attempt at the SAT. Thank you Grayson and Zenith for all the help.
Place rating: 5
Menlo Park, CA
I’d highly encourage you to check out the services of Zenith Tutoring. They are a reliable, professional organization that made a huge difference in the lives of both my kids. We had the opportunity to use two of their tutors in the subjects of Spanish, Calculus and SAT
Prep.
Zenith tutors are some of the brightest individuals who’ve worked with my kids. They know their subject inside out. But more importantly, they understand that not everyone learns by the same methods. They were highly successful in figuring out where each student needed
specialized attention and were able to deliver the information in a useful and meaningful way. Both my kids were able to translate the information back into the classroom, which has led to sustained academic success. And I have to say from a parent’s perspective, my most treasured memories of having Mary-​Irene and Nuritizi come to our house were the huge smiles had by all and the tons of the laughter that occurred during the sessions. It was by far one of the best investments we’ve made.
Place rating: 5
Los Altos, CA
This review is a bit delayed, I highly recommend Zenith Tutoring. It helped both my kids succeed and do well on their tests. I first used Zenith Tutoring in 2013 – 2014. My son took an ACT class with Grayson as his teacher. Grayson took interest in my son’s learning and progress. He made the process very personal, teaching in a way that worked best for my son. They worked to improve his scores and test taking abilities better than any other test taking book or class. The materials provided by Zenith are outstanding. Seeing the amazing improvement my son had of course I contacted Zenith again for my daughter. She not only improved her act scores to near perfect (36, 35, 35), she had help on her essays and is now a freshman and a top University out east.
There are a lot of good tutoring options out there. Zenith, however, is great. The care and dedication these instructors give is outstanding. They really care about the kids they are helping.
Place rating: 5
Cupertino, CA
Zenith is a wonderful tutoring center. Zenith had a well structured curriculum that really emphasized the fundamentals of the exam, teaching me the skills necessary to be successful. I also received excellent feedback on my college essays. I learned much better writing skills that I will use far beyond college. Definitely the place to go for academic help.
Place rating: 5
Mountain View, CA
Zenith Tutoring helped me tremendously with a diverse array of subjects ranging from Math to SAT prep to the College Application process. My standardized test scores never quite matched with my grades in high school; however Zenith’s knowledge and depth of experience increased my critical thinking and test taking skills. More importantly, the instructors valued long term skill development to drive score improvement, rather than solely be focused on the score increase. Not only was I able to score significantly higher on the SAT’s, but utilizing the instructors during the college application process allowed me to be selective in colleges I could have never imagined being accepted to!
Place rating: 5
Menlo Park, CA
My daughter participated in tutoring with Zenith Tutoring and we were very pleased. The instructors were incredibly knowledgeable, but more importantly, were able to clearly explain very complex concepts so that she could understand them. Her confidence in school improved dramatically. In addition, she participated in an SAT prep program with Zenith which we believe significantly helped in her test scores.
We highly recommend Zenith Tutoring.
Place rating: 5
Sunnyvale, CA
My daughter learned a lot from Zenith during her lesson and she made a huge progress and got a very good score on ACT as well as math subject test. (Even with 10 times lessons.)
I would really suggest Zenith tutoring if you want to improve your score.
Place rating: 5
Redwood City, CA
Zenith did a great job preparing my daughter for the SAT, which she received a high enough score that she only took it one time!
Additionally, Adam tutored her for a year through a very challenging AP Physics C course with great success. Adam has a very calm and supportive demeanor. Just having his weekly help tremendously reduced the stress level of the course and was the key to her success!
Place rating: 5
Santa Clara, CA
I recommend Zenith Tutoring and Grayson’s SAT methods highly. My kids have tried other SAT tutoring places but Zenith is the best one. They both improved close to 400 points and scored over 2300. They did work hard taking a lot of practice tests but Grayson knows how to prepare his students to do well. LK
Place rating: 5
Sunnyvale, CA
I highly recommend Zenith Tutoring. Grayson’s unique SAT strategy helped my son to stay focus and achieve a perfect score of 2400 on his first try in the January 2015 test! Thanks Grayson!
Place rating: 5
Palo Alto, CA
Well, you can’t argue with results. My son is a very good student and was destined to get a good SAT score. But, high expectations lead to even higher ambitions and soon he and we as parents were toying with the 2400 target. These are very rare, especially when achieved not as a superscore but in a single sitting. Grayson was excellent at this level of competition, and knew how to guide and advise our son. He was patient during after-​dinner meetings, and built confidence in our son. Long story short, our boy opened his results last week and there it was: 800, 800, 800. Of course, first credit goes to our boy, and perhaps second to us as parents over the years — but, if you are looking for a SAT tutoring program that in the end produces good results I would go with Zenith.
Place rating: 5
Los Altos, CA
My son is good at math but has real challenges in the reading/​writing parts of exams. As a result he did poorly on those sections of the SAT exam. For months we encouraged him to work on this and while he is a smart kid, he has a procrastination problem and never seemed to get around to applying himself. We spent a year with another (more expensive) tutoring service but saw very little progress in several attempts at the SAT.
At the end of his junior year we decided to make a change and chose Zenith after reading reviews and talking to Grayson. The first thing they did was to spend a couple of days with him to prepare for the impending SAT subject tests. We were very pleased to see that after this preparation he scored an 800 on the Math II test and a 770 on the Physics test.
Grayson then recommended that our son could best overcome his reading/​writing weaknesses by studying for the ACT instead of the SAT and assigned Lynn Tsai to prepare him for the ACT and to help him with his college applications. Lynn worked diligently with him over the summer and fall and somehow got him to really prepare for the ACT test. This resulted in an increase in his ACT score from 29 to 33. Lynn also worked with him to develop compelling essays for his college application and spent a full day with him in the Zenith offices to go over the application to his first choice college. Almost all of the tutoring sessions were done on Skype and looking back I think that the scheduling flexibility of Skype allowed them to have their sessions at times when there was less distraction. She also sent him a written «to do» list for the next session minutes after the last session ended. Throughout this process Lynn kept us informed on the progress he was making and when he was not making progress.
We were extremely pleased and grateful to Lynn when he was admitted to Johns Hopkins in December on an early decision basis.
Having tried another prominent tutoring service before we found Zenith, I have no reservations in recommending Zenith, Grayson and Lynn.
DW, parent of a Menlo School senior
Place rating: 5
Cupertino, CA
(Written from the perspective of my 16 year old son, who took an 8 week course at Zenith)
I waited until I received my PSAT scores to write this review (I wanted to see the effectiveness of the class just midway through, as I took the PSAT after the fourth class). Even though I was only 50% through the course, I was still able to do well on the PSAT. I attribute this to both the teaching approach of Zenith and my instructor, Adam.
Zenith is unlike some other tutoring centers in the area– some are like factories, just taking money and pushing kids out as quick as possible. However, I didn’t get that feeling from Zenith. Every class, I felt that the only goal of the class (and Adam) was to make us better at the SAT– however much time, effort, and thought it took. It was also nice to learn the traps of the SAT, and ways to identify and avoid them.
My instructor, Adam, was awesome. He genuinely cared about making us better students, welcoming every question we had with eagerness. There was never a single moment where I felt that Adam WASN’T doing everything in his power to help us, whether it was allowing us to choose practice problems that better served what we needed, or just breaking down complex ideas into easier terms so that we could grasp the concepts and store them in our memories.
Thanks to Zentih, I only had to take the SAT once, and I got the exact score that I was hoping for. Thank you Zenith, and thank you Adam, for helping me. If I had to take another SAT prep course, I would quickly come down to Zenith.
–Matt
Place rating: 5
Sunnyvale, CA
If I had never stumbled upon Zenith Tutoring, my life would look vastly different. Grayson essentially took me under his wing, and as a result, I can proudly say that I’ll be a student at Columbia University in the fall of 2014. To be brief, Grayson got me into college.
Grayson’s method of tutoring and counseling is a style I’ve never encountered before. He never sets a threshold for your performance, meaning if you get a 750 on your Math II SAT test, he’ll encourage you and work with you until you earn that perfect 800. Despite your natural academic levels, Grayson finds a way to engage you and allow you to improve.
Grayson is an expert in every area. He counseled me with college essays, he extensively prepared me for the SAT and Subject Tests, and he made it clear that he legitimately cared about my success. He always made sure that every essay correction, every topic, and every method of learning was crystal clear in my mind. Therefore, when I learned something from him, it stuck with me.
I developed more than just a knack for taking he SAT from my time at Zenith. I genuinely developed as a person. I became more insightful and more calculative. I learned how to write with rhetoric and with articulation. I even learned how to think with actual logic and to apply my new analytical tactics to other facets of my life.
Place rating: 5
San Jose, CA
Grayson and Chris did an outstanding job working with our son who has ADD. Most of the tutoring over several years was in high level math. Both worked tireless with our son and showed great patience. They also helped in putting together an outstanding application packet which helped our son get accepted to UC Santa Cruz. Our son could not have made it without the help of Zenith.
Place rating: 5
Cupertino, CA
Zenith tutoring did a great job helping my son prep for the SAT.
They stress on foundational work, clarify concepts and build confidence. Also have a great app to improve vocabulary.
Grayson works methodically and teaches test taking strategies that are personalized for the student.
My son saw a significant improvement in scores and we are very pleased he went to Zenith.
Place rating: 5
Redwood City, CA
My daughter began working with Grayson during the summer as a way to keep her brain active during the break from school. That led into preparing for the October 2012 SAT.
There were two very significant benefits to the tutoring that my daughter received — the first was gaining an understanding of the test (what is covered, how the test works, how grueling it can be to sit for that many hours and take the test, how to write the SAT essays, etc.). The second significant benefit was giving my daughter confidence in her abilities through taking practice tests each week for several weeks and seeing that she was scoring well.
When my daughter went into the SAT, she was well prepared and she was confident because she knew that she was well prepared.
My daughter took the test in October of her Junior year — she scored so well that she will not be taking the SAT again, which we all absolutely love.
Thank you, Grayson, and the rest of the staff at Zenith!
Place rating: 5
Santa Clara, CA
I used Grayson about a year ago and my SAT scores went up by a ridiculous amount. From my PSAT… almost 800 points… crazy!!! I thank them for me getting into great schools like UC Davis.
Thanks, Zenith!
Place rating: 5
Palo Alto, CA
Zenith Tutoring was started by two MIT grads, both of whom are bright and personable teachers. They tutor everything from Physics/​Math/​Bio/​Chem to English/​History: you name it, they can find an excellent tutor (Ivies/​MIT/​Stanford alum or students) for the subject. They also teach an intensive SAT prep class that has a very limited class size. My son said that he learned «more in one session with Zenith than a whole course with Kaplan». Highly recommended.
Place rating: 5
Menlo Park, CA
Both of our children have used Zenith Tutoring –it’s exactly what one wants from tutoring. The instructors are very smart, very caring, flexible, and really interested in the subject matter –so it’s not just doing homework, it’s learning and learning to enjoy learning.
Our daughter also recently used Zenith for college prep, all the way from SAT’s (on which she greatly exceeded her expectations) to college applications. It was great for her to have support outside of the family from people who are knowledgable about the admissions process and caring. Having someone to bounce ideas off of, answer questions, and provide feedback on essays improved the applications but even more importantly, greatly reduced stress and anxiety and even made the process a fun one.