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The College Wizard Reviews Summary
The College Wizard has a rating of 4.5 stars from 79 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally satisfied with their purchases. Reviewers satisfied with The College Wizard most frequently mention early decision, act score and dream school. The College Wizard ranks 17th among Tutor sites.
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I just got accepted early decision to Brown and I don't think I could say that if I had not had Harvey to help me. The strategies he taught me for beating the SAT were really simple to remember and I have to admit that every time I used them I chose the correct answer. If I got an answer wrong, it was my own fault. It took me a while to change my approach from what I learned at Princeton Review to Harvey's method, but when I did my SAT score rose pretty quickly from 1970 to 2320. Harvey's tips for creating my own unique project and branding made it easy to stand out from other students, and I sometimes felt a little guilty because my resume looked better than most of my friends even though I probably worked not quite as hard as they did. If you have dreams of attending an Ivy League school, you really should contact Harvey.
Whatever magic Harvey has, we are simply thankful for it. I don't know how he managed to help our son, who has severe ADHD, increase his SAT score from 1650 to 1920 in only a matter of weeks, but he did. Simply amazing.
My son Jonathan started with Harvey a little over a year ago. I was very impressed right from the beginning, especially with the amount of motivation Harvey was able to inspire in my son. Little by little, we watched the practice test scores go up (from 1650 at the start). Setbacks along the way, including an SAT that Jonathan did very poorly on. But by the third try, Jonathan hit 2040 and we couldn't be happier.
All Harvey does is force you into practicing SAT (which is why people have been seeing results) and give you gimmicky, cheesy tips such as "picking the shortest answer". His Skype lessons are unreliable and he constantly disconnects. The only thing he did was go over my wrong answers, and waited for me to fix the answer on my own. Under Harvey, I was advised to not guess and skip the questions I did not know. I ended up with an 1830. I decided to stop going to him for lessons and self-study. Please do this instead of wasting $2400. Self-studying is the same as his lessons, if not much more better--Harvey is utterly useless.
I ended up with a 33 ACT and 2110 SAT in the end, without his help. Waste of money.
UPDATE: After reading your response, Harvey, I have to admit that you're a class act--buttering up this negative review to somehow make it seem like a success story. Funny point there about my internet connection. I love it. I've had numerous Skype videos with others and they were flawless, unlike yours. But you can blame it on me, that's perfectly okay. I'm fine with that. I'm just glad I'm not suffering through your meaningless lessons anymore.
Also, a tip for the future: you should provide some form of evidence for your ballsy claims-- I am appalled that from your "years of analysis', you have gone through every SAT question and analyzed every single response to conclude that when students guess, they get it wrong "over 90% of the time".
I'm also appalled at your ability to mind-read. How else you would know if a student is completely guessing, or simply calculating an incorrect answer?! Amazing!
Another tip: You should stop wearing a dirty white T-shirt during lessons. Try to be a little more professional.
I wish you the best of luck in your excuse of a business. I hope more parents are eager to waste their money on you. Happy New Years.
For an athlete with a packed schedule like my son, Harvey's Skype lessons made it easy to find the time for SAT prep. Jason has always hated to read, and I knew that would be a problem. But since he only needed 600s on critical reading and math for his scholarship, Harvey gave him the strategy of only answering two thirds of the test. That let Jason skip the questions that were too hard or with words he didn't know. Jason ended up with 1860, compared to the 1420 he started with.
From our first conversation, I was amazed at how much time Harvey spent on the phone with me, explaining how the ACT works and helping me understand why my daughter Daphne who is an A student had been failing to do well on it. His free mini-lesson made Daphne excited about really "beating" the test. Daphne has a jam-packed schedule and having tutoring sessions with Skype let her be really loose with scheduling but it was always easy to find a convenient time. In about 6 months of working with Harvey, her ACT score went up 6 points and we are very happy.
Harvey Manger-Weil has been working with me on SAT for almost two years now, and I am proud to say that I finally scored a perfect 2400.
Getting a lower SAT score than any of her friends really devastated my daughter Morgan. Sapped her confidence. We found Harvey on an internet search and I had the feeling right away he and Morgan would hit it off, which they did. It was very satisfying to see her start to gain confidence about the SAT and motivated to study. Her first SAT after working with Harvey still was low, but Harvey was able to reassure her that she just needed more practice. Harvey was able to motivate Morgan to keep going, and she ended with a respectable 2010, compared with the 1430 she started with.
I can hardly believe it, but with Harvey's help I just scored 36 on ACT to go along with the SAT 2400 I scored in June. Harvey's rules are so simple and complete he gave me everything I needed to make the right answer obvious for every type of question.
Harvey The College Wizard oozes passion for what he does. He kept my daughter laughing. Her SAT went from 1810 to 2310. She got into Princeton. Any questions?
Without Harvey's help, I never would have gotten accepted to the University of Virginia, my first choice school. UVA is a very competitive and Harvey really kept reminding me how I needed to get my SAT scores high enough or none of my other accomplishments would be looked at. Even though I started low at 1670, Harvey helped me achieve a 2150 which was good enough to get in.
Every student I have referred to Harvey has reported back a great experience. Not all have gotten the scores they want – it depends on student motivation and how willing you are to practice. But for those that work hard, Harvey has helped so many get stellar SAT scores as well as acceptance into some of the most prestigious schools in the country.
I am writing this review for the benefit of other parents who might be as skeptical as I was. Although I felt very comfortable having Harvey tutor my daughter after speaking with him on the telephone, I was worried about hiring someone I had found on the internet. Harvey reassured me by offering a mini-lesson on Skype with my daughter before we signed up. Getting a chance for both my daughter and me to meet Harvey on Skype made the choice much easier. My daughter loved working with Harvey and he really motivated her to study. Seeing the excitement on my daughter's face when she broke 2000 (that was her goal and she had been devastated scoring only 1510 on her first try) was immensely satisfying for my husband and I.
Harvey worked with my son Josh a few years ago, so of course when it was time for my daughter Elizabeth to need SAT prep, I contacted Harvey.
Elizabeth is a much stronger student than Josh, and so her goals were higher. She really wanted a perfect score.
Elizabeth's challenge, though, is that she is a competitive gymnast and so has a very packed schedule during the week.
Harvey's Skype lessons let Elizabeth meet at times convenient for her. Different days of the week, sometimes on weekends, sometimes late a night (10:15PM.)
Elizabeth loved Harvey just as much as Josh did, and really got powered up and competitive with herself as she saw that Harvey's tricks work every time and give you a clear path to a perfect score.
I was surprised to see it was true, as Harvey told us at the beginning, that the last couple hundred points of getting a perfect score can be as hard to achieve as five hundred points for a student starting out lower.
But Elizabeth was determined willing to keep working with Harvey as long as it took.
Elizabeth did need three tries to reach her goal, but she doesn't give up and scored 2260 the first time, 2310 the second time and finally 2400.
Harvey truly is a wizard!
Thanks to Harvey, my daughter was accepted early decision to Yale. It's hard to express my profound gratitude for all he did to help make this possible for Sarah. First, he guided her from a 1950 to a 2320 on her SAT and a 35 on her ACT. He laid out projects for her to complete and guided her every step of the way. He held our hand through whole college admissions process, answering all of our questions with promptness and cheerfulness. He helped Sarah write all of her application essays. He has truly been a godsend.
We come from India just three years ago and we don't know a lot about the American system. Mr. Harvey gave our daughter a lot of help and showed her the tricks to get a good score. He was very patient and he was always easy to get a hold of. My daughter liked working with him a lot and scored 2250 on SAT. Mr. Harvey also read the college essays and gave a good project that helped her get into a three Ivy League schools.
Every so often, you meet someone who actually exceeds their hype. That's how I feel about Harvey.
When I first read about him, I thought he sounded a little too good to be true. But now I realize he is a truly gifted, unbelievably committed person who devotes all his energy to helping kids get what they want in life.
The way Harvey worked with my son Nick was amazing. Honestly, Nick is not the most motivated kid. But somehow Harvey got him excited about getting into a really good school. He built Nick's confidence and got him to appreciate his own intelligence. Then every night, I actually saw Nick take out his SAT books and PRACTICE! (This in itself was a miracle).
Harvey has really been a mentor for Nick, much more than just a tutor. I have seen so many positive changes in Nick, his confidence, his maturity, and I owe a lot of that to the time Nick spent with Harvey.
Nick got just 1500 on his first SAT, and we were hoping for maybe 1800. But with Harvey's coaching, Nick achieved a 2120. I am thrilled!
I was feeling really depressed about my SAT scores before my dad found Harvey on the internet. I just couldn't understand why my scores were so low when I am an A student in the IB program at school. Harvey explained that the test is made to fool students, and it wasn't my fault. And then when he showed me his tricks, it made me a lot more confident. It took a lot of practice, but Harvey always told me I could do it if I just didn't give up. Thanks so Harvey's help, my SAT score went up from 1500 to 2050.
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Brandon, you may be surprised to learn two things. First, I congratulate you and I am thrilled that you achieved 2110 on your SAT and 33 on your ACT. I am happy when a student achieves significantly higher SAT and ACT scores with or without my help.
Second, I have to consider you one of my success stories. When you began working with me in October 2014, your initial SAT score was only 1620. You completed the first four lessons with me, during which time I taught you all the strategies needed to achieve a perfect SAT and ACT score. You seem to credit me with your initial jump to 1830 (210) points but not your eventual score of 2110. Evidently you still remember my writing strategy: Choose the shortest answer as long as it does not contain one of nine grammatical errors. I suppose we simply differ on the characterization of my strategies. While I consider my techniques powerful because they all fit on a single page (which is why I am able to teach them all in the first four lessons), ridiculously simple, easy to remember and yet 100% effective, you call them “gimmicky and cheesy”.
I will be the first to admit that enough self-practice in and of itself can produce almost any score desired. Unfortunately, self-practice without any outside guidance can require many more hours to achieve success than practice following guidelines that an expert has spent years developing and refining. Since most of my students are somewhat overburdened with school work and extracurricular activities, they would prefer not having to “reinvent the wheel” if I can simply direct them to practice in the most efficient way possible.
Assuming that you achieved your final 2110 SAT score relatively recently, it would mean you took 14 months to go from 1620 to 2110. I believe you might have achieved that score somewhat more quickly had you taken advantage of ongoing lessons with me. It would have given me a chance to teach you that a phrase like “much more better” which you used in your review is grammatically incorrect.
To clarify your claim that I taught you “not to guess and skip questions you do not know”, it is true I have advised students preparing for the old SAT to avoid guessing. The reason for this strategy is that the old SAT incorporates a guessing penalty for each wrong answer. And while probability theory might suggest that guessing is a good idea, my own years of analysis demonstrated that because the SAT creates wrong answers to be more attractive than correct ones, students will choose the wrong answer – even in a 50/50 situation – over 90% of the time. But since the new SAT no longer has a guessing penalty, this issue is no longer relevant.
I checked back on our chat logs relative to the “constant disconnecting” you refer to. First, while I do see a handful of starts and stops in our Skype sessions, I don’t know that I would call them “constant”. Second, while I do have the highest commercially available internet speed in my office, the overall quality of a Skype call can be diminished by slower internet speed on the other end.
I try to use any feedback I receive to improve the quality of my service. I know that your parents did not take advantage of my initial Skype lesson, which would have been an opportunity for you to get an idea of the kind of strategies I teach (and therefore whether or not you felt they were “cheesy”) as well as the quality of Skype calls we could have given your home’s internet speed. As a result of your feedback, I plan to be even more adamant about having new clients take advantage of my free Skype lesson prior to signing up to work with me.
I wish you all the best as you await your college acceptances.