March 3, 2014
The New Yorker
by Elizabeth Kolbert
In the March 3, 2014 issue of the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert refers to Advantage Testing in her book review of Debbie Stier's The Perfect Score Project.
Debbie is a Manhattan-based author who worked with Advantage Testing a few years ago while writing her book about preparing to take the SAT.
“What might be called the Institute for Advanced Study of tutoring services is a Manhattan-based operation called Advantage Testing. Advantage’s tutors hold Ph.D.s from Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard… During her yearlong quest, Stier is repeatedly advised to go to Advantage—“Everyone uses them,” a real-estate mogul she knows tells her—but she balks at the price. Finally, with less than three weeks to go, she decides she’s got to try it…Advantage, however, will not assign her a tutor on such short notice. After considerable noodging, the president of the company, Arun Alagappan, agrees to meet with her. He tells her that the whole premise of her project—sampling a different method of test prep each month—is misguided; successful preparation requires a sustained approach. This critique only makes her that much more desperate to sample Advantage’s method. At last, Alagappan relents, and Stier spends the last two weeks of her project camped out in Advantage’s office.”