top of page

fffff

HELPING ACQUIRE COLLEGE KNOWLEDGE WELCOMES YOU

Our SAT Prep

HACK SAT is a clinic that seeks to disprove common myths around how the highest standardized test scores are reached and provide students with the strategies and test prep materials that will help them reach their goal scores.

During the summer before my junior year, I did a lot of research before choosing how I would prep for the SAT, and I was amazed at the quantity of free, powerful material available online as well as the tremendous amount of misinformation that surrounded the test. Most students are unsure as to what exactly they can do to raise their score because they believe that SAT scores are more or less static, indicative of one’s innate intelligence or natural ability. Many think that if they scored 1150, then that must mean they are an 1150-type-of-student, and this could not be farther from the truth.

 

When I took the test earlier this year, I scored a 1550 (200 points higher than what I scored during the beginning of my sophomore year) and after seeing how my friends struggled to sort through all the myths and bad advice surrounding the SAT, I wanted to  share what I had learned.

How to sign up

How to sign up for a clinic

During our sessions, you will learn

  1. Why not all test prep material was created equal

    • How and why many prep programs/ test books, despite being well known, consistently set students up for disappointment​ 

    • How to identify and avoid material and advice that can actually lower your score

    • Learn which 2 books were the ones that helped raise our scores 200 points

  2. To change your perspective on the test

    • Taking full responsibility of your prep

    • Why this will make the test easier to take, make questions less confusing, and help you increase your score 

    • Why is the SAT is unlike other high school tests? Howshould you approach it 

    • Why grades and test scores are not always correlated

  3. Which common misconceptions are stunting your score

    • Why every single question in the Reading and Writing sections has a single, non-negotiable answer that can be directly backed up by a single quote in the passage

    • How and why all the reading passages (science/history/literature/paired) can essentially be approached in the same way

    • Why your Math score does not depend on whether you're in AP Calculus or not

    • How the post-test diagnostics more often than not mislead students who are trying to identify weaknesses

    • Why some questions appear to require prior-knowledge (and why they never actually do)

Sign up for a session!

Become a Regional Ambassador!

Send

Send

Contact Form
Volunteer here

About the Founders

 

Being Mexican American, my sister and I hope that this project will help keep Chicago a place where heritage is viewed as something that further strengthens a person's identity as an American and ensure that the situation into which somebody was born will not be the greatest limitation of their potential.

Isabella Graham

I was born in Venezuela and lived in Miami and Mexico City before I moved to Chicago in 2015. I am now a junior in Lincoln Park High School's IB program. I created this program after increasing my test score from a 1370 on the October 2016 PSAT to a 1550 on the December 2017 SAT and improving my Math score from a 620 to 790. I was nominated for the National Hispanic Recognition Program by the College Board in 2018. In college, I want to study Computer Science and Economics, specifically the impact of technology on inequality.

Cecille Graham

I increased my score from 1200 on the October 2016 PSAT to 1450 on the December 2017 SAT, with a perfect score of  800 in Reading and Writing. In February of 2018, I was invited into the National Hispanic Recognition Program based solely on my high test score. 

About Founders

Thanks! Message sent.

Thanks! Message sent.

bottom of page