Starts-Ups Change How Students Study for Tests
Dan Kimerling
21 comments »
Anyone who’s applied to college has dealt with the frustration of standardize testing. With the cost of failure so high, parents and grads continue to spend a lot of cash on test preparation to ensure the best results. However, there’s a crop of web startups popping up to ease the pain and we’re all benefiting from the competition.
Prepme is one online test prep company coming out of the University of Chicago’s business incubator. Founded in 2001, the company offers test preparation for the SAT, PSAT, and ACT, using an adaptive algorithm to customize the preparation course for each student.
Unlike Kaplan’s online offering, Prepme doesn’t calculate the best lesson plan once, but continuously as you work your way through the material. Their system keeps track of what questions you get right and wrong, working you harder on the types of questions you miss.
Additionally, customers can connect electronically, using real time chat, with high scoring college students who serve as tutors.
With test prep for the SAT alone being a $130 million dollar-a-year industry, using web 2.0 technology to help students seems like a logical move. Seeing the threat, some of the major players in the industry, like Kaplan or Princeton Review, have been attempting to develop online test prep products to compete with new online offering like Prepme. Prepme charges around $300 to $500 for their lessons compared with Kaplan’s lowest offering costing $400.
At the same time, Prepme is expanding the tests which they provide preparation for to include the GMAT, MCAT, and LSAT and partnering with brick and mortar companies to provide comprehensive test-preparation services. Additionally, the company signed a contract earlier this year to provide their services to every high school junior in the state of Maine.
See also our coverage of Grockit, a Silicon Valley startup focusing on helping students study for the GMAT via P2P ideas evolved through MMOGs..
ahh, students will need these prep courses if they are to climb the proverbial career ladder - lol
Well, I think it’s standardized testing, not standardize testing.
Anyway, what a good idea. I think there’s a lot of money to be made in this field. When it comes to their childrens’ futures parents are willing to drop a lot of cash.
hmmm, I gotta think about this one ….
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I wouldn’t quite label this a web 2.0 company. They seem to have a real business model with a lot of revenue potential. Good luck to them.
I like their clean site too.
Congratulations, Avichal! Google Alumni are makin’ waves
Go Chicago GSB!
Go Stanford Engineering!
I think they could have a nicer looking design, but good luck to them anyway.
According to the College Board 2006 Profile Report analysis of SAT scores,
students from wealthier families typically receive higher marks. ProProfs
(www.proprofs.com) hopes to even out the playing field for the two
million individuals who take the exam each year by now providing a free SAT test school, complete with many web 2.0 features.
SAT Test School: http://www.proprofs.com/sat/
Press Release:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/.....519853.htm
Will be useful when I get to Uni next year
I’m hard-pressed to see how this is remotely “web 2.0″ or innovative other than being online. Did the author take the free diagnostic test offered? Prepme appears to be no more than a repurposed SAT book. After filling in your answers, you get to read the answer.
It’s extremely difficult for anyone to take on Kaplan and Princeton. They utterly dominate the field, and new technology isn’t going to do it on its own.
Anyone looking at this should seriously look at Quizlet ( http://quizlet.com/ ) - this solution has been around for a bit and was written by a 17 year old!
It is not a test specific solution but let’s you study groups of words/terms which is part of all these standardized tests.
I was so impressed when I saw the demo video that I went through the trouble of uploading it to Youtube. I don’t usually waste my time on other people’s companies, but like I said I thought it was well executed and well thought out and that is rare.
Quizlet Video Demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpGQI_Yyjc
Tutorvista ’s collaborative learning platform over at http://tutorvista.com/now is worth a look as well. i’m surprised the company has’nt been covered at all in the first place , now that it seems to be a significant player in the online tutoring space since starting up in late ‘05 .
Keep Clicking,
Kode
This industry is changing and a lot of start-ups, including my own (http://www.ziizoo.com), are trying to drag tutoring into the modern, online era. Tutor Vista is definitely the largest, but is based on overseas tutors (which is neither good or bad). Our goal is to let students find tutors that are still students in high-school or college - that way they are still familiar with the material and the American education experience. It is very web 2.0 because students and tutors can interact through the browser - no special software is needed, and they create, share, rank and review content - from tutoring sessions to fixed content (e.g., study guides).
Dan,
Just wanted to share information about our efforts at ProProfs in this direction. We have a web 2.0 free sat school to help students study for the SAT. Our SAT school is the largest free resource online on SAT. Resources include wiki based study guides, full length exams, ability to create and share flashcards, share notes, discussion forums, study blogs on sat and more. Our SAT school is located at:
http://www.proprofs.com/sat/
Thanks
Sameer
Founder & President
ProProfs.com
Unbelievable…..three straight posts plugging other websites. You guys should be ashamed.
Classic Techcrunch….just trying to leech off of other peoples posts.
Sameer, Robert Einspruch, Bhasker V Kode you guys are such lame marketers. Get a real job and a life.
No more spam on techcrunch comments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s one more shamless plug then…
I started an online company based in Taipei, Taiwan called Teacher James (www.teacherjames.com).
TeacherJames is an online tutoring site that allows English teachers from around the world to teach Chinese students online via webcam within our unique classroom interface. We can teach up to 20 students at a time online, and every lesson is automatically recorded for the student so they can go back and review or download to their portable players. Anyone who feels qualified can sign up for free as a Teacher, and students can search for teachers based on qualifications, previous student rankings, and sample classes. The class fees are up to the teacher and student to decide, but we handle all the billing and cash transactions between teacher and student. This puts a lot more selection power back into students’ hands as they can choose how much they pay, how and what type of classes they take, and which teacher they learn from.
We’re targeting the Chinese-Asian student market who wants to learn English (so pretty much any Chinese person living in China or Taiwan). We’ve recently opened TOEFL and TOEIC prep classes online between a teacher living and teaching from his home in LA to 20 Asian students all logging on and having a live lesson from their own homes in China/Taiwan.
In the future, we plan for spin-offs into other languages and other subjects, but teaching English to Asian people is one of the biggest markets out there.
Thanks!
Damon
(damon@teacherjames.com)
You guys are shameless. SPAMMERS should be banned.
I want to see honest, insightful feedback that is actually RELEVANT to the company post. Not: “Well, I’m in the same space too. My Company XYZ does such and such. And, here’s my link: http://www.xyz.com. I urge you to check us out.”
Seriously, shameless!
I agree…Anyway, I found the original post regarding Prepme quite interesting, especially the size of the market. I was surprised to hear how small the market is, given all the hype. $130 million doesn’t sound like a lot of money given the size of the total online education market.