WEST WINDSOR: Taking stress out of SATs

By Charley Falkenburg, Staff Writer
   WEST WINDSOR — Fun isn’t a word typically used to describe an SAT prep class, but that’s what students can expect to find when they spend next weekend learning the ropes from Charlie Sheen, Family Guy, South Park and the crew from Glee.
   Up to a 100 Princeton Junction students will gather at the High School South on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 bright and early for Catalyst Prep’s SAT Prep Boot Camp — a program designed to whip teen minds into shape for the SAT through current entertainment and pop culture.
   While some teens opt to stock up on SAT guidebooks, these boot campers will be using celebrity nose jobs to learn mathematical slopes, Jessica Simpson’s weight fluctuation to master percentages and George W. Bush quotes to identify grammar don’ts.
   ”The essential idea is what if people like Conan O’Brien and John Stewart had the crazy premise of devising an SAT prep class themselves, what would it look like?” said Catalyst founder Jared Friedland, who is also an alumnus of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South. “What would it look like if it taught the same strategies, but in a way students found funny and entertaining?”
   Thus, the hybrid of “edutainment” was born.
   The idea struck Mr. Friedland six years ago when he was making a name for himself on the West Coast as a comedy writer. Fresh out of Dartmouth College, Mr. Friedland quickly found success with NBC show “Lateline” and Klasky Csupo, which produces all the Nickelodeon shows such as “Rugrats” and “Wild Thornberries.”
   However, with work being sporadic, Mr. Friedland decided to pick up tutoring at Kaplan to make a little extra money. While spending his nights dreaming of ways to make the curriculum more entertaining for his students, he did what he knew how to do best: write comedy.
   ”In Hollywood, I made up characters and story lines,” said Mr. Friedland. “I figured why not do the same thing for concepts like geometry, where you can have a fun character in ancient Greece and make the concepts come alive.”
   And what started out as an experiment, soon began to flourish.
   Now Catalyst Prep serves more than 15,000 students in 12 states across the nation and boasts an average SAT score improvement of 170 points for one boot camp session. It also offers ACT Prep and at-home tutoring sessions.
   The company also donates a portion of their boot camp proceeds, which cost $165 per student, back to the schools. It is not unusual for Catalyst to raise up to $20,000 for them in a few weekends, said Mr. Friedland.
   West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South became the first out of the 200 East Coast schools that partnered up with Catalyst, when Mr. Friedland expanded the company in 2009. He emphasized that the district’s high academic standards often stresses students out when its time to take standardized tests like the SAT.
   ”It can exert a lot of pressure on them. We are able to diffuse some of that and diminish their overall anxiety level, which for a 17-year-old is a very important thing,” said Mr. Friedland.
   It’s also important to Mr. Friedland, who now devotes all his time to making education entertaining and hasn’t looked back since.
   ”I haven’t pursued that world in six years because Catalyst takes up a lot of time, but I know we are providing an interesting and unique service,” he said.
   The infusion of entertainment is only one of the three crucial ingredients to Catalyst’s recipe for SAT success. The first is to provide accurate material that mirrors what will be asked on the big day. Mr. Friedland and his crew crack this code by forking over $70 and taking the SAT amid a roomful of anxiety-ridden high schoolers — multiple times a year.
   So far, Mr. Friedland said he has taken the SAT more than 30 times and received more than 20 perfect scores.
   To make the students as prepared as possible, Catalyst revises its in-house curriculum every year to keep with any changes in the SAT format or questions. Mr. Friedland also updates the material so that it is current with what teens are into at the time.
   The last piece of the puzzle is the “gurus” who impart the wisdom, which are hired after only an “audition” that tests their smarts and their performing abilities.
   ”Most college prep companies recruit people who only have high scores one exams. We expect the same high academic standards, but we won’t hire you unless you’re a performer and funny,” said Mr. Friedland. “We don’t want former test geeks and nerds — we want teachers to make the material come to life.”
   He added that since they only hire the “highest caliber of talent,” they pay them about $40 an hour.
   When asked what his favorite part of his material was, Mr. Friedland paused for several seconds. Finally he answered “Bob,” who he invented as a representation of the average SAT essay grader. Bob is 40-years-old, bald and mildly depressed.
   ”I tell them this is the audience they have to impress,” said Mr. Friedland. “Teaching how to write the essay is my favorite part because student think there is no way to prepare for it and it’s probably the most predictable part of the test.”