Westlake, Austin

‟I came to Kastner Hill for SAT slash ACT tutoring originally. I knew that I needed to get my score up and so I came here to just improve on.
Everything ACT-SAT. I decided to go with the ACT and my score improved with up five points just using that eight week course. I also came to Kastner Hill to work on my college essays. Had Tom and Nathan just review it and having their approval just made me feel so much better about clicking submit on my college applications. So I’m very thankful for their help. I eventually started coming here just to hang out. They have a cafe. It’s like a party every time in the downstairs lobby. I get to see all my friends from different grades and different schools. And it truly is like our whole community just to this place because they’re just so good at creating a warm and welcoming environment while also really focusing on academics. Everyone brings their A game and they’re high energy. It’s really fun.”

‟Me and four of my friends decided in our sophomore year that we wanted to do English tutoring. So we decided to all come to Kastner Hill together and do a group tutoring session. And it’s really fun because I’m getting to hang out with my friends and also learn and get all my work done. And it’s super fun. It’s just made me really care about school a more.”

‟When I came here as a student, I already felt like I was part of the family here at Kastner Hill. Everyone is so welcoming, so friendly. They want you to achieve all your goals and they have your best interests at heart. It’s not just all about what is happening on the paper in front of you. It’s about how they can help you overall. They’ll adjust to what you need so you feel the most comfortable in what you’re learning and so you feel the most comfortable in your ability to gain more knowledge.”

‟I heard about it from my friends and they all had really good things to say about their results. I came to Kastner Hill to improve my SAT score. I wanted to really work on my math and just get my entire score up. My scores have gone up like about 150 points on the practice test so far. The teachers are really engaging. They always make it fun. It doesn’t get boring and I’m always excited to show up. Just keeps you wanting to come back.”

‟My favorite part of it is just like the relationship you have with the tutors. It feels less of like what school is, like teacher-student type of thing. You know, like the first bit of my tutoring is always just like talking and hanging out. They just teach you in a fun way and it’s easier to learn than I find at school sometimes. It’s usually just like smaller sessions. You can do one-on-one. I do a lot of one-on-ones. I feel like those help me a lot. So it sort of forces me to connect with my tutor because I’m one of the other people that’s in there. So that helps me a lot more than…
being in a class with 30 people. My first time I came here, I took an initial SAT and I got an under a thousand on it, so I wasn’t happy with that. But then after eight sessions, my latest one, I got over a 1400 on. I got a 760 on my math out of 800 and in my first test, I got like in the 500s. You don’t really notice it when you’re doing your session, your tutoring sessions, but you are getting a lot better every time you come here and you don’t even notice it because you just, you have fun and you do problems.
So yeah, that’s my favorite part about this place.”