Ms Natalie Tucker

Additional Info

Description of Services : Fully Customizable Affordable College Prep
In-person and Zoom
Tutoring and Small Classes
SAT
ACT
GRE
Personal Statements
College Advising
Study and Success Skills

Description of Experience : I have been working with students for college prep since 1996 when I started a pro bono program for Upward Bound students at East San Jose High School while I was still attending community college. As a former A-earning, under-resourced student myself, I knew firsthand how crucial yet too often inaccessible the means to high SAT scores were, so I solicited a donation from The Palo Alto Princeton Review (TPR) for student materials and took it upon myself to teach these unique students how to raise their scores. TPR invited me to join their concurrent teacher trainings, which concluded with a surprise job offer. Within a year, at age 20, I was promoted to a top tutoring position due to my track record of high score improvements and student feedback ratings. That same year, I also accepted the prestigious opportunity to head up and guide the opening of TPR Pusan, Korea as its sole administrator and instructor.

At The Princeton Review, I worked with Felix Co-founder Ryan Meyer, and together we devised our own unique approach to personalizing an otherwise cookie-cutter curricula per each individual student’s needs. As a result, we achieved the highest test score average and student evaluation ratings in the company nationally. After we each replicated our results at Compass and Ivy West respectively, we decided to form our own company. We designed a modular curriculum that further enabled us to lean into our personalized ’decision tree’ approach to teaching which not only unburdened students from repetitive exercises but also reduced overall time and cost required for even greater gains in average score improvements.

Core to the Felix Mission is to 1) democratize access to elite college prep, with 2) a joyful, customized process, that 3) leaves students stronger, happier, and inspired to start their future.

We have worked with thousands of students and families on test prep and essay writing over the years and dedicated ourselves to always offering low cost and free services as well.

To supplement my work experience, I would like to formally develop a wealth of knowledge and skills to draw on so that I can help students and their families create, analyze, and choose from a well-matched list of prospective colleges as well as guide them on the latest admissions trends and financial aid considerations. I am taking advantage of this Covid moment to finally develop this crucial service offering because, quite simply, I hate to say no to a student and their family when they come to me for this kind of help after we have spent so much quality time together developing a meaningful working relationship.

I also have ongoing work with local high schools and the local education foundation to help narrow the college achievement and equity gap and hope this greater depth of knowledge will aid in this part of Felix’s mission.