Yale graduate Madison Masters came to Bulldog Tutors in late 2018 and quickly earned the distinction of being named Lead Academic Coordinator, and this spring she was joined by fellow Yale graduate Jessica Magro, the new Director of Admissions Consulting.
Together they offer comprehensive guidance on key factors in the nuanced formula students must understand and follow in order to be accepted by top colleges and universities—a formula anchored by grades and SAT or ACT scores that also extends to many other important elements of a winning profile.
Bulldog Tutors’ SAT, ACT Test Prep Mastery
Madison Masters is a native of East Windsor, Conn., and graduated from East Windsor High School before attending Yale. In addition to scoring in the 99th percentile on the SAT—achieving the highest score ever in her community—she has been a test prep and subject tutor for approximately five years.
Madison Masters, Lead Academic Coordinator for Bulldog Tutors, prepares students for success on such tests as the PSAT, SAT, and ACT.
Most recently, Madison worked for an educational therapy company, which included working with students dealing with learning differences. That experience deepened her understanding of innovative ways to prepare all students for success on such tests as the PSAT, SAT, and ACT.
In addition to providing test prep, Madison also guides Bulldog Tutors’ clients in the process of choosing between the SAT and ACT or forging a strategy that includes taking both.
“Sometimes students have a preference for one over the other. Most colleges accept either,” says Madison, who favors the SAT’s new adversity score as another way of allowing students who face challenges to distinguish themselves.
The SAT focuses on reading comprehension and students’ ability to puzzle through things, she explained, while the ACT purports to more closely measure the expectations of teachers and employers in terms of useful skills.
Students may use calculators for the ACT math test, but only for part of the math on the SAT. “According to the ACT, employers think it doesn’t really matter if people can do exponents in their head,” Madison explained, “as long as they can understand scientific data.”
Madison believes all students should take a diagnostic for both tests to determine which one they’re more likely to score higher on, and she offers a much more detailed analysis of options and strategies with her test prep clients.
With a Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Madison is planning to attend medical school in the future.
Reach Madison by phone at (203) 562-1000 or by email at [email protected]
College Admissions the Right Way
Yale graduate Jessica Magro of Rhode Island joined Bulldog Tutors this spring and was recently appointed the new Director of College Consulting.
Jessica knows firsthand how frustrating the college application process can be and what it takes to gain admission to a top college or university, having been accepted by all five Ivy League universities to which she applied—Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania. She has been guiding students through the process ever since, and students she’s worked with have gone on to attend highly competitive schools, including MIT, UC Berkley, NYU, and George Washington University, as well as Ivy League universities like Yale, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Jessica Magro is Director of Admissions Consulting for Bulldog Tutors.
Jessica typically starts the process of college admissions counseling with a 30-minute free consultation. First she gets to know the applicant, looks at test scores, reviews grades, and assesses where there is room for growth that aligns with how colleges and universities accept students and build a class.
“People don’t know what they’re not doing,” notes Jessica, who begins building an action plan that starts with her saying, “Given your application, these are the things you need to be doing right now.”
Students and parents thinking about the college admissions puzzle can hear many more details from Jessica on June 25, when she will demystify the college admissions process in a free presentation sponsored by the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library in Madison, Conn. It takes place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the North Madison Congregational Church. Guests may register online via the library’s events page, which is preferred, but drop-ins are welcome.
“I really enjoy working in college admissions and tutoring,” says Jessica, who credits her success in helping students attain desired acceptances to her own college application process, and also to her high school acceptance process. She attended the prestigious Moses Brown School in Providence, R.I.
Even back then Jessica had the type of multifaceted, high-achieving profile that colleges and universities seek. She was active in fencing, passionate about musical theater, involved with The Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, and brought a big binder filled with playbills and certificates to high school interviews. (You’ll have to ask her directly about the skeleton of a vole she also brought to interviews.)
Applying to private high schools helped Jessica with the college application process—to the point where her interviewer at the University of Pennsylvania said Jessica was the best person she had ever interviewed.
“Saying yes to Yale was easy because I loved it so much, but saying no to Harvard was one of the most difficult choices I ever had to make,” says Jessica, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in the History of Science, Medicine and Public Health.
Reach Jessica by phone at (203) 980-8014 or by email at [email protected]
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With offices in New Haven and Guilford, Bulldog Tutors provides the highest quality private tutoring, test prep, and college admissions counseling in Connecticut. Bulldog’s Ivy League-educated tutors have achieved top scores on every exam that they teach and take a personalized approach to instruction that targets students’ weaknesses and helps them succeed on admissions tests and in subjects where they may have been under-served by traditional educational settings.
The New Haven office is located at 142 Temple Street, 3rd Floor, and the Guilford office, which may be reached at (203) 423-0592, is located at 2257 Boston Post Road, Suite B.
For additional information, call the New Haven office at (203) 562-1000, or see the Bulldog Tutor website, https://bulldogtutors.com.