Sweetx56:
I am so sorry to hear that your experience wasn't excellent. We'd love to continue helping you. I don't believe we ever heard from you about being dissatisfied, although I don't know your actual name so I cannot check. Please give us a call and let us hear your concerns, we'd love to make things right for you.
As for your comments about the score results reported on our website, that is completely uncalled for. You just called the way we calculate the scores "very deceiving and a lie" when "how we calculate the scores" has never been a secret of any kind. We have always described the precise Methodology on our website right next to the score data, as you can read for last year's students here:
http://altiustestprep.com/results. Your suggestion that people PM you to get some "secret" about how we calculate results is grossly misleading. There is no secret you know about this process, and if you think you do know something that isn't described on the website or in our materials then you have false information. For other readers, here is exactly how the results are calculated:
1. The scores are a SURVEY of all students who completed any Altius program during that school-year/cycle (e.g., 2012-2013, 2013-14). To be considered as having completed the program students need to have done a minimum of 7 out of the 10 Indicators of Success given to them at the start of the program. This is clearly stated on the website and emphasized in our Student Study Manual. We tell students regularly that they must adhere to the program if they want the expected results. The number of indicators completed by each student is based on their own self-reports to their tutor or to the survey administrator. It isn't our opinion of what they did or didn't do. If anything, it would be human tendency for them to report having done more than they actually did. This method is important because simply paying for the Altius program isn't some magic pill. Even showing up to class regularly is not what gets Altius students higher scores. Altius is a system. It includes several working parts which combine together to give students multiple learning environments and spaced repetition to increase long-term conceptual understanding. If you start taking out pieces of that "machine" it is going to fall apart. In fact, doing only 7/10 of the indicators is pretty awful and we would not expect great results. The program works best when you do everything asked of you (10/10).
2. The survey is conducted by a third-party accountant, or his staff, using a phone survey methodology that has widely accepted validity. If you have seen a report on the evening news about "the percentage of American's who___" or survey results for who is ahead in the current political race, you are consuming data calculated via a similar method. If any student would like to speak with the accountant directly and verify his independence, we're happy to put you in contact with him.
3. Remember that a survey is just a survey, not a guarantee of individual performance. A mean does not indicate that every student, or even most students, earned that score. It indicates that this is the approximate middle of a distribution. There are students who scored much higher and those who scored much lower. For example, you and your friends may well have had a much lower average, but the survey wasn't of your group, or even your summer class, it was of all Altius graduates from that entire cycle who took any Altius MCAT course. Our best scores come from the long-track program. Those students do in 8-9 months what you did in 10 weeks--so that is worth keeping in mind as well.
We can never guarantee you "x" score because we cannot force you to do the work or follow the program. What our data show is that our methods are shifting overall performance upward. Our students have consistently outpaced national averages by a long margin every year. Also, the number of very, very high scores is much larger than any of the national data would suggest. For example, we just hired about a dozen new tutors in the state of UT with 99th percentile MCAT-2015 scores, which is way more than 1% of our enrollment in UT. Were they the exception? Yes. Did most people score lower than they did? Yes. But is it interesting that there are many times more 99th scores than the national data suggest? Yes. That is all the data show you. They lend support to the unique Altius methods of teaching and show that they are working. Looking at a single score for a single individual is almost worthless. You need a baseline or something to compare to. You cannot say "My friend scored this, or I know x people who scored this...so the stats aren't true." In fact, look at the distribution. It shows that lots of people who took Altius got mediocre scores (15% were below 27/504). That equates to hundreds of people. However, nationwide, over 60% scored in that same range. So you say 15% vs. 60%, that's a pretty awesome reduction in "mediocre" scores.
In the end, we really do care about you and we'd still love to help however we can. Did you share your concerns with Altius management? Our guarantee will allow us to pay for you to take another course from a competitor if you completed all aspects of the program (the 13 activities/lesson and the 10 Indicators of Success) and weren't satisfied. You can also retake the entire course for free during the following cycle.
I will pass along your concerns about the classroom being too cramped at the SLC office. Honestly, I've been there and I thought it was fine, and in a newly renovated building. You also have to remember that you are paying $2,999 for a summer program when Kaplan/PR charge $9,499 for a summer intensive that is four weeks shorter and includes either little or no 1-on-1 tutoring. We could charge way more tuition and have expensive classrooms, but we don't think it would correlate with student performance. Further, we believe many students take Altius because of its affordability--it makes a private tutor accessible to them due to paying about 75% less than market rate. If we start focusing on elaborate facilities, that pricing would have to go way up. By "picnic tables" I assume you are talking about the fact that everyone sits around a set of folding tables instead of at individual desks? This is on purpose. We could certainly put desks in the classroom (approx. same cost), but for the problem-based classroom sessions we use we prefer everyone to be able to see one another. This encourages group discussion and involvement.
