Every year juniors have to take the grueling standardized test, the ACT. In the months before the test, some students start to get nervous and begin looking around for prep courses. There are a bunch of different courses available, either online or in Midland. Some DHS students attended the Sylvan program, which they believed stood out from the rest.
Before a student begins, they must sign up over the phone. Sylvan runs for eight weeks and students meet twice a week for two hours. This can worry some students with the busy schedules they have.
“Between practice and homework I find it hard to find time to finish everything,” junior Daniel Magno said. “Sylvan can be really frustrating.”
Two hours of school related material after school can really tire some students out. This is one of the problems that seems to arise with this program. To really get the full effect from the program, students need to put in way more than four hours a week.Trying to balance good grades and trying to keep the teachers at Sylvan happy is a challenging task.
“Sylvan expects so much work from you that it can become challenging to balance it all,” junior Shane Huisman said. “I just get so frustrated trying to balance it all.”
The general consensus is that the program helps students. Some students reported that their scores had boosted up to eight points.
Sylvan really does teach a lot of important and useful information. The class really can be boring according to students in the class. Magno seems to think that learning how to take a standardized test for two hours after school really puts a mental strain on his brain. Most of the students reported that they dreaded going to it, but also agreed that it did help them in some capacity. In some cases students said that it didn’t help them at all.
Overall it seems the class helps students, but they don’t enjoy going.
“The teachers are nice but the material can be intimidating at times,” Huisman said.
Students who put in a ton of work will show tremendous score improvements according to the teachers at Sylvan. Students like Magno think that this is true but also think they expect a little too much.
“If you want to keep your grades up you have to put in lots of work at Sylvan,” Magno said. “But good luck finding time to sleep more than five hours.”
