ACT & SAT Tutoring · Geneva, Illinois
Illinois made the school-day ACT a graduation requirement, and a national Saturday test doesn't satisfy it. Most parents here prepped in the SAT era and don't know the rules changed. I'm a Geneva tutor who builds around the test your student is actually required to take — and every student starts with a free diagnostic.
Get Your Free DiagnosticFree · No obligation · You keep the report
Before you spend a dollar on prep, know exactly where the points are. Your student takes an official practice ACT or SAT, then James walks you through the results for 45 minutes — question type by question type, with the specific errors named and a realistic read on the timeline. If prep isn't worth it for your student, he'll say so.
Illinois juniors: the state test is now the ACT — taken in school this spring, no registration, no fee. If your family prepped in the SAT era, the diagnostic shows you what changed.
Get Your Free DiagnosticNo obligation. You keep the full score report either way.
Corngold Prep Academy is enrolling its first 10 families at a special intro rate, locked in for as long as you stay enrolled:
$125/hour $150 regular
Every family at the intro rate starts with the free diagnostic, gets a written recap after every session, and works with James directly — the same instructor the $200-an-hour companies subcontract. Past students have averaged a 200-point SAT improvement; results are history, not a promise, because no honest tutor makes one.
Get Your Free DiagnosticSlots are counted, not marketed — when the tenth family signs, the rate returns to $150.
Every Illinois junior takes the ACT between March 23 and April 30, 2027 — in school, on a school day, with no registration and no fee. Your student is taking this test whether or not your family ever decides to prepare for it.
The part most families get wrong: a Saturday national ACT does not satisfy the Illinois graduation requirement. Only the school-day administration does. If you registered your junior for a Saturday test to get it out of the way, they still have to sit the state one.
Two 90-minute sessions a week, February into mid-March — finishing before the earliest school window opens.
Capped so every student still gets named feedback on their own error patterns, not a lecture.
Regular price $549. Eighteen hours of instruction, taught by James — about $25 an hour.
Built around the test your student is actually required to take, on the Illinois calendar — not a national program with the dates swapped out. Every student starts with the free diagnostic.
Reserve a Seat — Free, No PaymentReserving holds your place and costs nothing. Seats convert to paid enrollment in December, and you can walk away at that point with no obligation.
Colleges and universities across the country are reinstating SAT and ACT requirements — and the gap between a good score and a great score can be the difference between acceptance and rejection at your student's top school. Yet most families watch their student grind through generic workbooks or sit in crowded courses where instructors can't possibly address one student's specific mistakes.
Time is the resource you can't recover. A junior who spends six months on the wrong approach doesn't just waste money — they lose the preparation window entirely. Your student doesn't need more practice tests. They need to know exactly why they're getting questions wrong and how to fix it. That's what personalized tutoring with James Corngold delivers.
Parents hear all of these, often in the same week, often from people who sound sure. Andrew Ferguson spent a year inside the admissions market as a parent and named it the Principle of Constant Contradiction: every piece of advice has an equally plausible counter. Each one sounds right. Together they cancel out.
Andrew Ferguson, Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid into College (2011)
Fundamentals plus SAT and ACT strategy, aimed only at the question types costing your student points.
Measured every session. Reported to you the same week, good or bad.
What that looks like. One real row from a current student's tracker, name removed. It's the Friday after a Saturday Bluebook practice test.
The questions in this row come from this student's own misses on Saturday's test. The yellow cells get filled in that night, and I read them before the next session. A chain can't sell you this row, because nobody there is reading it.
I don't promise a score. I promise you'll know which question types are still costing points, every week.
No generic curriculum. No guesswork. A clear path from where your student is to where they need to be.
James spends 30 minutes learning about your student — their current scores, target schools, timeline, and how they learn best. This call is the foundation of everything that follows, and it costs nothing.
Using diagnostic results and the consultation, James builds a targeted plan that focuses time and energy on your student's specific weak spots — the question types, math concepts, and reading strategies that are actually holding back their score.
Students work through their plan session by session with direct instruction, real-time feedback, and accountability. Progress is tracked and the plan adjusts as skills improve — so momentum keeps building through test day.
Every session is taught by James directly — no handoffs. Prices below are the intro rate for the first 10 families enrolling this fall, locked in for as long as you stay enrolled. Regular pricing is shown alongside.
The best choice for students with 3–6 months before their target test date who want consistent, expert guidance for their entire prep. Continues month-to-month until scores hit the target.
Designed for students with an upcoming test date who need a focused, high-volume push. All 20 sessions are used strategically to close the biggest score gaps as efficiently as possible.
A structured option for students who learn well alongside peers. Groups are capped at 6 so James can still give meaningful individual attention each session — the lowest-cost way to get his instruction without compromising on quality.
James Corngold has spent more than 25 years in test prep and education — building individual and group ACT/SAT programs for Sylvan Learning Center, directing a Huntington Learning Center, and coaching students full-time since 2018. He holds an M.A. in Education and a current Illinois Professional Educator License, and he knows these tests' architecture: not just the content, but the logic, the traps, and the patterns that separate high scorers from the rest. Based in Illinois and working with students nationwide via Zoom, James built Corngold Prep Academy on a simple conviction: generic test prep is a waste of a student's most valuable resource, which is time.
Every student James works with gets his full attention and a prep strategy built around their specific performance data — not a recycled curriculum. He communicates directly with parents throughout the process so families are never left wondering whether the work is actually translating into progress.
James also understands the business side of tutoring: transparent pricing, honest expectations, and no upselling. You'll always know exactly what you're getting and why it's the right approach for your student's situation.
Straight talk from James on the questions families actually ask — the test, the tools, and how to prepare for what comes next.
A grade shows your kid can follow the steps. The test checks whether they can find them. What mathematical maturity is, the signs it’s low, and what building it looks like at every level — with no promises about a ceiling.
Read the article →Every prep company is attentive before the sale. Score day, the bad score, and the last session show whether a tutor is tracking your kid or tracking the renewal — plus three questions to ask before you hire anyone.
Read the article →The rumor that colleges reject over-qualified applicants to protect their yield rate rests on a single quote from 2001 — and that quote says something else. What a yield rate actually is, and what really separates two applications that look the same.
Read the article →Every prep company sells “we teach students how to think.” Fifty years of research says thinking skills don’t travel between subjects — and that changes what you should actually be paying a tutor for.
Read the article →A new analysis of ~3,500 students puts the average at 600 questions. The number is useful, the average is misleading, and neither one is a promise about your kid — what it costs at 500, 600, and 680, and why the reps only count if they get reviewed.
Read the article →Every test season the same panic spreads online. Here is why the “it’s getting harder” complaint misreads what the test is really doing — and what to do instead of worrying.
Read the article →One of the world’s leading universities is rethinking what college is for in the age of AI — and the skills it says will matter are the ones we already teach.
Read the article →Using AI to get the answer can leave a student weaker; using it to learn makes them stronger. A simple test for telling the difference — and why it matters for every family.
Read the article →The August test ran harder than the practice tests in two spots — dense reading passages and Advanced Math. Exactly what to prioritize before the September and October dates.
Read the article →Some schools are dropping them, others adding them — but the rule for your student is simpler than the headlines. What the shift means, and how to write essays that stand out.
Read the article →Two years of official tests reveal 37 vocabulary words the College Board recycles again and again. The patterns behind them — and how to study smart, not hard.
Read the article →A new ranking judges schools on return on investment and outcomes, not just prestige — with Stanford, MIT, and tiny Harvey Mudd on top. What the shift means for choosing a school.
Read the article →Working memory holds about four things at once, and the test does not slow down for it. What cognitive load theory changes about SAT and ACT instruction — and why the program has to look different at 1050, 1250, and 1400.
Read the article →One step, and it costs nothing. Your student takes an official practice test, and you find out exactly which question types are costing points — before you decide whether to spend a dollar on prep.
Send your student's grade, which test they're aiming at (ACT, SAT, or undecided), any scores so far, and the one thing you'd most like to understand. James replies within one business day with an official practice test and instructions. You keep the full report whether or not you ever hire him.
Get Your Free DiagnosticOr call/text: (630) 244-9123