When I was about 12, I sauntered over to the local tennis court at Antczak Park.

I was no one’s idea of a jock — instead, I was a dedicated ballerina, performing in my city’s production of the Nutcracker five years in a row.

But, I was signed up for a beginner’s tennis class put on by the city.

My very first reaction was one of embarrassment — my fellow complete beginners were half my age, and with their barely-out-of-kindergarten floppy little kid bodies, I felt a pretty intense sense of shame that I was already this far behind on the court.

The instructor of the class, of course, noticed I was the only near-teen in the group, and what he said stuck with me nearly 25 years later:

I was holding the racket wrong. Something about my grip and follow-through was just not optimal to get the ball over the net.

Unlike the six-year-olds, I had to UNLEARN the technique I’d taught myself in my occasional casual bouts with a racket.

It wasn’t easy. I remember feeling frustrated as I went and repeatedly hit tennis balls against a wall — force of habit had made the bad technique feel “natural.” It was about a million degrees, in the peak of summer at high noon.

But in the end? I acquired a decent, though by no means professional, ability to return a serve. I played tennis for fun with a couple boyfriends as an adult, and could even teach our student from Poland when I was a camp counselor at a French Camp in the San Juan Islands. Now I stick to watching Challengers, but I am very conscious of my grip.

I went from objectively worse than five-year-olds to a decent player because of an instructor who had a coaching mindset.

That’s what distinguishes merely mediocre instructors in any field — theater, tennis, and yes, test prep — from excellent ones.

They notice what, specifically, the student is struggling with, while maintaining the ability to meet the needs of the group (if it’s group coaching).

They show the student what went wrong before, and what they might need to unlearn.

They don’t make the tween that’s twice the age and height of the other kids feel “dumb” for being a true beginner.

Only a year or two later, I’d be studying the Tao Te Ching in my Chinese history module in high school — a place so preppy we frequently were #1 in my state for tennis.

It’s a work of philosophy that touches on this idea of how to shift one’s mindset from self-critical and overly analytical to truly being able to LEARN.

     “when you do everything without thinking about whether it is good or bad, and when you do something with your whole mind and body, then      that is our way.”.

There are a lot of options for you to pursue when trying to get the best college admissions exam scores — and many students walk onto the proverbial court with bad habits of learning or problem-solving they have to UNLEARN.

That’s why hiring a firm where every tutor is not only at the top of their game — 99th percentile scorers ourselves, both as high schoolers and in retesting before we’re hired — but who truly cares about helping each student’s individual test-taking game.

Contact us if you notice your student could go much further with a supportive, though results-focused, mindset. You can go much further with instruction than aimlessly hitting tennis balls against the wall with a poor grip.

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