TEST PREP PROFILE: Patricia Brown

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced professional in the test prep industry?

Meet Patricia Brown, a native of the East Coast (New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Boston) who established Team Talent for SAT and ACT and ISEE test prep in the San Diego North County town of Rancho Santa Fe over 15 years ago, serving students from eight private schools and over a dozen public schools. Her word-of-mouth reputation gets clients who are friends of other clients and then who stay with her for all the siblings of the initial student. Her tutoring expertise is in all sections of all three tests.

When the opportunities present themselves, she loves using the test sections to impart life-long improvements in reading comprehension, to establish solid editing skills for student writing, and to improve operational math skills because she believes these are essential skills for college and careers. If she can plant the seeds to generate an interest in reading for pleasure (not easy to do nowadays) or if she can improve a student’s confidence in math to the point at which the student might tackle a more math-intensive major in college, that’s a source of extra job satisfaction!

Prior to her years of student test prep, she took a Liberal Arts degree in Psychology and (with the help of a high score on a standardized test taken during a job interview) parlayed that into a 25-year career in the Computer Industry serving Fortune 500 corporations, working as an Executive in Engineering, Client Consulting, and M&A for companies focused on database software, manufacturing application software, and neural network models.

Her early experience teaching corporate clients how to use novel computer software and her own personal work experience of having to learn new technologies and new job skills every few years have been very applicable to teaching high school students to reach their personal best on the SAT and ACT. Her analytical skills from years in the computer industry have been used evaluating curriculum alternatives for test prep and researching pedagogical strategies.

Her degree in psychology has been put to use each semester as she identifies and refers students for further neuropsychological testing. After working with a student several sessions, she can identify reading or math issues that are atypical and should be further investigated. These referrals have confirmed with a DSM-5 diagnosis learning disabilities that were not previously recognized by teachers. Given her underlying interest in psychology as it relates to learning, she has also reviewed the published research in memorization, reading comprehension, math pedagogy, and performance anxiety to establish methods and best advice to assist her students.

In her spare time, she is an avid non-fiction reader and Wondrium is her favorite streaming channel. After a long day of tutoring, she snuggles with her two Old English Sheepdogs. She enjoys hiking trips to Switzerland and sailing vacations with her husband who has taught her everything she knows about the outdoors since she would spend her time in a chair reading if he wasn’t around!

Find Patricia at patricia@teamtalent.biz.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you’re interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page. We’d love to hear from you!

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