Talent 100 - Is it any good?
Hi Guys,
My name is Richard Chua and I am the Head Education Co-ordinator for Talent 100. I've seen a lot of questions about our company, and not a lot of informed feedback so I thought it's probably responsible for me to answer some of your questions.
Anyone interested, we are offering free trials because we back ourselves and our products. Try it and find out for yourself. Anyhow, here goes:
1. Good students don't neccesarily make good tutors?
I can't agree more. Just because you are a great student doesn't make you a great teacher. But the key word is "nececsarily". However, I think its indisputable that if you are passionate and good at communicating, and you know your stuff
really well, then it's more likely you're going to be able to explain things better. That is, all else equal, top-of-the state is certainly better than being 'above average'.
So the real question is are Talent tutors actually good at teaching? The first thing to note is that
talent members are selectively chosen on a variety of factors such as personality, communication skills, dedication, ability to motivate and ability to teach. Outstanding Academic Ability is a pre-requisite but not a sufficient condition. In fact, there have been numerous applicants with UAIs as high as 99.95 and state rankings who have been rejected as they do not fit he mould.
The tutors we have provide an outstanding wealth on how to do well in the HSC in a subject specific way. Ask anyone who has gone to Alex Borowsky's English Course, or has seen Alex Stoyanov's Physics or Dwyer's Chemistry course and you'll see exactly what I mean. Our tutors are good, they know their stuff and they can definately help you if its HSC your talking about.
2. Another Prior or Matrix?
I don't know if this is meant to be a compliment or an insult. However, I personally don't think either of the tuition centres provide much of a value-add, i.e. I think you could get 95% of the same thing through a text book by yourself. If you're paying 5,000 for that, that's probably a waste of money. And I'm saying that with experience, I actually worked at one of them before quittingto work at my old school -Sydney Grammar School.
Basically, I felt bad for the amount of money these places were charging. True, students were improving, but basically if you force someone to study four hours of a particular subject a week, they should improve anyway. The real question is what
extra value did Prior or Matrix add.
When designing the courses, I had this in mind. Our courses had to be :
exceptional and results-oriented, being able students exactly how to score top marks, as well as
accessible, so that students of any level are going to benefit, rather than just top students, or just weak students.
It's a continuous proccess - so we're always trying to find ways to make our courses even better.
3. So What is Talent Tuition like?
I personally believe that Talent is very unique in its
total commitment to marks maximisation. I am not going to talk about esoteric terms like 'excellence in education', or 'No 1 in tuition' or developing leadership.
Purely straight and simple, our vision is just to help students score their absolute maximum marks. The reason for this is fairly obvious. The course you can choose for University is entirely dependent on your UAI for non-health related fields. So getting people the highest marks is the best advantage you can give them to choose a profession of their calling. I think when you look at things in this perspective, ours becomes quite a noble aim.
I can tell you as a former high-achieving student ( I scored a UAI of 100 and I didn't make a selective school in Year 6), that
the HSC is a game. After a certain level,
it's a test of preparation, and knowing a few tips and tricks as much as it is a test of intelligence.
That's why at Talent 100, the central tent behind our tuition is
exam relevance. If it's not in the exam and it isn't important in building some fundamental understanding, it is not taught. That's why I don't think having PHDs actually helps. But having people who came
No 1 in the state in Physics, Chemistry, Maths and English really does because t
hey can tell you specifically how to score top marks. Alex Stoyanov, who came 1st in Physics can tell you exactly how to score 8 marks out of 8 for "assess the impact on society of..." questions in HSC Physics. Since this has no sciecne, what advantage does a qualified teacher have in answering this question?
I would put any of our No 1 tutors against a PHD in an HSC exam and bet my last dollar that they would come out on top every time. In some ways,
the HSC is not about knowing more, its about knowing less, or rather knowing what to know and knowing it well.
4. Results and Reputation
Whatever you may think of the approach (that its 'gamesmenlike', or minimalist), you can't argue with our results.
For subjects that they were coached in, we have a student in the top 10 of sydney best schoolsin Sydney Grammar, James Ruse, Sydney Boys (2), Sydney Technical High School (2), Baulkam Hills High, Peakhurst, and St George Girls. When you consider we have about 50 students, that's pretty good.
Since its our first year, I can't give you concrete UAIs, but I'm telling all skeptics out there, to watch our results and compare them to Matrix and Prior. Be prepared for something prety big.
I'm pretty shrewd and can tell you for instance, that Matrix advertises people with state rankings that didn't even do that particular course there, e.g Sophie Liang who ranked 7th in Chemistry, didn't do Chemistry at Matrix but they advertise it nonetheless. Prior also advertises students who have very minimal contact. the real statistics are not 'how many % of our students got over 95, but how many got over 95 that would have got under 95.
I am actually going to invite some Talent students to post so you can see an insiders view.
Whose Talent for? Free Trial offer?
Basically, I'd say Talent 100 is for any student who wants a
time-efficient way to make sure they score their absolute maximum marks. We can definately show you how to do it, and to 'cut the fat' out of the HSC, so you can have more time to do other things.
Our prices are quite reasonable and I think we're much better value than anything out there.
I'm actually so confident in our course, I am willing to let people try it for free. Perhaps to my own disadvantage, I am not a great or pushy salesman. I just put the value on the table, and let students sample it. Basically, my advice to any prospective student is if you can't see the value, or Talent's uniqueness, you should probably not join. What I thnk is that someone who is confident is willing to back themselves, rather than lock people into commitments.
If any of you are interested, or would like to talk about anything I've said in this post, please feel free to call me on
1300-UAI-100 or on
rfpchua@gmail.com. If you don't think what we offer is good, I am also really keen to see how we can improve our courses.
Regards,
Richard
