Matthew Pietrafetta

The idea for Academic Approach was born 13 years ago at Columbia University in New York City. While earning a PhD in English and teaching college freshmen in Columbia's core curriculum, I was at the same time tutoring New York City high school students for the standardized tests. I noticed an evident gap between the level of readiness my highschool students exhibited and the academic standards they would be expected to live up to on the college level.It occurred to me that the most meaningful way to offer test preparation was to create an academic curriculum that bridged these two levels of education, high school and college. Such a curriculum would allow me to use standardized tests in an innovative way: as a means to produce both better high school test takers and better college freshmen. We refer to this essential academic mission as "Teaching Beyond the TestTM."