Testimonials

I took my first ever PSAT at school and realized that I did not know how to do almost anything on the test. So, I got a 540 – which was 23 total answers incorrect. Having to take math virtually my junior year was an incredible challenge because COVID happened my freshman year and my math foundation was already rocky. I was my own teacher, and I had nobody to ask for help if I didn’t understand a concept. I had no confidence in my ability to learn math, and let alone pass the final exam. I didn’t even know how to factor or simplify radicals. I had no idea how I was going to get a higher math SAT score.

I found Peace of Pi through previous students on Instagram, and after looking through their Instagram, I immediately noticed how well Renan explains concepts and he seemed to have a really fun personality that would make learning more motivating. I also saw the improvements from other kids who had lower scores than me, which gave me hope that I can do it too.

From day 1, Renan and his team were incredibly organized and knew exactly what I needed to learn before we even had our first class. During each class, Renan gave us the perfect balance of pushing us to be our best, and also making sure we have fun. He broke down every concept in multiple ways and would recognize our exact mistakes without seeing our work yet. Renan was able to help me at all hours of the day for any and every question. He fully believed in me, and all of his students, and pushed us to believe in ourselves.

After Peace of Pi, I got a 760 on my first attempt of the SAT, which is a 220 point improvement and puts me in the 99th percentile nationally!

I never would have imagined that I could achieve such a high score. From getting a 760, I qualified for the Bright Futures Scholarship, received a Math Excellence Award from my school, and got only one question wrong on my final exam. 

Taking this prep course instilled in me confidence that I can do anything I set my mind to, made me start to love math, and also left me with an incredible foundation of math knowledge that I will take with me through college.

I can’t thank Renan enough for believing in me and working very hard to make sure I had exactly what I needed to succeed. Renan is the best teacher I’ve ever had, and I would highly recommend Peace of Pi to anyone looking to improve on their SAT, and even math in general.

My name is Natalie and I discovered Peace of Pi at the end of my junior year. The SAT was super important for me. So, I always knew that the SAT was the fighting chance that I would get to be able to apply to top 20 or top 30 schools.

Thankfully with the help of POP, I was able to apply to good schools because I have such a high SAT score with good essays and good extracurriculars,  I have a shot at getting in. I ended up getting a 1470 total. 450 to 760. A 310-point improvement. Now, I’m doing IB math and it’s mixed in math. It’s mixing calculus, mixing stats. I don’t even study for my quizzes because half of the stuff on there is literally stuff that POP taught me.

I did the course twice. The first time I did it, I went up 200 points. I knew that with a 650 out of 800 in the math, there was much room for improvement. So, I decided to do POP again. In the beginning, I had a huge plateau, I wasn’t improving. If this helps others, I do want to say that if you take enough practice tests, you will go up. And I promise, I took so many practice tests. I cannot explain how many practice tests I took, but, it obviously paid off.

 I took the summer course and there’s so much free time and it keeps you kind of engaged. During the summer, my brain kind of just dies out a bit because we’re not in school, but since you’re not in school, I saw math in a fun way. You’re getting some learning in. It’s helping you for later and it’s just two hours of your day. With POP, every penny is well spent. They’re so hardworking and all motivated me to do what I did.

I would tell future students to do their work. Do your work, do your homework, and do your practice tests. Try to try to enjoy them. You have to want to improve. That’s what’s going to make you want to sit down and practice. And it’s kind of fun. You see with your friends who’s doing better. You don’t have to look at it as a competition, but it’s just to see how much you can improve. Every time you sit down and take one, think ‘How much can I improve from my last one?’ It was something I looked forward to. 

Make sure to not miss class and get behind. That’s a big one. Every lecture that I did with POP was helpful. If you’re missing class, I promise you, you don’t know what’s going to be on the test. There are so many topics and POP covers every single thing that they potentially ask you. So if you miss one class, you can miss two questions on the next SAT. 

I enjoyed every lecture. It was a family within the class. I loved it. Being virtual was, I think, the best part of it. One of the tutorings I did before was in person and, honestly,  the hassle of getting up and going is not enjoyable. Having POP from right at home is so convenient. I think it’s better honestly. 

Peace of Pi caters to everyone, if you’re bad at math, there’s someone for you. If you’re good at math, there’s someone for you. Even take it twice. If you can, please do Peace of Pi twice. It refreshes everything. You remember everything better. It’s honestly the formula to get whatever score you want. 

 I’m Melanie Llaneras. I’m in 11th grade and I go to Terra Environmental Research Institute. I felt that I had lost a lot of my prior math skills when it came to what the SAT math section covers and I didn’t feel ready to face the math that I had taken even before I started high school and that’s what drew me to Peace of Pi.

I had only taken a PSAT once and I started taking AP Calc, which is already a college level class. So, I was not ready to face an SAT with what I had learned before high school. I did very mediocre on the PSAT, I got a 540 on math. I was slacking in math that you’d think that I’d be good at because I was in a higher level math. I’d be faced with these math problems and didn’t know how to attack each problem at all.

I was aiming for schools that wouldn’t even look at me if I had that type of score and I’m also aiming for Bright Futures. I wouldn’t have been able to reach that with that score. When I was a sophomore, there was a junior in my class that kept talking about how your program was helping her reach the math score that she wanted. I needed a way to reach the score that I wanted. I also needed to improve on my reading, but take it one step at a time.

POP had explained to me, before I joined, that the math on the SAT is very mechanical and achieving a good score was very reachable through practice and different steps that they were going to teach us. And I knew that that’s what I needed, like a good and organized program. The program is so worth the money. The workload is heavy. It was tough. It was like having another class. I have a lot of homework and softball and everything. You’ll for sure be able to reach a desired score, and it takes a lot of practice and paying attention, but what can come out of that compensates for all the hard work that is involved in the program. 

I was very hesitant about it because I like things to be individual and I’m not the biggest fan of virtual classes so I expected it to be effective but not as effective as it would have been if it were different. After experiencing the virtual group learning environment, I don’t think there was any better way to teach the SAT classes. I mean this is a busy program and also the way the chats work, it’s very effective and you keep track of everything but despite there being other students, I knew every answer. I wasn’t afraid to ask questions and it was a comfortable environment. It was very effective despite it being a group program.

This was my first SAT and in comparison to the PSAT, which was the only test I had taken, I improved a total of 220 points and I surpassed my goal of 750 by reaching a 760. Although I still want to keep improving my score, this score helped me secure 100% Bright Futures, so I don’t have to pay for any public or state colleges. That’s very beneficial to my family and the score looks good for the colleges that I want to apply to because I want to pursue a math major. If a student plays their part by practicing and paying attention in class, a perfect score or any score near perfect is very achievable.

My name is Gabi Mestre and I’m a senior at Carrollton. I had been studying for the SAT for over a year. My score improved but it hadn’t improved as much as I wanted it to, so I realized I kind of needed a change, so that’s why I wanted to join. 

I had taken the SAT twice. I mean, my score was good enough. I just needed some help with math. I had been studying with a different tutor at first, then I was studying on my own and it reached a point where I was getting the same math score every time.

I kinda had forgotten the basics from school. Like a lot of Geometry, especially because of COVID. My math teacher had to leave, so I hadn’t really learned any Geometry. I took Algebra in eighth grade and I had forgotten most of it, so I wanted to refresh, which was helpful.

I was in Calculus Junior year. I would say I was good at math, but more calculus stuff, not the SAT because it’s very different from school. I feel like I couldn’t really see through the SAT tricks, if that makes sense. I feel like the math, it’s not even that it’s hard, but it’s more that they’re trying to trick you, so you really have to know what you’re doing in order to not fall into it. I was being tricked a lot, I would forget a tiny little rule and that would mess up the entire problem.

My score was fine before. I had a 700 in math and I couldn’t really get it up, at all, from there. So, it was kind of weighing down my score because the English was really carrying my score. But then I ended up having a higher math score so it just boosted my score to be over the point that it would help me instead of just being neutral.

I think the Peace of Pi program was really, really good. The lessons were super, super helpful. I liked how we focused on each thing in the class. Topic by topic. And then the homeworks would go with the class so it was helpful. I feel like it’s more similar to going to classes for a subject instead of an SAT tutor tutoring session. I’d experienced other tutoring services and it was more, just doing practice tests and then looking over those. But with this you can really zone in on subjects and then as it gets closer to the test, you can know your weak spots. Like at the end I knew I still had to study more Trig and Geometry. I told Peace of Pi and they gave me all the practice tests focusing on those subjects.

The work was manageable. I mean, it was a lot, but I knew it was going to be a lot. I also did the Summer prep so it really was intensive, but Renan told me at the beginning it was a lot. And I was like, ‘okay, it’s fine’ because I really wanted to get my score up. So if you’re committed, it’s fine. 

I thought the virtual group was going to be more like virtual school because usually in virtual school you can kind of just listen along, but in this one you really have to focus since you have to send in your answer for every single question. You couldn’t really get sidetracked. Which is good. That was really helpful because if not I feel like I would have just zoned out and not done every single problem. 

I had a 1490, and I started with a 1430. My math improved by 60 points from a 700 to a 760. I think the tutoring really helped me. I applied Early Decision to Emory University in Atlanta and I got in. I’m going there to study pre-law which is good. That’s the goal.

My name is Meghan Perez and I’m a senior at Coral Reef Senior High School. I wanted to raise my SAT math score so I could improve my score in general. I was doing a lot of self-studying through Khan Academy, but it didn’t really seem to be helping me. Although they had videos, I wasn’t really understanding those videos and there weren’t any additional resources. It would only raise me 10 points or so. I was trying to find something that I knew would guarantee raising my points for math. I had taken two SAT’s and I was scoring a 1290. I wanted to get 100% Bright Futures and that wouldn’t have been possible with my score at the time.

I found out about Peace of Pi through my sister’s friend. She actually took the course and I saw on Instagram how she did really well. I was reading the details that she gave about the course and she only had good things to say, so then that’s when we got in contact.

I was a little bit unsure of how it was going to work out at first because I knew that it would be group tutoring on Zoom. I wasn’t sure how the dynamic of that would work, but I actually ended up really liking how it was because the groups weren’t too big that you weren’t able to learn one on one with the tutor yourself, it was a good size. You’re able to learn from others’ mistakes or if they had questions that you might have not known to ask that helped also. I was able to gain information not just from the tutor but from the other students as well.

Sometimes it could be a lot, but I feel you just have to really manage your time and it’ll pay off at the end. I felt doing the assignments, practice tests, watching the videos or doing any extra help, at the end, really benefited me because when I was doing the test I was actually able to answer every question for the first time. And I felt I actually got them right, I didn’t feel uneasy about any of them. So that was the first time I actually finished with time, so I felt very confident. I feel it was just because I practiced a lot from the assignments and the homework given.

I think that if others do the course, they have to be willing to put in the work and it will pay off at the end. I ended up raising my score by about 80 points. I had a 650 in math and then I got a 730, but overall my score went from a 1290 to a 1410. Reading is actually my strength but now math ended up being my highest score on the SAT part. So I was very happy with the results.

I was worried at first because I know most of the colleges are looking for higher scores and even though I had a 1290, which wasn’t bad, I knew I wanted a higher score to make me look better within the applicants. So getting a 1410 really just made the stress go down and helped me feel more secure, knowing that my grades and my tests now would be good enough for the colleges I was applying to. I felt really good about that. And I also ended up being able to secure 100% Bright Futures.

To any student on their SAT journey, I would say to not slack off and really just do your work and practice because it does help. If you have a lot at once you might just brush it off and say ‘I’ll just do this stuff next week’, but the stuff that you miss will matter and it does really help if you do it all. For me doing it during school and having to manage school and the SAT prep at the same time, it could be a lot sometimes but I really learned to manage my time, so I could do both. I think just do your assignments and really take the time and effort to put into the course if you want to see improvements.

 My name is Kevin Alonso, and I’m a Christopher Columbus High School senior. I realized I needed tutoring when my SAT score was kind of subpar. I knew that I had to improve it in order to go to a well ranked college. I had taken the December SAT and I got a total score of around 1080. I knew that I had to improve that score immediately or I wasn’t gonna go to the school that I wanted to get into. 

I found out about Peace of Pi when I saw my friend’s Instagram story. I was like, damn man, he improved a lot. And then I saw someone else’s Instagram story with even more improvements and I was like, dude, that’s 100+ points! From that moment I knew that POP was gonna be the real deal. I knew I had to go for it, so I reached out, had my meeting with Renan, and the rest was history.

When I reached out to you guys, I was super scared. I remember when I saw the score, I was like, dang, man, I don’t know how I’m gonna go about this now. I know I’m gonna have to take it again, obviously, but how do I improve? The thing with the SAT is, I think every test I’ve ever taken, I felt like I did good. It isn’t until I get my scores back that I realize the nature of the test is to trick you. I thought I killed it, and then I got my scores back and was so confused. 

For anybody else reading this that is scared to reach out, just trust your gut instinct and do it. Because I promise you, it’s gonna help you in the long run. If you reach out, I guarantee you’re gonna get the score that you want to get. I recommend enrolling in the summer course just because you don’t have to deal with all the additional stress that you deal with during the school year, with extracurriculars and stuff like that. I think POP’s SAT Math Prep Course entails a lot of work, but it’s up to you to complete it. You’re not gonna get the score you want without putting in the work. 

The workflow is smooth because POP has everything super planned out: from the homeworks and the homework answers, to the practice exams and the Zoom exams, and the whole program overall. POP provides everything to set you in the right direction. It gives you the structure, all you have to do is trust the process and do the work. There’s a lot of things behind the scenes that students don’t see. The team of POP puts in a lot of effort to make the course worth your money. It’s amazing.

I remember I was talking to my dad about the virtual group learning environment. I was like, I don’t know if this is gonna work. Because I remember when I went to school on Zoom, it was super miserable and not everyone wanted to participate. But when I took the first class with Peace of Pi, I was like, wow. I remember I went back and told my dad, I was like, yeah, this is, this is good. I like this program a lot. Especially since Renan and the entire staff were so friendly. I remember the teacher Cori keeping my class super engaged. We were always learning, but we would also just have small talk while we were doing problems. Since all us students had the same ultimate goal, it just creates a good environment that motivates us all to succeed.

In the end, I got a 760 on the math portion of the SAT. Before POP, I was scoring around a 580 on the math portion of the SAT. My new score enabled me to reach out to the colleges that I want to attend without being extremely stressed out or worried of whether or not I’d get accepted. But the process isn’t so straightforward as instantly improving. Every SAT that I’ve taken, I improved by 90 points on each of them. So it’s kind of like a staircase. It took a lot of determination to reach the score I have now and that I’m comfortable with. Now I have Bright Futures, and a good chance at getting into UF and FSU.

To anyone that wants to improve their math score or just their SAT score in general, I really advise you and recommend you enroll with POP because at the end of the day, they’re here to help you and I guarantee your score is going to improve.

My name is Diego Cuellar. I’m in 11th grade, and I go to Riviera Preparatory School. When I began my Junior year, I knew that the SAT was coming up soon and that I had to prepare. Knowing that I had a goal to meet for the school that I wanted to get, I realized that I needed tutoring. I had a little bit of tutoring through my school in an SAT class, but it just wasn’t the best. There were a lot of kids, only once a day, and for only 45 minutes long. I wasn’t getting much done. So when I realized I had to get a different tutor, I looked to peers to explore the different options that I had. My sister told me that she had a great tutor during the time that she was studying for the SAT, so that’s how I came to a Peace of Pi. She had done some prep before with another tutor, but at least for the math, it wasn’t giving her what she needed.

When I started studying for the SAT, I had always thought I was better at math than reading. I’m in Pre-Cal right now; before, I was in Algebra 2. I had taken a PSAT and scored around 510. I was a pretty good math student, but I still needed a little bit of a jump to get good math students score. POP helped me reach that status. 

When I first enrolled, I had my doubts about the virtual group learning environment. I thought that there’d be times where I would just slack off and I wouldn’t have to pay attention because it was virtual, and maybe I’d get distracted and stuff, but that’s not true. Throughout the class, the tutors were always keeping our attention, and we had to type our answers in the chat. So there wasn’t really a time where I wasn’t paying attention, and that made it easy for me to keep being focused instead of doing something else during the class. 

If I were to give another student advice, I’d tell another student that POP is rigorous, and there’s plenty of homework. But to be honest, the more work that you put in, the more results you will see. If you’re not 100% committed and you don’t put in as much work, you probably won’t get the results that you want. But for students who decide to put in the work and do all their homework, in the end, they will see the results that they really wanna see. 

On the first SAT that I took, I ended up getting a 710. And then, on the second one, which was in December, I believe I got a 720. So, my overall improvement was 210 points from the PSAT! Now I’m officially locked in at the 93rd/94th percentile. Eventually, I do want to get a perfect score. I’m working towards that. I haven’t applied to any colleges yet or anything because I’m still in 11th grade, but I’m sure that it’s gonna help me out a lot in the future. 

My name is Jacob Albert. I go to Miami Palmetto Senior High School and I’m in 12th grade. I’m a senior.

I took the PSAT. I did pretty well and I wanted to just basically get it out of the way as fast as I could and not have that stress during senior year. At first, I talked to other tutors and got tutored by a-one on-one tutor but it didn’t really help me that much. So I asked other people around and they referred me to Renan. I also saw the Instagram too. A couple of friends reposted their score improvements and I got interested. 

My PSAT scores were good but I still felt like I needed more. When I looked at the breakdown of my scores, there were a couple of things that I was lacking on. I knew I wanted to touch up on this. I knew that it would give me a reason to study. So I wanted to just put it into my schedule and have something, like a set time to study every single time, instead of being like “oh, I’m going to study today or tomorrow” because I’m a procrastinator. I needed structure. 

There were some schools that I wanted to be within the middle 50%. I mean, don’t take it from me. You don’t need a score in like the 1500s, but for some of these schools, I wanted to be at or above. I wanted to get as high as I could without putting a ton of time and effort into it.

When we had that first call before I began tutoring, I felt that Renan was really welcoming and I knew that he would be a good tutor. I just had that feeling from the first call. He was very outgoing and wanted to know what I wanted out of it. He tailored the experience to what I needed. And that’s exactly what I wanted to get out of it. And that’s exactly what I got out of it. 

Naturally, I had my initial doubts. The one problem that I had going into it was like ‘wow, like this is like five hours or four hours. I’m going to have to sit here the entire time and be focused.’ I thought I couldn’t focus for that long. But I was wrong. I mean, time just flew by. I was attentive the entire time. Never really a dull moment. And the classes were kind of fun to be honest.

I think other students should know that they’re going to have to work, but as long as you put the work in and as long as you do your homework, which is the most important thing, you’ll definitely see the score improvement. And also like Renan told me, you’re going to have improvements and then you’re going to have plateaus, you’re going to have to push over and you might drop a little bit. Just don’t get discouraged if you’re not improving as much as you want to because eventually your score will improve to where you want it to be.

My final math score was a 790 and my total improvement was 140 points. I got Bright Futures and then I got a scholarship from FSU. I was also accepted into Florida State University and The Kelley School of Business at Indiana, and I confidently applied to Michigan, Cornell, Duke, University of Florida, Berkeley, USC, UNC, Georgia Tech and UCLA.

I really enjoyed my experience. I have nothing bad to say at all. I liked the way Peace of Pi ran everything and Renan was really caring as a tutor and mentor as a whole. I’d like to thank him for that. 

My name is Katelyn Medina, I’m a senior, and I go to Mast Academy. After I took the SAT that my school gave me, I got a 1250, which was definitely not like a score I thought I was gonna get. I thought I would’ve been at least in like the 1300s and I had already been doing tutoring with another program. My score made me realize that tutoring service wasn’t working and wasn’t gonna get me to the score I wanted. For the schools I was applying to, that 1250 was definitely not competitive enough. That score also only qualified me for 75% Bright Futures, and I wanted  100%. I had to at least have a 1330. For the schools I wanted to apply to like UF and John Hopkins, the minimum range for their SAT scores was around 1430, and I was really far off from that. 

I heard about Peace of Pi from Dina and Nati, both of them. When I complained about doing bad on my SAT, they hyped up Peace of Pi and they told me it was really good and that I should really consider it. I looked into it and it seemed really impressive. They explained how the program worked, and how even with the group settings, it wasn’t like one person took over, it helped everyone in the group. In other group programs, sometimes they focus on one person more than the other, but POP was really attentive to everyone. That was something I was looking for because in my old tutoring program, I never really got the attention or the focus to learn stuff.

I was expecting the virtual group environment to be similar to my old group, how the tutor would teach and then if we had questions we would talk, and then if someone was really confused, we would explain it to them. But I kind of liked how POP tutors followed that, but also didn’t diverge or focus too much on one person. Peace of Pi had different level groups that I think facilitated this. It wasn’t like someone on a lower level was with someone on a higher level and then all the attention was with them. It was split up, which I liked a lot. 

Honestly, I think of how inclusive, the tutors made it, like no one is getting excluded. Even if someone has an almost perfect score, but they just really need to focus on one thing, the tutors would still work with those people. It isn’t just meant for people that are scoring super low, it also works for people that are really advanced and just wanna perfect their score. I was good at math, but I think I had forgotten a lot of the little rules that would show up on the test. There were also some equations or small stuff I needed refreshing on. For the most part, I knew all the basics of math and the math needed for the SAT, but the little things that the program focused on really helped me bring my score up a lot. I would definitely recommend doing it over the summer. It was so much easier because that was the only thing I had to do. It was like, and I had the entire day to do it, like the entire week, so it was a lot easier of a workload compared to like if I did it during school, I think I would’ve struggled so much more.

I started at a 600 on the math from my 1250 SAT, and then I went to a 730 with a new total score of 1390. This result has meant a lot to me because, later, I took another one to raise my reading score and overall, my super score is now at 1450! That final superscore puts me in a very competitive position for universities,  and I felt proud submitting it. Honestly, it was such a good program. I literally recommend it to so many people. I recommended it to Priscilla, who also took it. I hype it up so much. It’s such a unique way that the POP team teaches it. It’s so smart because in other tutoring courses unless you’re paying for super expensive one-on-one tutoring, you end up getting stuck with group settings where there’s always a person that’s either really ahead or really behind that messes up the dynamic. But POP found a really nice solution to that problem, and it makes the program so much better than other ones that I’ve personally been in.

My name is Ilana Fisher, I’m in 11th grade, and I go to Michael Krop Senior High. 

The SAT is a test that’s based on time. I realized this early on, and that for me, it was super hard to finish the test. I also realized there must be certain tricks that could help me go faster. This is when I decided to seek out help on my SAT Math. I heard from a family friend about Peace of Pi and how it was super well organized and produced really good results. I saw the Instagram page, and I really liked it, so I scheduled a meeting with Renan. From there, I was sold! I liked how everything was organized, how the course was structured, how everything was split up into categories. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted to join. 

I was always really good at math. I never really struggled with it, but a lot of the stuff on the SAT was stuff I learned in 7th and 8th grade. I didn’t really remember anything, so I needed to freshen up on all my skills and also work on my time management.  The score I had at the time wouldn’t allow me to get Bright Futures, and limited my acceptance to a lot of colleges that I wanted to apply to. I knew I was good at math and that if I had the right resources, I would get a good SAT score. Peace of Pi was just what I needed to boost that score. 

I really liked the program. I had a weird case because, halfway through, I decided to go on a trip. I wasn’t here for a lot of the program, but I still feel like the videos helped me. I was able to do a lot of it on my own, like making up classes. I liked that even though I couldn’t come, it still felt like I was part of the course in those few weeks that I wasn’t there. I didn’t really see a problem with that. The only thing is I do remember when I did get back. It was just really overwhelming. It was just assignment after assignment, after assignment, like making that up. But obviously, it was my choice going away for that long. 

For me, what helped a lot was I wasn’t shy to talk in class. I liked asking questions. I wasn’t embarrassed if I got something wrong, or asking why I got it wrong. Everyone is at the same level as you, they’re all trying to do better. I felt like everyone in the group was at around the same level as me and we all wanted to improve. It didn’t really matter if you didn’t get one question. I didn’t really expect it to be so interactive. If you didn’t answer on time, your tutor would be like, “Okay, we’re waiting for a student.” There was a lot of, “turn on your cameras.” There were breaks too, which helped with staying present. It was a really long class, but I was actually engaged and I didn’t get bored. I was able to do the full 4 hours. It’s important to manage your time, too. The course is a lot of work, and if you don’t do the assignments on time, it will pile up. It’s good to know you need to be on top of the stuff. 

I took one SAT in October and I got 750. On my PSAT in 8th or 9th grade, I got 540. Clearly, I improved a lot. I’m really happy with my math score. I have a sense of calmness that I can take a million other SATs to improve my reading, but my math is there, and it can be super scored. It’s set, I don’t need to worry about that. I’m overall really happy with the program, with my score, with everything!