Today we’d like to introduce you to Dave Crystal.
Hi Dave, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Crystal Clear Tutors is the accidental brainchild of Penn-educated entrepreneur David Crystal. Mr. Crystal’s dream, at least while at Penn, was to make millions of dollars on Wall Street, first as an analyst and then as a portfolio manager. Never did Mr. Crystal imagine that he would one day dedicate a significant portion of his life to fulfilling the academic dreams of hundreds of adolescents and young adults. Then came the Mortgage-Backed Securities Crisis and Wall St. Collapse of 2007-2009. Mr. Crystal temporarily left his career as a financial advisor and asked himself, “what should I do now?” He then remembered that he had a talent in tutoring kids when he was younger and his juices started flowing. Whereupon, he realized that there was no test-prep center anywhere near the A1A corridor in which he lived.
The next month Crystal Clear Tutors was born, focusing on SAT preparation. Within two years, Mr. Crystal “cracked the code” of the SAT and ACT, and within its first 5 years, Crystal Clear Tutors had the best per capita SAT and ACT results in all of south Florida. Since then, Crystal Clear Tutors has helped over 700 students achieve matriculation at top-100 universities, with the majority of Crystal Clear Tutors students matriculating at top-40 universities. Our students have gone on to be high achievers in every facet of academic and professional life.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Marketing is always a challenge for small-to-midsized tutoring businesses. It’s hard to market online in a cost-effective manner because the big boys in the industry radically increase the costs of doing so. Conversely, building symbioses with local schools is always difficult because doing so entails many levels of bureaucracy and internal politics that are difficult to navigate. We likely have the best results per capita for our students in all of south Florida, but that in no way has translated into the most money in our pockets. Finding a highly effective and affordable marketing strategy has still eluded us.
We’ve been impressed with Crystal Clear Tutors, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Crystal Clear Tutors is a private one-on-one test prep tutoring service specializing in SSAT, SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT preparation and dedicated exclusively to students who wish to attend top schools, particularly Ivy League programs. We typically tutor via Zoom and have clients all over the world, but mostly in the State of Florida. We also assist high school students with college selection and application preparation.
Crystal Clear Tutors is one of the few SAT and ACT prep businesses in the world that offer staggered money back guarantees. For example, ACT students who qualify can accept a package option whereby they get 20% of their money back if they score between 28 and 30, 40% of their money back if they score between 24 and 27, and all of their money back if they score below 24.
At CCT our motto is: “Today’s Ivy Leaguers teaching tomorrow’s Ivy Leaguers.” We believe in leading and teaching by example. As such, ALL of our tutors have at least one top-50 degree and most of our tutors have an Ivy League degree. Just the fact that we’ve been there ourselves inspires students to believe that they too can make it there. Furthermore, we fundamentally believe that every student is unique and learns differently and as such we have developed proprietary methods to quickly clarify each student’s respective strengths and weaknesses so to efficiently maximize those strengths and minimize those weaknesses.
At CCT we recognize that the test is a subject in and of itself. It’s not enough to learn the subject matter being tested; a successful test-taker must learn how the test is designed and how to deconstruct it in real time and under pressure. AT CCT we recognize that you are hiring us not so much to educate you, but to maximize your test score. As such, we not only teach you how to tackle every type of problem, but also teach you the science of guessing, in the event that you cannot solve the problem.
We tutor at ALL reasonable hours (per your convenience and subject to availability). It is not unheard of to tutor a client until midnight if those hours are so desired.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Most people don’t know that I moonlight as a comedian as well as a national political commentator.
Pricing:
- 2 hour ACT/SAT Assessment: $200
- After assessment, pricing depends on which type of cycle client chooses.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://crystalcleartutors.com
