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2001

84

In a new autobiography, college test guru Stanley Kaplan writes about
his quest to help students qualify for the college of their choice.

American Heart
Association-

Rghting Heart Disease
and Stroke

Medical miracles
start with research

ad he not been victimized
, by anti-Jewish quotas,
Imi
Stanley Kaplan would
have done something else
with his life than create the Stanley H.
Kaplan Educational Centers.
Kaplan, the inventor of preparatory
courses designed to improve students'
test scores, had really wanted to be a
physician. He took pre-med classes
and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from
City College of New York.
Although he had been accepted by

Columbia University as an undergrad-
uate, the tuition was beyond his fami-
ly's financial means. So he wound up
attending a less-prestigious institution,
but he paid a hefty price.
"I was rejected by all the [medical]
schools," writes Kaplan, now 82, in
his new book Test Pilot: How I Broke

Testing Barriers for Millions of Students
and Caused a Sonic Boom in the
Business of Education (Simon &

Schuster, $19).
"My Jewish friends at private
schools and my non-Jewish friends at
City College were accepted at medical
schools. Soon I made the connection:
I was Jewish and I attended a public
school ... a concerted effort was under
way to establish quotas on admissions
of Jewish applicants."
Disappointed that he couldn't fulfill
his aspirations of becoming a doctor,
Kaplan had to rethink his career path.
The decision, however, was an easy
one — he decided to open a tutoring
business. After all, tutoring had been
his favorite pastime for years.

already felt the effects of anti-
Semitism, he was afraid that "Kaplan"
sounded too Jewish. "I worried that
my Jewish name might hurt my
prospects," writes Kaplan, who was
raised as a cultural Jew in a kosher
home by immigrant Jewish parents.
"So I changed the name of my busi-
ness to Kaye Tutors. Yet, almost
overnight I realized I made a mistake.
I had rejected not only my identity
but also my heritage ... so I changed
back to Kaplan."
The business was started in his par-
ents' home in Brooklyn. Although they
had once lived a very comfortable life,
his parents were hit hard by the Great
Depression, and his mother became his
bookkeeper and secretary.
"My mother was very involved in the
business," he says. She had been a very
accomplished secretary before she got
married, and although she only went
through high school, she had a real
appreciation for scholarliness."

Enter The SAT Test

All through World War II, Kaplan,
who couldn't serve in the army because
of asthma, continued to develop his
Born and raised in New York, Kaplan
own teaching methods and programs.
was only 9 years old when he first
Then
in 1946, he encountered a stu-
coached his school friends.
•
dent
who
wanted help preparing for
"While other children liked to play
the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).
doctor, I liked to play teacher," says
Before the war, few colleges required
Kaplan. When his friends were
the SAT for admission. Ivy League
reluctant to receive his help, the
colleges were nearly alone in requiring
young Kaplan paid them a dime
it. Now, times were changing, and
just to let him teach them.
more colleges were using it.
By the time Kaplan entered
After reviewing sample questions,
high school, he realized he had
Kaplan understood the SAT concept
a knack for helping his class-
— rather than memorization of
mates raise their grades in all
facts, it tested knowledge and appli-
academic subjects. His fee was
cation of basic concepts. But Kaplan
up to 25 cents a session, which
was
up to the challenge, and he cre-
was a lot back in the 1930s.
ated
drills in math and vocabulary to
He continued to tutor
simulate the SAT.
throughout his schooling,
His first student did so well that, by
and among his clients were
the following year, Kaplan had heard
students preparing for the
from several others interested in SAT
standardized New York
tutoring. He designed an SAT
State Regents Exams.
preparatory
class, consisting of four-
Therefore, when it
hour weekly sessions lasting 16 weeks.
came time to hang a
The cost was $128. Within a few
shingle after graduating
years, he had hundreds of students
from college, he was
somewhat assured of wanting to take his SAT class.
It was also around that time Kaplan
a lucrative busi-
met
his wife. His sister Rosalie want-
ness. But having

Playing Teacher