Mega Academy

I went for SAT prep January — June. All I can say is that Ms. Quinlan was the best part of my Saturdays. She will instill grammar rules into you and will give you good feedback on your essays. As for the Reading Comp teacher, he didn’t teach anything and just made us go over the packets rather than actually teach us techniques and skills (they tend to get their packets from Kaplan workbooks). Math teacher was very helpful with explanations. I usually just went to Ms. Quinlan’s class and skipped the other two… I miss her!
But honestly, save your money and just get yourself a workbook. Don’t make your parents waste money on you if you’re not going to take the work seriously (me).

This is probably the best school I have went to. My English teacher Ms. Quinlan was one of the best teachers I have had. But the math teacher was a pervert and kept touching all of the students. But all of the work that they have is good but it also depends on luck if you get a good teacher but I was lucky because when I went to mega I was looking to improve my English and I got a good English teacher. This place gets the job done extremely well I have been there since 2^nd grade and they have improved my school work really well. After the SHSAT program I got into all of the specialized high schools. So it has been proven to be useful. They have great programs during the school year every Saturday and Sunday. During the summer they have a month and a half program that I have done 3 times. The one con is that the seats are uncomfortable so I recommend that you bring a butt cushion or pillow. You should go here if you want to be successful.

To begin, I am not a student but a parent. My son has been taking the SHSAT prep course since January. Mega Academy has managed to lower my son’s self esteem, his confidence towards his school work, and his emotional well being. What I hate about Mega Academy is their grading system with the report card reminding your child how smart or stupid he or she is, the difficult homework assignments with minimal instructions from the teachers, and the frustration that comes in helping your child every evening with the homework. I regret sending my child to this expensive ($ 1200 plus) prep program.
Do yourself a favor and not waste your money. Mega Academy is all about making money off your kid and could care less about their well being. Also, their claim of having an outstanding admissions rate to the specialized high schools or Ivy League colleges is suspect. They will always tell you how many were accepted but what about all the other kids that didn’t get accepted. They are really quiet when that question is asked.

Save your money instead of going to Mega. You would still need to practice for the SHSAT/​SAT but at least you won’t be forking over $ 1,000 for some minuscule classrooms and staff.
Mega academy as well as Nationwide are both well known in Flushing and in Asian families living in NYC for their test preparations in order to do well on the two most common exams in NYC: the SHSAT for middle schoolers and the SAT for high schoolers. I consider them both rivals to each other, with both places trying to boast their statistics of how many students can get into Stuyvesant/​Bronx Science/​Ivy Leagues and what the highest scores are. For over $ 1K, you can sit your asses in small, cramped classrooms on cold, hard seats. You also will get thick packets of homework to do every day/​week so you can practice and learn from them. Funny thing is, all prep places use the same examples because they’re all taken out from the previous SHSAT/​SAT practice books, which by the way, are much cheaper to buy instead of going to some expensive ass prep place and getting the same problems. The teachers they hire are usually teachers from public schools but there are some really good ones that have a passion for teaching what they love. However, I don’t think it’s worth the amount that one would have to pay.
You can do just as well if you study by yourself if you put in the same effort, but Asian parents know that your lazy ass won’t do it so they stick you in prep school during the summers. Oh, how fun. If you’re like me, all I remember during my middle school and high school years during the summers was sitting in prep school, wishing that the class would end already so you can go home because let’s be honest. No one wants to sit in a cramped classroom for 3 hours. Grades are temporary in life. Will they help you get a good career? Possibly. But in my opinion, experience is much more useful as well as having connections. Do yourselves a favor and just buy the practice books and study them yourselves. You’ll be glad you didn’t waste a shit ton of money just to look at the same examples.

Jesus I’m running out of stuff to review.
I used to be a kid who would always mess up tense in my grammar. Switching between past tense and present tense in a single paragraph was my business.
Now I am an adult who would always mess up tense in my grammar, especially on Unilocal reviews. And I am too lazy to care.
Before Mega I knew nothing about English structure, grammar, and techniques for spotting grammatical errors.
After Mega I still knew nothing, but I learned how to take the exam and pretend that I did so I could get into Stuy. Boom!
I tried to persuade my mom back then to just save the money and give it to me so I could buy a new computer with a whopping 100 megabytes of storage because I needed space to store the little games I made. But nooooo. Now I make a living off computers. Should have bought me that computer mom.
ps: You noticed I actually didn’t write anything substantial. Its really because it was too long ago. Its a school forcing tens of practice exams down your throat. Sure you can do it yourself at home but we all know you too lazy ass. Test scores will eventually mean nothing. Chase the passion not the number.

Waaaaaay too overpriced for what it is.
I’ve gone to Mega for a few years back in my golden HS years. Went for 2 summers + 1 fall for the SHSAT prep class and 1 semester for biology *ashamed*
The good: I passed the SHSAT & got into Stuy, where I nearly failed Bio and had to come back to Mega. I subsequently passed Bio as a result. The teachers are mostly teachers from good public schools in NYC, I had a math teacher from Cardozo and an English teacher (Mrs. Quinlan!!) (formally) from Stuy.
The bad: $ 1G+ per session. This includes sitting in hard metal chairs in a small room for hours a day, doing hw/​taking exams from photocopied books that they’ve had in their archives forever. You can bet they are making baaaaank from overcharging their clients!

This place gets the job done! My son attended Mega Academy the Summer before his 8^th grade year of middle school. After a rigorous summer of classes that continued into the fall semester he took the SHSAT and scored well enough to get into Bronx Science. He will be attending Bronx Science in September.