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Stanford-Trained English Teacher Quarterbacks I Wanna Go to Cal Tutoring Program

Silicon Valley’s oldest tutoring center devoted exclusively to English instruction has turned to Stanford products Nat Crawford and Teresa Kim to lead a new program for high school seniors.

Name of the program? I Wanna Go to Cal.

Improve Your English president Steve High, 61, gave the tutoring plan its name. He is a U.C. Berkeley alumnus. So are his wife and her sister. And, oh yeah, his daughter is member of Cal’s class of 2010.

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“All four of us will be seated on the Berkeley side of Stanford Stadium for this year’s Big Game,” High said. “But, in the long run, English is more important than football.”

“Most of our students name Berkeley as their college of choice,” adds Crawford, 35. “Many need an extra boost to get there.” Crawford taught Honors English at Los Altos’s Pinewood School while a doctoral candidate at Stanford. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago.

Teresa Kim, 27, a Stanford graduate who was also accepted at many Ivy League schools on the strength of her eye-popping SAT scores, will assist High and Crawford. All three teachers were undergraduate English majors.

Students in the new program get twelve weeks of one-to-one private tutoring in critical reading and writing. The lessons will be held before and after the SAT exams on October 10, November 7, and December 5.

Tuition for the program is $1,980. Fees include consultation on the university admissions application process. The deadline for U.C. applications is November 30.

During the past seven years, Improve Your English tutoring students have won acceptance to Berkeley, Duke, Harvard, Purdue, U.C.L.A, U.C. San Diego, U.C. Davis, U.C. Santa Barbara and Wellesley College—but not Stanford.

“We plan to add Stanford to the list next year,” Crawford said.