We have been using Cardinal Education since 2008 for my two Los Altos High students. Adrian provided the right balance of patience and persuasion to produce meaningful results. Moreover, he demonstrated a genuine interest in my children and established a bond of friendship that made the sessions fun and motivated them to work harder. Allen hires very talented people and trains them with his proven coaching techniques to make them effective academic coaches. We continue to see great results with our third child to receive Cardinal tutoring. Tarun has completely taken over the educational duties of our boy. He tracks his grades online, follows up on missing assignments and continually monitors homework progress during the week outside of the normal sessions. Most importantly, he has a great relationship with my son and is able to incentivize him in ways that I am unable. This last semester he achieved his best grades ever. Tiana is another Cardinal Coach who tutors my son in Spanish. She is bright, positive and cut from the same cloth as the other Cardinal educators. In addition to motivating him to work hard and making the sessions enjoyable, she has also instilled within him a love for Spanish. I tutored my son his freshman year and found it to be compromising to our relationship. This year I turned his education over to Cardinal and my evenings are now enjoyable and most importantly, I have a much better relationship with my son.
Cardinal Education’s mission is to change the lives of their students – this was the case for our son who attended a school that emphasized socio-emotional learning. When choosing an academic coaching center, the points of differentiation which stood out for us were the free mock tests for students on the weekends, highly competent coaches who received ongoing training, and an internally developed curriculum with a successful track record.
After starting the lessons, Cardinal Education continued to impress with attention to details which made a big difference. For example, the academic coach called our son after each test to check in. This made my son feel completely supported every step of the way in the overwhelming test prep and school search process. Cardinal Education’s intimate sense of the current climate and nuances of schools was invaluable since this information is not easily discerned during school tours and online searches.
Our son was ultimately admitted to his top choice school and we could not be happier with our decision to engage with Cardinal Education. The mock tests, exceptional tutors, well-developed study curriculum, and comprehensive “soft” support were of immense help. We are looking forward to working with Cardinal Education in a few years for our younger daughter.
I joined Cardinal Education with an apprehensive attitude and little to no knowledge about the college process. I’m now going into my first year at my dream school and I owe it to CE for pushing me towards my goal. Whether it was an English essay that needed editing or a Physics test that I felt completely unprepared for, CE was there to assist me at every step. When it came time to apply for college, the CE team worked countless hours with me to ensure that each college was receiving the full picture. If I could go back, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about the application process. I couldn’t imagine doing it alone.
We began working with Cardinal during our son’s summer between 7th and 8th grade. He’d always done quite well in school, but wasn’t particularly self-motivated or organized with his academics. He had not performed well in standardized testing in the preceding two years, which we knew might be a challenge for high school applications.
After getting to know us a little bit, Cardinal partnered our son with Tarun, who could not have been a better fit. Tarun managed to bring fun and enthusiasm to the sessions, which varied from 1-2 times a week for over 6 months. Tarun coached, encouraged, inspired and challenged our son in a way that resonated more strongly than the relationships with most of his teachers. Through working together, our son developed new organizational skills and strategies, paired with a desire to achieve. This played out with tremendous improvement across the SSAT, ISEE and HSPT tests. He was motivated to power through the additional exercises, which not only improved his tests, but also improved his school performance.
Our son applied to 3 highly competitive Bay Area independent high schools. With his improvement in academic knowledge, study skills, organizational tactics and test taking, he was accepted at all three. He is now a happy, organized and successful high school student, in large part due to our partnership with Tarun.
Cardinal Education was such a great help in helping me organize my homework habits and learn time management techniques that will help me in college and later in life!
Cardinal is the only company I trust with my children’s tutoring, whether for test prep or enrichment. My kids are extremely different learners, with very different strengths and weaknesses. Our coach, Jordan Haarsma, exceeded my expectations beyond words in his ability to relate to and effectively reach and motivate each of them and achieve results.
Cardinal Education has been extremely helpful in getting me to where I am today! They kept me in mind and always wanted me succeed. I am thankful for everything they have done for me throughout the years
Due to our crazy summer camp schedule, we will not be able to employ our WONDERFUL tutor any longer. We highly recommend Jordan for SAT prep, and any tutoring, especially math. He comes to your house, or there is an office in Burlingame. For three years Jordan has been giving my son the gift of confidence and interest in learning. He really believes in his students and is very encouraging. He is an extremely experienced tutor, and is familiar with Bay Area schools. He works for Cardinal Education, which has their own pedagogy (which I like), but they are willing to work with your school’s. He was recommended to me five years ago after helping a [Nueva] middle school student transform her understanding of math. He has worked patiently with my son (despite mild ADHD and learning differences) and has miraculously helped my son learn to like math. It is with a heavy heart that we have to let him go. You would be very lucky to have him in your family…
Cardinal Education goes above and beyond. I have interacted with a handful of the staff from tutoring sessions to SAT Prep to the college application process and a common theme among the Cardinal team members is their dedication and genuine desire to help
