ISEE prep at Clear Concepts is one-on-one tutoring with me, Nico, at your home or online, built around a diagnostic, a target stanine for each school on your list, and weekly timed practice. I've prepared students for Harvard-Westlake, Campbell Hall, Buckley and the Westside schools for 13 years — and I teach every session myself.
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The ISEE is the entrance exam used by most LA independent schools. It comes in four levels; most of my students take the Middle Level (applying to grades 7–8) or Upper Level (applying to grades 9–12).
Scores are reported as stanines — a 1-to-9 scale where your child is compared against other independent-school applicants, not the general population. A stanine 5 doesn't mean "average kid"; it means average among an already-competitive pool. This is the thing parents most often misread, and it's why a 2–3 stanine gain moves a file so much.
Admissions offices read the four section stanines individually — a 9 in math doesn't hide a 4 in reading. So we prepare all four sections, and the essay (unscored, but sent to schools verbatim).
These are the schools my ISEE families are usually applying to. Each links to where I work with that school's students.
No handoffs, no curriculum binder from head office. I build the plan, I teach every session, and you hear from me after each one.
most families book 12–20 weeks out ↓A full timed practice ISEE before anything else. You see the real starting stanines; nobody prepares blind.
We set a target stanine for each school on your list and work backward from your test date to build the weekly plan.
Each section rewards different habits — vocabulary systems for Verbal, estimation for Quantitative, pacing drills for Reading. We train them separately.
Real sections under real time, every week, with the score sheet reviewed together. You get a note from me after every session.
“He was extremely patient and really made me feel confident… helped me get an A in a class I previously had a C in.”
“All his fear vanished when he started getting tutored by Nicolas… from Beverly Hills High all the way through UC Irvine.”
If yours isn't here, call me — the consultation is free and I answer my own phone.
Most students take the ISEE in the fall or early winter of their application year — for fall 2027 entry, that means testing between August and December 2026.
ERB divides the year into three testing seasons (Fall, Winter, Spring/Summer), and a student may test once per season. We usually plan a primary date with one season in reserve.
Harvard-Westlake doesn't publish a cutoff, but competitive applicant pools at the most selective LA schools generally sit in the 7–9 stanine range.
In the consultation I'll be straight with you about where your child's diagnostic lands relative to the schools on your list — and what a realistic target looks like for the time we have.
Twelve to twenty weeks of weekly sessions is the range that produces the two-to-three stanine gains my students typically see.
Shorter runways can still help — we triage the highest-leverage sections first — but cramming is the one thing I'll tell you honestly doesn't work for this test.
Yes — once per testing season, up to three times in a twelve-month application cycle.
Schools see the scores you choose to send. A planned retake is a strategy, not a failure; we build the calendar around it from day one.