PrepMe is a for-profit

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

company that offers online courses and tutoring for standardized achievement tests, in particular those offered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), such as the PSAT and

SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schola ...

; and the ACT offered by ACT, Inc. PrepMe also developed its Coursification platform to open its adaptive online learning platform to publishers. Over 100,000 students have used the company's programs.

History

The company was founded in 2001 by Avichal Garg, Karan Goel, and Joe Jewell,

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, and

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

students respectively. It is based in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

with a software engineering team in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

. One of the company's co-founders, Avichal Garg, a former Google product manager, raised investment capital from other former Google employees to fund PrepMe. The company was incubated at the

University of Chicago Booth School of Business The University of Chicago Booth School of Business (Chicago Booth or Booth) is the graduate business school of the University of Chicago. Founded in 1898, Chicago Booth is the second-oldest business school in the U.S. and is associated with 10 N ...

' Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship after it won the university's 2005 New Venture Challenge. On February 1, 2007, Maine governor John Baldacci announced that for three years PrepMe planned to let every junior in Maine use its online SAT preparation program without cost to themselves, their school, or the state.
Office of the Governor Release
In 2008, PrepMe was recognized at the

Chicago Innovation Awards The Chicago Innovation Awards was created by the Chicago Sun-Times and Kuczmarski & Associates in 2002. Each year the Awards recognize 10 Chicago area businesses, nonprofits, and government organizations that develop the year's most innovative new p ...

and was featured on the front cover of Fortune Small Business. On May 28, 2013, Hobsons launched th
PrepMe Vocabulary Quiz
Facebook Game to help students practice for the SAT.

Acquisition

In July 2011, PrepMe's adaptive learning platform was acquired by Ascend Learning backed by Providence Equity Capital, which also owns

Blackboard Inc. Blackboard Inc. was an American educational technology company with corporate headquarters in Reston, VA. It was known for Blackboard Learn, a learning management system. It merged with Anthology in late 2021, with the future name of the combin ...

and

Archipelago Learning Edmentum is an American online learning provider and owner of Reading Eggs internationally. Founded in 2000 as Archipelago Learning, the company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and is a publicly held company with the largest shareholder bei ...

. The acquisition gave Ascend ownership of PrepMe's Coursification™ platform, a software service launched in March 2011 that enables customized online-learning courses. PrepMe continues to provide college readiness and preparation services under license from Ascend. In February 2012, PrepMe's PSAT, SAT and ACT test preparation business was acquired by

Naviance Naviance is an American college and career readiness software provider that partners with high schools and other K–12 institutions to provide students with college planning and career assessment tools. The company reports that its products reach ...

, a provider of college and career readiness solutions for high schools and other K-12 institutions.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
Standardized tests in the United States Test preparation companies Software companies based in Illinois Educational technology companies of the United States Companies based in Chicago Companies based in Palo Alto, California Defunct software companies of the United States