About Us
Capital Educators has been consistently recognized for our high quality by virtually every major local periodical, including The Washington Post, The Washington Post Magazine, Kiplinger's, and Bethesda Magazine. Recently we received the 2009 Best of Business Award by the Small Business Commerce Association. Although we appreciate this attention, we don’t employ public relations people and we don’t work for press clippings. We focus all of our energy on our students. And we measure our success in straightforward ways: student score improvements, college acceptances, and the consistent praise we receive from families.
Our History and Philosophy
CapEd was never designed to be the largest educational consulting group in the region, but we have experienced more than a decade of consistent growth. We have been careful not to expand too quickly or spread ourselves too thin. CapEd is unique because of the narrow range of its services: we exclusively help high school students prepare for college. This focus has allowed the company to concentrate on continuously improving our teaching curricula, developing our staff of instructors, and refining our internal systems. This commitment translates into the way in which we interact with our families—when you work with Capital Educators, you will find our staff to be consistently responsive and knowledgeable.
Small Group Learning
All CapEd programs are conducted in small group settings. In our experience, small groups provide the best environment for most students to prepare for the SAT/ACT/Subject Tests. We never have more than 10 students per instructor and we always form classes according to student scores, and strengths. In this way, we know that we are working on the right content at the right pace for every one of our students.
What Makes our Approach Best
The test preparation field is filled with many large companies and many private tutors. We offer a unique compromise—a program that combines the research and expertise of the testing giants with the personal touch of a tutor. The upshot is a course that is fundamentally different, superior, and intimate. Because we create a personalized environment that’s tailored to each individual, students do not get lost in classrooms where one size fits all. They are consistently supported and they realize extraordinary score improvements. This makes our approach more successful than those of the testing giants.
How do we stand up against private tutoring? Although tutors offer individual attention, they often place unrealistic expectations on students. Even the best private tutors will typically work with a student for 60-90 minutes and assign several hours of weekly homework. In our experience, students are unlikely to have the time, energy, or inclination to prioritize SAT homework. Our philosophy is to structure the learning for our students. By attending all classes and taking all practice tests, students complete virtually all of their preparation at our sites in a supervised setting. This translates into very little homework for most students!
Personalized Advice
We recognize that every student is different. Different students have diverse goals, study habits, and temperaments. For one student, a 150 point improvement may make a pivotal difference in the college application process. For another, we may be realistically shooting for an improvement in excess of 300 points. Some students may need to sit for the SAT as many as three times; others may test only once. To make sure that we provide the most personalized advice, we highly strongly encourage parents and students to call whenever they have questions!
About the Founders
Phil Pine is the president and co-founder of Capital Educators. He has spent virtually his entire life in education. As an undergraduate at Princeton University, Phil tutored students in preparation for the SAT. He taught American and World History at Princeton High School and The Dalton School before pursuing his MBA at the Wharton School of Business. Over the years, Phil has taken the actual SAT many times, spent thousands of hours researching and writing educational curricula, and published a prominent SAT book. Unlike typical CEOs, Phil is accessible and hands-on...sometimes to a fault! He personally trains every CapEd instructor, has helped hundreds of families navigate the college application process, and regularly picks up the phone at headquarters—just like the other directors.
Deborah Pine is the co-founder of Capital Educators. Debbie has a BA in Economics from Trinity College in Connecticut and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. During her years at Wharton, Debbie co-authored the business plan for Capital Educators with Phil. She also worked in admissions, gaining considerable insight into all aspects of the application process. That experience provided the foundation for our Virtual Admission™ college application workshop. Although Debbie currently finds herself spending more time at home with the couple's two children, she continues to teach classes, direct courses, and do strategic planning for CapEd.
Explore our website to find out more about our course offerings, or reach a director immediately by calling (301) 881-7700 in the Washington area, (410) 532-9400 in the Baltimore area, or emailing us.