Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 tutor

About Adam

I absolutely love helping students succeed, and have been involved in the field of education since the late 1990s. I am an expert on local history, and have experience working for an educational publishing company, where I worked in the field of research and fact-checking. I have contributed to many U. S. and World History texts, and have my own published works as well (including 'Wasco, Illinois: A History,' 'The Founders and Early History of Geneva,' and 'An Illustrated History of Campton Township, Kane County, Illinois'). I taught Advanced Placement European History and APUSH for many years, and enjoyed extremely high pass rates throughout this time (thanks in large part to the students' hard work!). During my years at the Princeton Review, I helped students significantly increase their scores on the ACT, SAT, and GRE exams, and had some of the best score improvements in North Carolina. I have taught at the Governor's School in Mississippi, in central North Carolina, in New York State, and here in Illinois. I was a history major and physics minor at Northwestern University, and earned a full scholarship to graduate school (Wake Forest University) where I obtained my MA. My 200+ page thesis focused on the Swedish and English settlements in early Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.

I enjoy tutoring history, reading, math, science, and English, and am well-versed in all academic fields. I have experience in tutoring subjects including: SAT math, reading, and writing; ACT math, reading, English, and science; American, European, and World History; Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Prealgebra, Trigonometry, elementary math, geometry; geography; GED; and more, and am qualified to tutor in each of these fields. My former Scholastic Bowl team qualified for nationals several times, and we won numerous Conference Championships. I have been married for seventeen years, and have two wonderful children, aged 11 and 8, both of whom LOVE to read. I collect antique books and newspapers, and have led several historic walking tours in the Fox Valley. I'm also the President of Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley, an organization focused on historic preservation and education. I hope you will consider me for your tutoring needs!

I taught ACT math for the Princeton Review, and scored a 33 on my own ACT in high school, but obtained a composite score of 35 when I recently (October 2017) re-took the test. This puts me in the top 0.75% of all test-takers nationwide. Between the two tests, I received a perfect score (36) in both Reading and English, and a 35 in math. I taught all ACT subject areas for the Princeton Review as well. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation named me a Commended Student for my PSAT score, and my GRE score was in the 98th percentile nationwide.

Because of my involvement in several extracurricular activities in high school, my volunteerism, essays, recommendations, and academic achievement (among other factors), I was admitted into every undergraduate school to which I applied (including Cornell, Northwestern, etc.). The techniques I learned at TPR, combined with ongoing study of test questions have been instrumental in my tutoring. Both have helped me show students how to find correct answers and avoid traps set on all standardized tests. During one-on-one tutoring, I help students understand how to solve each problem, and how to eliminate incorrect answer choices. I am one of a small number of tutors with actual experience tutoring the GRE and ALL areas of both the ACT and SAT.

I have (literally) written the book on early Geneva, Campton Township, Wasco, and Kane County history, and am currently working on other historical publications. I taught history at the AP level) for seventeen years, and am a co-recipient of the Richard H. Driehaus Award for Historic Preservation (in Advocacy). I'm a Life Member of the Western New York Genealogical Society, and a former member of the Sons of the American Revolution. I'm also interested in the environment, gardening, travel, and social advocacy.

I am looking for students excited to improve their test scores, and to learn more in their fields of interest! Please contact me with any questions about tutoring, and I look forward to hearing from you!