Jackie Yang is currently a first year student at NYU Langone School of Medicine. She recently graduated with honors and Phi Beta Kappa recognition from the University of Miami, where she pursued neuroscience and English as her major fields of study on a near full-tuition merit scholarship. She also holds minors in chemistry and history.
Jackie has had over five years of private tutoring experience in a variety of school subjects and SAT test preparation. She started as an after-school tutor working with high school students through Starting Right Now, a nonprofit in her hometown of Tampa, Florida. There, she helped students with class work, organization and study skills, and test-taking in their courses. She worked with a range of skill sets, from high-achieving AP test-takers to students who needed help maintaining on-grade level reading, writing, and math skills. She also had some experience working with very early learners through a summer program for students identified as needing additional reading help before entering kindergarten. From learning phonics to analyzing Shakespeare, Jackie found that, even with the most challenging students, developing a rapport and teaching approach tailored to each students’ strengths and weaknesses greatly increased the students’ enthusiasm for the subject and their sense of ownership of their ultimate goal.
As a 99th-percentile scorer on the SAT, Jackie has also tutored one-on-one during the summer for the CollegeBoard’s SAT and SAT subject tests as well as Advanced Placement (AP) exams. A high-achieving math and English test-taker, Jackie has helped students improve on the hard skills, knowledge, and softer test-taking approaches that lead to success in all sections. In particular, Jackie enjoys helping students improve on the Critical Reading section, which many students find the most puzzling. She believes in taking an approach that reduces what appear to be vague questions with subjective answers to straightforward problems that can be systematically broken down and checked against the text. This, she has found, gives students more confidence and higher accuracy in their responses.
Her success with the SAT is mirrored by her experience with other standardized tests; Jackie scored in the 99th percentile on her MCAT (medical school admissions exam), was a National AP Scholar scoring high on challenging subjects that included Calculus BC, Statistics, and European History, and has also worked for the test-preparation company Examkrackers to develop books and practice exams.
During college, Jackie was also a TA for the school’s large introductory biology course, leading weekly small groups with a group of around 20 students. She considers her life sciences background another strength for students who need additional assistance in general biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, and other life sciences. While in school, Jackie was also active through her English major as an editor of her school newspaper, The Miami Hurricane, for three years and the editor-in-chief of the school’s literary journal, Mangrove. Jackie credits these experiences with giving her not only hundreds of hours of experience in editing and writing, but also in developing meaningful mentorships with her writers. She is passionate about her own writing and helping others communicate their own thoughts in precise and compelling ways.
More than anything, Jackie hopes to get her students excited about their learning, become more self-aware about their own habits, and empowering them to take ownership and pride in their progress.
