Wednesday, November 6, 1996
MERGERS:
MCAT test prep companies pressured to sell out, goal of helping
forgottenBy Todd S. Bennett
On Tuesday, Oct. 15, the article titled "Test prep utopia:
Hyperlearning to merge with Princeton Review’ was featured on page
three of your paper. An interesting omission was that the MCAT
division of Hyperlearning, which has been in existence for six
years (not 10), had four founding partners, not two as your article
mentioned. I was the primary founder and majority owner of the
Hyperlearning MCAT program. We started out as a small company that
operated out of a garage.
In September of 1992, I taught for the last time with
Hyperlearning. I sold my partnership in Hyperlearning, which was
divided amongst my three former partners. I wished them luck in
their endeavors and then started a new company. My friends thought
I was a Prozac candidate for what I had done. I left a very
profitable business for philosophical differences. At that time, we
were starting to lose our personal feel. It was inevitable that my
former partners would sell. Seeing Hyperlearning sell to Princeton
Review put closure to the small intimate feeling I had about the
business.
I am happy for my former partners, because Princeton Review is a
very forthright and ethical company that puts out a good product,
but I can’t help feel a little sad seeing the only other small,
local company disappear. It seems that your article failed to
address the bigger picture of mergers and takeovers in general.
Every year, the pressure for us to sell out to a national giant
gets greater, with the president of one of the two national
companies calling me at home to discuss the virtues of a sale.
Maybe my current partner and I don’t understand business, as we are
both trained as teachers and scientists, but is the only motive
profit? A majority of the test prep industry cares more about their
bottom line than it does about the lives we touch.
We work with students who place great trust in us. They are
giving not only money, but also countless hours of lost sleep,
increased stress, and blind faith that we will help them attain
their dreams. We have an obligation to provide not only a good test
preparation, but also to exude genuine concern for their progress
and goals.
Applying to medical school is one of the most challenging
endeavors someone will ever encounter. Pre-meds are dealing with
the most intense competition of any career choice an undergraduate
can make. There are bigger stories here than just some speculative
statistics and course prices. There are students’ futures here.
After reading your article, I felt, as I am sure many readers
felt, it was another case of a corporate giant swallowing up a "mom
and pop store," and then putting a clever spin on the story. The
more I read the story, the more it sounded like a press
release.
It read like advertising under the guise of journalism. It is
things like this that make me fear that your readers will grow
cynical of the test preparation industry. Who can blame them if
they feel jaded? Perhaps an article on how this merger will affect
students would be better; something more than just a list of
unverified statistics from one source.
I hope that this merger does not lessen our industry’s
commitment to student’s dreams. If anything, we need to make an
even stronger effort to go the extra yard. Today I go to our office
feeling a little emptier; feeling that we are the last of a dying
breed. I guess from a business perspective, we should be happy
because there is one less competitor, and our most serious
competitor now has corporate offices 3,000 miles away. Our
enrollment is up from last year and business is going great. Please
forgive me if I am not celebrating at the moment.