Frequently Asked Questions
General
At Education Station, we pride ourselves on responding to the needs of the community and our students. Our classes are designed for our students’ specific needs and are adjusted weekly to provide the highest level of instruction. Our small group atmosphere gives instructors the opportunity to respond to each student’s needs individually and check progress and comprehension multiple times during the session. Our goal is to provide a level of personalized support that helps students gain confidence and comfort working with the material and advocating for themselves when they have questions.
Our teachers adjust each class’s curriculum to reflect student needs. When registering, please note the disability and any accommodations your student receives so our teachers can make changes to the curriculum and prepare effectively!
Please email devon@educationstationhopkinton.com with your organization’s mission and ideas to discuss working together!
Please email devon@educationstationhopkinton.com with information about the class. If we see a significant amount of interest in a class, we’d be happy to develop a curriculum! Our parent company, PES Global, also offers individual tutoring, which might be a better fit.
Scheduling + Payment
Packages are purchased from the Customer Area in our booking site. After signing in, please click “Customer Area”, then “Prepaid Packages”.
Coupons for classes can be entered on the first page of the booking site, under “Have a promotion or voucher code?” or at checkout. If you’d like to purchase a package with a coupon, please email devon@educationstationhopkinton.com with your full name, the name and amount of the package, your coupon code, and your phone number to have the package applied to your account. Payment will be collected over the phone or at your first class.
Please call our office at 508-589-7088! We have restrictions on class cancellations based on time and availability and will reimburse on a case-by-case basis.
Please email devon@educationstationhopkinton.com with the name and date of the class and your full name. Pending interest, we may run another class session!
We require full upfront payment to book a class online. If you would like to pay by cash or check, please email devon@educationstationhopkinton.com with the class or package you’d like to purchase and your method of payment and we’d be happy to sign you up personally!
Please email devon@educationstationhopkinton.com with the name and date of the class and your full name. We’re happy to work with you to find a solution!
Our parent company, Personalized Educational Solutions, offers individual tutoring! Please email devon@educationstationhopkinton.com with a description of the class and your schedule to discuss individual tutoring options!
Our Instructors
Our tutors undergo a rigorous vetting process and initial training. They come from a variety of backgrounds and are prepared to teach your student in any subject.
Our vetting process for new instructors is thorough and involves multiple steps. Our team seeks out individuals who display deep content knowledge, have experience teaching and/or tutoring, and demonstrate the ability to instruct. Prospective instructors are asked to come in (or meet online) for an instructional interview session with our Co-founder and Director of Academic Services and Tutoring, Sims Yun. Applicants are expected to prepare a lesson plan on a given topic and “teach” it. Typically, a locally recruited high school student is present during the lesson so they can give feedback and share thoughts from a student’s perspective. This plays a large role in our decision-making process.
Small Group vs Private Tutoring
Our small group programs provide students with the individualized attention they need to succeed. We strive to keep our group tutoring sessions small and customized to ensure the quality of instruction. Therefore, we limit the capacity of students to six per instructor. However, some students can benefit from a higher level of personalization. Private tutoring is an option for students who have specific needs, are looking to target specific goals, or are seeking out services we currently do not offer through our group programs. Our private tutoring team works directly with students and their families to develop a personalized tutoring map based on each student’s needs. Once the student has achieved his or her goals, the tutor will work with the student to create a plan that reinforces those concepts mastered during the sessions. Students may take advantage of our one-on-one services for as long as they need and transition into a group program whenever they would like.
Personalized Educational Solutions (PES) is the parent company of Education Station and was established in January of 2018. Personalized Educational Solutions is a boutique educational services firm that provides one-on-one instruction and admissions guidance to students locally and globally. PES utilizes a highly customized and tailored approach to offer academic planning, tutoring, private school placement, and college counseling services to students online. Shortly after joining forces to start Personalized Educational Solutions, co-Founders, Christine Chapman and Sims Yun, set out to create another educational company that offered a more affordable, community-based, in-person educational vision in their town. In September of 2019, Education Station opened its first location in the town of Hopkinton. Education Station offers academic resources that support students in grades K-12. These programs are available online and in-person. In order to make these academic resources more affordable and accessible, Education Station utilizes a small group programming model.
College Counseling
There are many reasons why students choose to take advantage of college counseling resources. During junior and senior year, the last thing a parent wants to be doing is micromanaging their student and trying to supervise the college application process. Having a college counselor takes the pressure off mom/dad and there is still someone holding the student accountable and coaching him/her through the process and helping them feel empowered. Considering the cost of college, students and their families must be certain they are applying to the right schools and preparing the strongest applications possible to maximize opportunities for scholarships. College counselors can be helpful in guiding students through the scholarship and financial aid application processes as they work with students to research various opportunities and complete all scholarship requirements. As the college process continues to become increasingly uncertain and competitive, the advice and guidance of an admissions expert can make all the difference. The guidance that high school college counselors offer, although excellent, is oftentimes not as personalized as a private college counselor because of large institutional caseloads and responsibilities.
College Process Workshops and Bootcamps are offered through Education Station and follow our small-group model (classes limited to six students). Students work with admissions counselor and co-founder, Christine Chapman, in a small-group setting to tackle various aspects of the application process. However, we are aware that there are students who prefer one-on-one college counseling. In this case, we recommend students take advantage of our private college consulting services offered through our parent company, Personalized Educational Solutions. Students work privately with Christine. This option is for students who have a unique profile, an extensive college list, or simply prefer the one-on-one, customized aspect that private, individualized sessions offer.
During group sessions, students focus on completing and formatting their resumes, writing, editing, and finalizing essays, and reviewing their applications. Christine also establishes a plan or checklist for each student to help organize any remaining tasks.
Private, one-on-one, college counseling involves every aspect of the college process--from list creation, strategizing regarding early admissions plans, writing the application, essays, supplements and resumes, dealing with specific aspects of the college process that require individualized attention--like building a balanced college list, interview prep, organizing information including deadlines, dates, etc...interfacing with admissions officers/reps, following up with missing information, assisting in scholarship search work (if applicable or desired), assisting with final decision making, waitlist follow up, deferral follow up, etc. For all of these specific aspects of college counseling, a one-on-one approach is ideal. Your college counselor meets with you weekly or as often as needed in order to coach you through every aspect of the college process.
During these sessions, students work alongside our expert counselors to tackle various aspects of the college application. This includes resume work (creation/development, revisions, finalizing), application form-filling, personal statement guidance (from brainstorming, to editing, revising and finalizing), work on supplemental essays, scholarship essay (editing, revising) and more. These are working sessions! Students should come with their laptops and be ready to work. Single class and package options are available.
Online Classes
Education Station classes are designed to fit the needs of your student. The small-group atmosphere allows instructors to directly check in with each of their students during class to ensure understanding of material. In large online classes, it is easy to fall behind, as the teacher can only see a certain percentage of students at a time. Our small classes ensure that instructors can not only see every student during the session but can ask and answer questions from each individual. Instructors readily incorporate feedback through Google Forms and questions asked in class into the curriculum, ensuring students understand complicated topics that might have been skipped over in their regular Zoom classrooms.
We have moved all of our in-person operations online using Zoom and adapted class materials to reflect changing state and district standards. Our classes are still limited to six students and provide the same, small-group atmosphere. Additionally, we have increased our usage of Google Forms and Google Classroom to better incorporate student feedback and maintain our customary high quality of instruction during this rapidly changing time.
Have more questions? Get in touch with us!