John Siano and Jason Chu have placed a big “X” on the Internet to mark the spot for a buried treasure trove of study materials.
John, a 17-year-old Cupertino High senior, and Jason, a 17-year-old senior at The Harker School, have created StudyTrove, a website devoted to helping students find appropriate practice questions for Advanced Placement exams.
StudyTrove offers a bevy of educational services for students, including essay editing, categorized AP practice questions and a database to help students get matched up with local tutors.
“When developing the site, we consulted a plethora of high school students to ensure that StudyTrove contains something that all high schoolers can gain from,” John says.
John and Jason tell of struggles finding categorized practice problems, which they say are the best questions to practice with in preparation for the big AP tests in the spring. The two heard from other students, too, that they would spend unnecessary amounts of time combing the Internet and books just to find quality practice problems.
“I conceived the idea of a website that divided each AP subject by question topic, so students do not have to do what I did and tediously search through past tests,” Jason says.
The website has been live since February. In preparation for launch, John and Jason spent their winter break from school scouring the College Board’s AP practice questions and categorizing the questions by content. StudyTrove then links students to these questions.
The website has grown quickly. StudyTrove also provides essay editing and hooks students up with tutors. Tutors are from schools all around the Bay Area such as The Harker School, Archbishop Mitty High School and Cupertino High School.
John and Jason also found essay reviewers at similar schools. There are currently 20 essay editors.
“We looked for people who are intelligent, responsible, patient and enthusiastic, and invited them to join StudyTrove,” Jason says.
StudyTrove has become a hit at their respective campuses.
“I remember before the AP U.S. history test, there were students in the library using the website to prepare. Another time a classmate asked me to help her with a calculus problem she found on StudyTrove, without even knowing that I was the creator,” John says. “It’s a superb feeling when you know that something you created has such a big impact on other people.”
The duo even spent money on targeted advertisements during the recent AP testing season.
“We used Facebook and Google advertisements and made it so that the ads were viewable by a certain high school demographic. These advertisements were a good return on investment, as the money we gained from the extra users far outweighed the cost of the actual advertisements,” John says.
John and Jason have also received numerous emails from teachers saying they recommend StudyTrove to their students. Some teachers even ask their whole class to get their essays looked over by StudyTrove before submitting them.
“I especially enjoy reading emails from students after we edit their essays, as they really appreciate the work and time we put in our service. I always smile when a student tells us our feedback helped them write better on their next essay,” Jason says.
Plans to improve StudyTrove are under way, with a website redesign ready by press time. Other plans include expanding tutoring, new questions for the AP test review component, study guides, notes and helpful links.
“Lastly, it would be awesome to design and program some sort of problem generator that creates questions similar to those found on AP exams. These generated problems will familiarize students with the thought process and procedure needed to solve the actual AP questions,” Jason says.
To begin using StudyTrove, visit StudyTrove.com.
