A lot of exam prep companies make claims about their students' pass rates. It can be difficult to tell how much weight to give those claims, especially when there’s clear nonsense out there – I recall seeing an AI-written prep book for sale a while back that claimed a “98% pass rate” on the relevant test, but the book hadn’t been published before. The number seemed to be just made up. How do you separate truth from fiction?
The challenge of comparison
It’s tough to objectively compare exam prep programs and know which one is best for you. Every company, including ours, has its unique strengths; we offer video-based learning, advanced reporting on your test-taking skills, our Think Like the Test strategy videos, and lower prices than competitors. But there aren’t objective indicators you can rely on to just tell you this company does better than that one. Pass rates understandably seem to be a useful basis of comparison.
But getting reliable and trustworthy pass rate data can be difficult. Any company’s pass rate data is impacted by response bias, where customers who passed are more likely to report their actual results than those who didn’t.
There’s also the question of who actually counts as a program user. Suppose a customer signs up for a prep program and never uses it, or only uses it to take a single practice test. Or suppose someone switches companies midstream. Who should a company count in their data?
So when a company says they have a certain pass rate, it's hard to know what that number actually means. Unfortunately, there’s just no way to tell whether one company’s pass rate means the same thing as another’s – even if the numbers they report are the same.
The solution: Transparency
We believe the best solution to these problems is transparency. Today, we’re publishing a wealth of data on our pass rates across various exams. We let you know how we break down different customer categories, and let you compare our data against statewide and school-specific averages provided by the state. As best as we can tell, this is the most comprehensive set of California pass rate data ever published.
We believe that this data, which is much more detailed than the data offered by any of our competitors, strongly supports the value and effectiveness of our programs. We encourage you to look through it in depth. Put simply, you can be confident in the preparation that comes through our programs.
And while we believe that the data is useful, we also recognize that no company’s data tells the whole story. You should choose the best program for your individual needs and circumstances, one that you trust to carry you through the challenging and stressful exam process. We hope that choice leads you to High Pass Education.
