ABOUT The Ivy Key is a Manhattan-based tutoring company that brings Ivy League credentials to standardized test preparation and tutoring. With over 10 years of educational experience, the company provides a holistic approach to the high school and college admissions process. It couples expert tutors and admissions consultants with rigorous coursework and a proven curriculum.1 LEADERSHIP The young entrepreneur partnered with fellow Ivy League graduate Chris McConnell, to bank upon their prestigious credentials and years of tutoring experience to open their own company – The Ivy Key. The two partners pooled together $25,000 they had earned over the years to launch the educational start-up, which began in the attic of Gardner’s family home and has since expanded to an over $300,000- a-year operation employing 20 tutors and serving nearly 100 schools across the New York City area. Keeping with the company’s philosophy that all qualified students should have equal access to higher education, the founders soon launched the Climbing Ivy Program, which provides free tutoring and college admission advising to economically disadvantaged public school students. Gardner, who has been tutoring for over a decade, maintains the belief that education is the key to success in America. Using his business acumen to expand access to great education made perfect sense in his quest to give back to the community. Inner-city students, he says, oftentimes lack the finances -- not the will -- to perform well enough on standardized tests to go to college, especially in the Ivy League. Jae Gardner is the founder of The Ivy Key, a Manhattan-based Like most start-ups, the duo faced their share of challenges. It tutoring company that employs Ivy League graduates to help urban certainly didn’t help that they started their venture in the midst of school students prepare for the college admissions process and learn the nation’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. But the tricks of the trade to gain access to Ivy League universities that necessity brought about innovation. has proven challenging for many public school students. In 2009 the business began to take off putting the company on the Born and raised in the New York City metro area, Gardner attended direct path to profitability, thanks to positive word-of-mouth and Regis High School in the Upper East Side and then Harvard media buzz. NY1 News even recognized the founders as “New Yorkers University, where he graduated in 2008 with bachelor’s degrees in of the Week.” economics and sociology. Now in 2011, Gardner, who considers his greatest asset to be his By the tender age of 24, he had already launched four different start- ability to inspire his students and their parents, looks back at his ups in a wide range of industries. The 2008 economic meltdown, decision to launch The Ivy Key with absolutely no regrets. He however, prompted Gardner to focus his entrepreneurial talents on looks to the future with great optimism and plans to expand his the educational realm where he had already spent thousands of hours enterprise to cloud education and publication of the company’s tutoring high school and college classmates to improve their patented course manuals. standardized test scores as well as grades. 2 FACT SHEET ‣ Founded in 2009 by Jae Gardner and fellow Harvard The program earned the founders recognition as New Yorkers University graduate Chris McConnell with an initial of the Week by NY1 News. investment of $25,000. McConnell subsequently sold his stake in 2010. ‣ Tutors are graduates of Ivy League or comparable institutions who are recruited by referral and matched ‣ The Ivy Key is expected to post over $300,000 in revenues with students based on gender and extracurricular by 2011’s end, up 100 percent from 2010, and have 20 endeavors. tutors, including three full-time on its payroll. The majority -- 80 percent -- of the company’s business comes from SAT ‣ Future plans include expansion into publishing course test prep. books, producing online tutorials and creating an online tutoring platform to serve students outside the New York ‣ Services offered: Extensive preparation for Graduate City area. School Admissions Tests (GRE, MCAT, LSAT, GMAT), SAT, ACT, SHSAT (Specialized High School Administration Test), ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam) and N.Y. Regents as well as tutoring in high-school subjects, mentoring and college admissions advising, among others. ‣ At the height of SAT preparation season, the Ivy Key serves up to 500 students a week. The racial/ethnic makeup of students served is: 60 percent African-American, 30 percent white and 10 percent Hispanic and Asian. ‣ ‣ The company’s students improve their scores by 300 points on average. If students fail to better their performance, the company will provide free classes and practice tests until they do. That is The Ivy Key’s guarantee. ‣ Through its Climbing Ivy program, the company offers free tutoring to promising and economically disadvantaged New York public school students. A total of 200 have been served since 2009, as part of The Ivy Key’s commitment to giving all students – regardless of economic status -- equal opportunity to attend college. ‣ 3 PARTNERS Al Noor School The Young Women’s Leadership School, Astoria Academy of Finance (1 Program) Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning High School Manhattan Village Academy Benjamin Banneker Academy Aviation Career and Technical Education High School Pathways College Preparatory School: A College Board School Cinema School Manhattan Business Academy Columbia Secondary School High School for Construction Trades, Engineering Architecture East-West School of International Studies All City Leadership High School Federation of Italian American East Side Community High School Young Women’s Leadership School, Queens Ross Global Academy charter School Medgar Evers College Preparatory School NYC Museum School Queens Metropolitan High School SOF Vanguard High School JHS 189Q William Cullen Bryant High School HSTAT Women’s Academy of Excellence Bedstuy Restoration Center Pace High School Asociaciones Dominicanas QSI Association of the Bar of City of New York SAYA Beacon High School Bronx Leadership Academy High School Brooklyn Collegiate High School For Public Service Heroes of Tomorrow International Arts Business School High School of Applied Communication Lafayette Campus Pan American International High School Preparatory Academy for Writers Queens Collegiate Queens High School of Teaching Richard Green High School Of Teaching School for Democracy and Leadership School for Human Rights UPROSE William E. Grady High School Lower East side Girl’s Club Mott Haven High School Kings Bay YM-YWHA, Inc. Indochina Sino-American Community Center Newcomers High School New York Urban League Miraj Islamic School 4 World Journalism Preparatory CONTACT ‣ For More Information: The Ivy Key 34 East 68th Street New York, N.Y. 10065 646-355-9782 [email protected] i Website: theivykey.com YouTube: youtube.com/TheIvyKey Facebook: facebook.com/pages/TheIvyKey Twitter: @theivykey 5.