Tara Calderbank, a recent UCF graduate, found herself looking for help.
When Calderbank originally took the Graduate Record Examination, a test used by potential graduate schools, she got a combined score of 780. Having a score below the national average, she knew that help was needed. She found help in a program offered by UCF itself.
UCF Test Prep, the largest stand-alone program within the Department of Continuing Education, has been offering students a way to get help for important tests like the Graduate Record Examination and the Graduate Management Admissions Test. The help comes in the form of non-credit classes and homework assigned by instructors offered at a lower price than most commercial prep centers.
Calderbank enrolled in a six-week course that carried a steep workload of 248 total pages.
"First, I asked the teacher "Do I really need to do all 248 pages?" Calderbank said. "By the end I filled up a good two or three spiral notebooks."
The hard work was rewarded. When Calderbank retook the test only seven months after her first attempt, she scored 1250, a 470-point improvement.
"They say it is impossible, but it is definitely not a fluke," Calderbank said.
Since receiving her new score, she has been accepted to graduate school at the University of Oxford in England.
Not every student who needs help knows about UCF Test Prep, which is something that Chris Rose, assistant director of business development for continuing education, has been trying to change since he took the position in 2003.
"Of course one of the first hurdles I've had since I took over the program is telling people we even have the program," Rose said.
One of the methods of marketing that UCF Test Prep uses is through building relationships with other campus divisions, such as the Division of Graduate Studies, as well as advertising on bus stops and billboards.
Even with all kinds of marketing, sometimes a simple search will yield results.
Allan Bradley, a graduate of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, who is now living in Orlando, turned to the Internet to find help with taking the GRE and GMAT.
"I found out about it through searching on Google," Bradley said. "A school this big, I figured it probably did something like that."
Bradley said that taking the prep course through UCF Test Prep helped his GRE score by 10 percent.
Marketing for potential instructors has not been as hard as marketing for students, Rose said.
Because UCF Test Prep is not for profit, it only needs to make enough money to be self-sufficient, which means it can focus more on paying the instructors well.
"Once word trickles out about pay levels, that certainly tends to generate some interest," Rose said.
Another advantage the program has through its self-sufficiency is the ability to run classes even if there are only a few students enrolled.
"I don't want to be in a situation where I have to have 20 students to run a class," Rose said. "I'm not here to make a million dollars, I'm here to serve the students."
This attitude is what won over Betty Binford, a retired aerospace engineer who now teaches for UCF Test Prep.
Before joining UCF, Binford worked for a commercial preparatory center, but was attracted to helping in an academic environment,
"I really preferred an academic environment as opposed to a commercial environment," Binford said,
"and I think that's what you do this for - you do this because you want to help people." E
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