Why AI Is Changing SAT Prep Forever?

Imagine two high school students chasing the same dream of getting into their dream university. They’re equally hardworking, equally ambitious and equally capable. But when SAT preparation begins, their paths quickly diverge. One has access to private tutors, personalised study plans and premium courses that cost thousands of dollars. The other relies on free videos, second-hand books and whatever resources they can find online. The difference isn’t intelligence or determination, it’s opportunity. For years, this has been one of the education system’s quiet realities. SAT success has often reflected more than academic ability; it has reflected who could afford the best preparation. As tutoring costs climbed to hundreds of dollars an hour, quality test prep became less about learning and more about buying an advantage. For many talented students, the playing field was never truly level to begin with.

I’ve spent years thinking about this problem. After six years at BlackRock, including leading the firm’s first approved internal AI model, I found myself asking a question that had nothing to do with finance and everything to do with education: Why should access to high-quality SAT preparation depend on a family’s income? That question eventually led me back to Equedu, the education company I founded in 2019, and to building Quad, our AI-powered SAT preparation platform. My belief is simple: if technology has reached a point where it can deliver high-quality academic support at scale, then it should be used to make great education more accessible, not more exclusive.

A Shift That Goes Beyond Technology

Whenever AI is discussed, the conversation usually revolves around what it might replace. I think the more interesting question is what it can make possible. For decades, high-quality SAT preparation followed a simple formula: the more personalised support a student wanted, the more it cost. Better guidance meant more hours with experienced tutors, and more hours meant higher fees. Over time, personalised tutoring became a luxury rather than a resource available to every ambitious student.

Today, I believe advances in AI are beginning to challenge that model. Instead of limiting personalised learning to those who can afford premium tutoring, AI now has the potential to provide students with continuous academic support wherever they are. I don’t see this as replacing educators. If anything, it allows them to spend more time doing what humans do best, mentoring, motivating, and helping students through the moments where they need expert guidance the most. To me, this isn’t simply about building another AI product. It’s about rethinking an industry that has operated the same way for decades.

“$200-an-hour tutoring made sense when human teaching was the only reliable way to do this well. That isn’t true anymore.” That belief isn’t about making tutoring cheaper for the sake of it. It’s about recognising that technology has finally reached a point where affordability no longer has to come at the expense of quality.

Making Opportunity More Accessible

My perspective isn’t shaped only by my experience in artificial intelligence. Through Equedu, I’ve spent years working closely with students pursuing admission to some of the world’s leading universities, helping many earn scholarships and offers from institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, Duke and UC Berkeley. Along the way, I noticed the same pattern again and again. Students rarely fell short because they lacked ambition or potential. More often, they were held back because they didn’t have access to the same quality of preparation as their peers. That realisation became one of the biggest reasons for building Quad. I didn’t want to create another premium tutoring service. I wanted Equedu to rethink how high-quality preparation could reach far more students than the traditional model ever allowed.

Today, through Equedu, we’re combining AI-powered with experienced human mentorship to create a more accessible. Quad provides students with continuous, personalised support while connecting them with expert tutors whenever deeper guidance is needed. The goal is simple: make every learning interaction more meaningful and every tutoring session more impactful. In our early student cohorts, participants have reported average SAT score improvements of more than 200 points over a twelve-week study period. But for me, and for Equedu, success isn’t defined only by higher test scores.

It’s measured by the number of students who no longer have to wonder whether quality preparation is something they can afford. If access to elite SAT preparation becomes less dependent on family income, then more students can compete for scholarships and admission to top universities based on their curiosity, determination, and potential, not the size of their family’s budget. That’s the future we’re working toward at Equedu: one where technology doesn’t simply make learning smarter but helps make educational opportunity fairer for everyone.