Harris, who is black, had been a high-achieving honor student at one of New Orleans’ top private schools. When she took the ACT at the end of her sophomore year, her result surprised her. She scored a 16, below the national average of 19.5 and significantly below the 33-35 score range of the elite colleges she aspired to.

“I felt very disappointed and bewildered,” said Harris, now 26. “It did not make sense”.

Was this a reflection of grade inflation? Did your school teach things that weren’t tested on tests or measure them differently? Was he not as smart as the adults made him believe?

That score shook his confidence.

Harris signed up for one of the brand-name test prep courses. He single-handedly raised his score to 18. He realized that he needed to learn math and grammar concepts that he had never really mastered. So, she left the school where she was a star student and athlete and enrolled in an online program from home that also offered numerous AP courses. And she tried hard in the test.

“I almost reverse engineered the test. I graded all the questions on the ACT and went back,” Harris said.

He increased his score dramatically (doubling it to 32) and accepted a full scholarship to the University of Washington. She graduated in 2021 with degrees in computer science and finance. The following year, she earned her master’s degree in computer science from WashU.

Clearly, Harris’ initial ACT score did not represent her intelligence, ability, and potential. He showed her how often black students are excluded from opportunities because they have not been prepared for these standardized control tests, the results of which largely reflect the socioeconomic status of the test takers.

While 20% of white students in the class of 2023 who took the ACT were considered college-ready in all four subject areas (English, math, reading, and science), the same was true for only 3% of black examinees, according to the Review of Blacks in Higher Education.

Harris worked independently as a standardized testing tutor in college and helped students make significant improvements in their scores. In the summer of 2022, she participated in an entrepreneurship accelerator program and began researching the test preparation market.

After dozens of interviews, she discovered that most commercial programs were not meeting the needs of students of color. Low-income students were excluded from programs that cost thousands of dollars.

“Their stories were similar to mine,” he said.

This led her to launch an educational startup, Top Tutors for Us, which offers test prep focusing on the needs of Black students.

Harris recruited highly-rated black tutors from universities nationwide and created an app to connect them with high school students working to improve their grades. The algorithm takes into account tutors’ cultural backgrounds, test scores, and leadership. High school students take an assessment that assesses their strengths and weaknesses throughout the test. The app then creates personalized lesson plans specifically for each student that identify gaps in their learning.

All tutoring is done remotely. From 2022 to 2023, his company worked with 250 students across the country.

Kiera Kaba, a sophomore at WashU, has worked as a tutor for students in St. Louis Public Schools since the fall semester. She sees how bias in standardized test questions affects students’ scores.

“The ACT is unfair and knows that it asks questions that rich white people are familiar with and will leave other students behind,” he said. His students have improved considerably throughout the sessions, Kaba added.

Several selective colleges recently announced that they would reinstate ACT and SAT scores as required parts of their admissions process. Colleges that resume testing after a pandemic-induced pause say their student bodies are less diverse without them. Those universities have not yet offered any data to substantiate those claims.

Harris sees growth potential for his company in the $30 billion test prep market. He is already working with four schools within SLPS and adding schools across the country. When districts sign up, they will be able to offer their services for free to students, addressing the inequities so prevalent in test preparation.

Harris hadn’t planned for this to become his full-time job, but he now has one software developer, three part-time business analysts, and 171 tutors working for his organization. Her tutors do more than prepare students for an exam. They also inspire them as mentors and improve their overall skills as students.

Their success shows that students are much more than a number.