North Shore/Pre-uni-Which branch is the 'BEST'? (1 Viewer)

[VuongstER_boi]

Hullo, I was thinking of goin to North Shore or Pre-Uni. But i'm not sure which branch (either 1 of em) is best.(Strathfield, Fairfield, etc)... Has any of you ppls been to either North Shore or Pre-uni??...which centre would u recommend me goin to? I would really appreciate it if some1 could giv me sum suggestions.....thanks

 

[pLuvia]

hey, your in year 9?.. umm.. ive been to both, pre uni when i was in year 6 and north shore right now
North shore teaches you stuff way ahead, like year 12 stuff, the teachers are good, but if your unlucky youll get stuck with the crappy ones .. i go to the chatswood branch, head office of NSW
pre uni, i went was pretty good, they give you test every week to see your progress, but i dont know if its changed now so yeah.
Pre uni is a bit more expensive i believe
good luck~

 

[VuongstER_boi]

Ohhh alrites...thanks for da advice...hehe..omg lol.....i just realise it said 2008......meant to be 2007 but since i dun't give my exact details of birth & changed the month....lol...i'm in yr 10 btw....but thanks agen... I think Chatswood is much too far from where I live..so I probabli won't go there...I think I'll try the one at Fairfield or Strathfield....And yea, Pre-Uni is much more expensive thn North Shore. I have a friend who's been to the Strathfield Pre-Uni and changed to North Shore Berala. He said NOrth SHore had better teachers....ohh wells...i guess I have to c for my self. THanks agen

 

[VuongstER_boi]

Yeaa..i'm quite certain boutgoin to North SHore....i've chosen the closest centre, rang them up for details......cost, number of ppls,time,..etc.. yea......sounds all good to me..the price is alrite. Eng, maths & sci is $54 being 1.5hr each . & there's onli 9 ppls in the yr 10 class...so i've decided to giv it a try this week. omg..My peaceful saturdays r goin to be finalli spoilt...ohh wells ..i reckon it''s for the better good..with SC & HSC coming up.....(sigh).. well yea, basicalli i've decided for North SHore..thanks ppls for the comments/suggestions. feeel free to post up any more comments.

 

[zkuld]

As a student of North Shore for probably about 5 years, I have to disagree with the lot of you. I did not find it very helpful at all and all they basically did was copy the answers from their teacher's notes onto the blackboard with minimal explanation. I haven't been to Pre Uni before, but I hear it has a good English stream.

English was woeful at North Shore. If english isn't one of your strong points, I'd advise you to find a 1 on 1 tutor, as in my experience, it makes a hell of a difference. The cost isn't much more if you look in the right places.

Science was quite bad too. All in all, maths is the only subject that North Shore is remotely decent at. Although, if you can, 'Tipps' from Yagoona is the best you can get for maths tuition. They charge about $15/hr, but the teacher is highly respected, not boring and actually teaches you stuff that will appear in your exams, not just random rubbish like big tuition chains do. I went there during years 11 and 12, and I have nothing but praise for them.

Anyway, my point is to look around a bit more for more decent tutors. Don't be lazy and just go for the easiest one to find because they are usually the ones that will fill you up with regrets later on.

 

[pLuvia]

i disagree with you, depends which english teacher you have, unless you really care about learning then you would complain, but as you just said, i dont think you wanted to go. On the other hand i have the best english teacher ever

 

[VuongstER_boi]

Hmmmm.....just wondering.....which centre did u go to?....

 

[VuongstER_boi]

sorriz.....i was referring to zkuld....so, which NOrth Shore centre did u go to?

 

[carpediem]

go to tipps at yagoona ur in yr 10 right get into the top class or even 2nd top and u will have the best maths tutor ever

 

[zkuld]

sorriz.....i was referring to zkuld....so, which NOrth Shore centre did u go to?

Cabramatta and Liverpool.

What I'm saying is that the North Shore material is actually pretty crap (I'm not saying all of the teachers are crap though. Some are very good but are limited by the material they get to teach with). English material shouldn't be forced onto you like what major centres are doing now. They just give you a whole wad of articles and readings and get you to answer comprehension or essay style questions. In my opinion, it's much better if a tutor asks you what you need help on, which is much more easily achieved in a 1 on 1 situation. I've tried many english tutors that teach in classes but at the end of the day, I realised that I'd just wasted that amount of time sitting there listening to what was just being thrown at me, and at the end of the day, I didn't learn anything. I got no satisfaction from it. I took the initiative to go for a 1 on 1 tutor one day, and I never looked back. Basically, YOU can tell them what you need help with, YOU can ask them as many questions as you want, and YOU can go at your own pace. Really helpful.

e.g. You could spend a few lessons going over a prepared essay to perfect it for an exam. With class tutors, it's much harder to get them around to doing this, unless they do a half arsed job of it, which is most likely since they're not being paid for it and they're doing it in their own time, as opposed to doing it in normal paid tutoring times with a 1 on 1 tutor.

carpediem:
I believe the 3rd class also gets Kobskii. I joined Tipps in year 11 and never moved from the 3rd highest class.

If you really care about your education, you can't go wrong with Tipps. It is relatively hard to get into though because they set a limit or something which stops too many people from joining. It's already crowded enough as it is. The people there only go for one teacher, which is Kobskii. He actually cares about your education, and he's not afraid of expressing it either.

 

[zkuld]

Just to back up what I said:

"I got to Northshore coaching college The Randwick Centre.

If it wasn't for the Physics Teacher or the English teacher and the centre manager giving me a discount for doing all three subjects at a bargain price.

The material they give is so CRAP. The physics teacher is the best he goes beyond the material and asks people to bring in questions to do. In English we never use Northshore material but do our own texts.

Maths course is probably the only decent one.

The only reason I guess someone would go there, is it is one of a few coaching colleges that use real teachers not uni students." - zenger69

"North Shore may use teachers, but most of them are NOT GOOD, and the material is shithouse (maths is ok i suppose). good uni students who have experience of the hsc are in many cases better." - shafqat


Steinway: Yeah ofcourse having a private tutor would be good for everything, but what I was saying is that it's much more important for english. Maths is much easier to learn without personal tuition because its much more straightforward than english.

 

[carpediem]

carpediem:
I believe the 3rd class also gets Kobskii. I joined Tipps in year 11 and never moved from the 3rd highest class.

If you really care about your education, you can't go wrong with Tipps. It is relatively hard to get into though because they set a limit or something which stops too many people from joining. It's already crowded enough as it is. The people there only go for one teacher, which is Kobskii. He actually cares about your education, and he's not afraid of expressing it either.

Hmmmm i was talking bout yr 10, there's a guy called Ricky that teaches there, i'm currently doing yr 12 there now and i got kobskii i used to be in the top class then the 2nd now i'm in the 3rd.... Kobskii is really good.

 

[zkuld]

Yeah Ricky is a pretty good teacher too

 

[VuongstER_boi]

hehe... I noe a family friend who goes to Tipps. apparentli he's quite smart..hmm..Yagoona isn't too far from where i live....maybe i'll try tipps.$15/hr is quite cheap..but tipps is onli decent for maths, i hear. According to family friend,the englsh isn't so great...(not sure, neva been)...So thn, maybe ill go to tipps for maths & sumwhere else for eng. I agree with private tuition one-on-one. IT;s mUCh more effective thn group..hmmmm...but I fink maths i'll do fine without one-on-one since maths is just straightforward stuff to learn as mentioned b4, but english i'd defeniteli neeed sum one-on one assistance. lol, english is my worst subject..but private tutoring is costly...& hard to find as well ......hmm, for NOW ..i fink i'll try tipps...i dun't feeel like taking risk with North SHore..i mean..i noe i decided b4 to go with North Shore, but i didn't noe the place that well of where i was plannin to go(since there r so manny branches around, unknowingly good or bad)...but tipps is just da '1' place at yagoona with good reputation...

 

[zkuld]

hehe... I noe a family friend who goes to Tipps. apparentli he's quite smart..hmm..Yagoona isn't too far from where i live....maybe i'll try tipps.$15/hr is quite cheap..but tipps is onli decent for maths, i hear. According to family friend,the englsh isn't so great...(not sure, neva been)...So thn, maybe ill go to tipps for maths & sumwhere else for eng. I agree with private tuition one-on-one. IT;s mUCh more effective thn group..hmmmm...but I fink maths i'll do fine without one-on-one since maths is just straightforward stuff to learn as mentioned b4, but english i'd defeniteli neeed sum one-on one assistance. lol, english is my worst subject..but private tutoring is costly...& hard to find as well ......hmm, for NOW ..i fink i'll try tipps...i dun't feeel like taking risk with North SHore..i mean..i noe i decided b4 to go with North Shore, but i didn't noe the place that well of where i was plannin to go(since there r so manny branches around, unknowingly good or bad)...but tipps is just da '1' place at yagoona with good reputation...

Good choice.. hehe

Yeah English sucks at Tipps too.

One point of advice, try to enrol as soon as possible if you want to get into Tipps any time soon. Their enrolling process is quite stupid and time consuming. I tried enrolling for Tipps in year 10 and did a test and everything to determine the class that I would get into... 1 year later - no response. In year 11, I joined a more respected school and got in pretty much straight away. I think they really do take preference in what school you go to, because I noticed that probably over 90% of the people that were in my class atleast, were from decent selective high schools. I don't blame them though, because they don't want less able students slowing the class down even though it's pretty stupid to just class them by what school they go to. Then again, I'm probably wrong about this, but it's just an observation.

For english 1 on 1 tutors, I find students fresh out of high school that did well in the HSC to be the best option. Cheap, effective, know their stuff, can give you recent examples of what they wrote for such and such, etc. It's quite easy to find these guys too - bos forums, newspapers, word of mouth

 

[carpediem]

Yeh you better apply for tipps as soon as you can it gets really hard to get in especially when yr 11 starts. I go to some noname local school and the only reason i got in was i joined back in yr 7 and back then i was topping the class, then i got into very bad things and then sudden an expolsion of people started coming in there's alot of competition there.. it makes people work hard u feel like crap when u drop down a class

 

[stella8h8chang]

Hiya, I've only ever been to NS (started in y7), and I liked them, because they went v.fast, and v.far ahead. However, I can confirm that their English course is pretty woeful, as are their junior science courses.

I'm taking Chemistry and Maths with them, although I do them a year up (I moved out of y7 classes and into y8 classes within 2001), it sort of helps me get ahead.

But I reckon it depends a lot on what you want out of tuition; if you want to be ahead and you're a strong student, I reckon NSC is cheap and easy (not for English), but if you'd like a steady course on your current work and don't mind paying heaps, from what I've heard Prior is pretty good as well, or one of the things people have said here.

What else...yeah, I'm getting one-on-one coaching for English as of next term, done by the same guy who used to take our group lessons before. Needless to say he has nothing to do with NSC

 

[VuongstER_boi]

hehe.. rang tipps on Sunday...they say it's pretti full for now .. so i''m placed on a list for contact wen vacancies become available(Hopefulliz i'll be soooon!)/ .On the other hand, i reckon it'll be veri difficult to find a good private tutor for eng &I don't feel confident enuf with uni-students. so i fink i would at least need group-environment tutoring(centre based) for now ...(unless i can find a 'proper' English Teacher who can tutor me for a cheap & reasoanble cost.) so.............does NOrth Shore realli suck that much in eng??..won't u say it's..."ok-ish enuf" to go...?...cauz i can't fink of any where else betta from wat's beeen mentioned alreadi for eng tuition..

 

[flower_farie]

hey is anyone going to the north shore thing in the hols? where u have to do like maths for i think 4 days straight...4 days of 4 unit maths...NOOO!!!

 

[pLuvia]

don;t go to those things.. its a waste of money.. coz you're going to learn when do the normal class