School time! Depending on how you perform in class, the bell signaling the start of a new day at school may or may not be music to your ears. On a particularly bad day, it may just be an annoying screeching sound. So we look for much-needed familial support __ giving our parents our most pathetic excuse to skip school. It doesn’t have to go on that way, advises Ahead Tutorial and review Center’s Rossana Llenado, savior to countless kids who want to enter UP, Ateneo, or La Salle.

If you come to class prepared, you have nothing to fear. For the past 10 years, that’s what Ahead has been preparing incoming college freshmen for—

helping kids into the top colleges and universities. Llenado has expanded the Ahead program to include training modules for entrance exams in all levels (pre-school, grade school, high school and college) and recently added review sessions for civil service eligibility and law admission exams.

Llenado is aiming higher each passing year: This time, she wants her students be the top one or two in their class, not just top five. Besides giving them free guide to the leading colleges and universities in the metropolis, “we want to prepare them physically, mentally, and psychologically”.

For starters, diagnostic tests are given on Day One, giving the facilitators an idea of where the class stands. If they score low, a result that Llenado expects ---given the next to review more seriously---the students are likely more motivated to do better next time. Ahead now offers early-bird packages for students wanting to get a head start over their fellow college entrants – with review classes for UPCAT and other college entrance exams as early as possible.

The review and tutorial center has expanded to meet the needs of the students in areas outside Metro Manila, such as Baguio, Los Baños, Cebu, Davao and Iloilo. In Metro Manila, they conduct review session in UP Diliman, Ateneo in Quezon City and Makati, the University of Asia and the Pacific in Ortigas Center Alabang Country Club, near UST in Manila, Bloomfield Academy in Parañaque, Lourdes Mandaluyong and La Salle Greenhills. The latter three because of Ahead was screened and chosen by the school board to conduct review sessions for their students.