How The Bob Hope School Raised SAT Scores by 250 Points

Established in 2010 by Dr. Bobby Lopez, the Bob Hope School (BHS) has quickly become one of the leading public charter schools in Southeast Texas. Its six campuses provide a world class education from prekindergarten through high school. For more than twelve years, the team behind Piqosity has grown in tandem with BHS. In combination with BHS’s increasingly rigorous academic curriculum, we were able to help improve their junior class average SAT score from below an 800 in 2013 to nearly 1000 by pre-pandemic 2019.

In 2024, BHS was named a Semifinalist for the prestigious Yass prize and designated a Texas Early College High School. Our partnership continues with the Bob Hope School today.

(Featured Image – From left to right, Dr. Jesus Acosta, BHS High School Campus Director and Piqosity tutors Andy Choi, Zainab Arif, and Marce Salinas)

Our Approach at Bob Hope School

Dr. Lopez started BHS expecting his graduates to be able to successfully compete in the global workforce. In 2013, BHS was preparing its first ever junior class to take the SAT. They asked the team behind Piqosity to develop and implement an SAT bootcamp.

Our partnership with BHS generally involves planning and executing an on-campus SAT bootcamp twice a year in the spring and fall. The fall bootcamp prepares 11th and 12th graders while the spring bootcamp helps 10th and 11th graders.

The spring bootcamps are specifically scheduled to lead up to the SAT’s School Day testing in April so that students go into the test freshly prepared.

Participating students generally attend the bootcamp for a total of 30 hours, which are split across 10 weeks among morning and afternoon groups. Piqosity provides three instructors who work with about 25 students each.

The instructors use Piqosity’s digital SAT course to provide a personalized learning plan to each student. Bootcamp sessions are generally divided between instruction, instructor-led practice, individualized practice on Piqosity, and full-length practice tests.

The bootcamps familiarize students with the structure and format of the SAT, teach test-taking strategies, and reinforce or remediate tested concepts in math and English. The majority of the bootcamp time is spent on strengthening the students’ core capabilities in math and English.

More than a Decade of Success

The Bob Hope School has experienced great success with its Piqosity partnership. This success is measured in at least three ways–average junior class SAT scores, college acceptances, and intra-bootcamp improvement scores.

The junior class’s average, official SAT scores have increased from below a 732 (7th percentile) to 983 by pre-pandemic 2020 (43rd percentile).

These scores are even more impressive in the context of BHS’s student population. At BHS, the SAT participation rate is 100%; 92% of high school students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and 95% of the student body is Hispanic, mostly first generation.

*The SAT participation rate in Texas was 73% and Port Arthur’s Memorial High School was 62%in 2020. Schools with lower participation rates generally report better SAT scores than those with high participation.

These increasing SAT scores have led to competitive college applications. Recent BHS graduates have gone on to attend prestigious colleges like Stanford and Emory.

Piqosity also tracks improvements within each bootcamp by administering a diagnostic and final mock test. The average score improvement for the junior class during our spring 2024 SAT bootcamp was 140 points (830 to 970), with many students more than doubling this number.

Lessons Learned – Replicating BHS’s Success at Your Campus  

Dr. Bobby Lopez

We are confident that the Bob Hope School’s impressive SAT results are replicable at other campuses when taking into account these lessons learned.

1. Good scores start at the top. Dr. Lopez, made college and career readiness his top priority, a priority which permeates BHS’s faculty and is instilled in the student body.
2. Improving scores takes commitment. The highest scoring BHS students can spend up to two years and 60 hours working with Piqosity.
3. SAT scores are directly correlated to math and English grades. Piqosity would like to take full credit, but BHS has invested heavily in building out their core curriculum including dual credit enrollment.

Other Educational Resources from Piqosity:

• Free SAT Practice Tests
• How to Teach an ACT or SAT Test Prep Course
• Texas’s Top High Schools by SAT and ACT Score
• Should I Take the ACT or SAT?
• Free TSIA Practice Tests