Franklin & Brentwood, TN  ·  Williamson County  ·  Nationwide Online

ACT Prep
in Franklin, TN

Private, one-on-one ACT prep coaching from a coach with 17 years and 200+ families behind him. Real strategies. Real test materials. Real results.

17+ Years Coaching ACT & SAT
200+ Families Served
5–10 Typical Point Gain
36 Perfect Score Achieved

The Score Came Back.
Now What?

Most parents call me right after a score comes back. And when they do, it's usually one of two situations.

Situation one: Their student is a great student. 4.0 GPA. Hard worker. Never had to struggle academically. Then the ACT lands and they're staring at a 17, a 19, or a 22 — and nobody saw it coming. The student is rattled. The parent is confused. How does a kid this sharp score that low?

Situation two: They've already tried prep. Went through a tutoring company, did the workbooks, worked the online practice portals. Practice scores were climbing. They felt good going into test day. Then the real score came back — sometimes 8 to 10 points lower than anything they'd seen in practice.

8–10 Points some students lose between practice scores and the real test — because they were never using real test materials
19 → 30 Biggest single score jump More Than Standard has produced — from a student who had been written off by another program
0 Other programs that teach the mental game the same way — confidence, Conqueror's Mindset, and identity-level coaching

Why Most Prep Fails

Most programs have the same four problems. And most students run into at least one of them.

  • Tutors who can't teach. Some companies hire college students who barely know how to actually teach someone else the test. The student watched a good test taker solve problems — but nobody ever taught them how to think through it on their own.
  • Wrong practice materials. The official ACT has a specific rhythm, a specific feel, specific patterns that the questions follow, specific types of wrong answers — all of it. No matter how hard they try, third-party practice materials don't replicate any of that accurately enough. So when the real thing shows up, it feels foreign.
  • No dress rehearsal. Most students never run a full test in one sitting before test day. No regulation timer. No real conditions. You can't prepare for a marathon by running half-miles whenever you feel like it.
  • No mental game coaching. This is the biggest gap — and it's what separates More Than Standard from everything else. Nobody is teaching these students confidence. Nobody is showing them how to think like an elite athlete stepping into competition. How to face a hard problem with a Conqueror's Mindset instead of panic. How to see themselves the way God sees them — capable, equipped, not defeated before they start.

That last piece is almost entirely missing from every other program out there. And it's often the difference between a student performing at their actual ability level and one who collapses under pressure.

How More Than Standard Works

Day one looks different than what most students expect. Before we ever open a test booklet, I spend time getting to know them.

Their interests. Their sport. Their church life. Their dreams — what they want to study, what college looks like in their head. I ask how school goes for them, how they feel about tests in general, and how they feel about the ACT specifically.

I ask them to rate their confidence on a scale of 1 to 10. And I ask how important God is to them, and whether they believe he actually cares about something like a test score.

Then we work on the foundation before we touch the test. I teach them how to defeat anxiety and build real confidence — not the fake pump-up kind, but the kind that holds up under pressure.

We talk about the power of their words. How as a man thinks in his heart, that's who he becomes. How the tongue is like the rudder of a ship and steers the course of a life. How Jesus said they could move a mountain by speaking to it.

I take them through scientific studies that confirm the words-thoughts-performance connection. We look at how elite athletes think — and I show them how to build that same mindset going into a standardized test.

After that, we dig into the test itself.

01

Rapport & Foundation

Get to know the student — their life, their confidence level, their relationship with God. Build the mindset foundation before touching a single test question.

02

Understanding the Opponent

ACT, Inc. is Goliath — nearly 6,000 employees, now a for-profit company, built around selling student data to colleges. The test is deliberately designed to keep students average. We study the opponent before we fight it.

03

Section Strategies

Weekly 90-minute sessions. Counterintuitive, highly effective strategies for all four sections — including a reading method that frees students from reading the passages, and a science method that requires almost no content knowledge.

04

Real Test Practice

Students always practice from official ACT tests — never third-party materials. Accuracy first, then speed. Pacing and timing introduced once the strategies are solid.

05

Session Notes for Parents

After every session, parents receive written notes: practice scores, what we covered, and the plan going forward. No guessing about how it's going.

06

Full Test Dress Rehearsal

Before the official test, every student runs a full ACT in one sitting under real time conditions. No surprises on test day.

Understanding the Opponent

I teach students to think of ACT, Inc. like Goliath — and here's why that framing matters.

  • Nearly 6,000 employees. Sold to a private equity firm in 2024. This is a serious, well-resourced organization.
  • Colleges are the real customer. Students pay a registration fee. Colleges pay for the student data, enrollment tools, and analytics. The student isn't the client — the student is the product.
  • 7 unique test forms every year. Never recycling questions. Never an error on the answer key. No typos. No way to call and argue for points back — because they are never wrong.
  • The test is designed to keep students average. Trick answer choices. Misleading graphs. Word problems loaded with information that exists only to confuse. Intentional traps, built by professionals.

That's Goliath. The good news is — David won.

What Results Actually Look Like

Every student I've worked with has improved. The typical range is somewhere between 5 and 10 points on the ACT composite score.

The biggest single jump I've seen: a student who came in at a 19 and finished with a 30. That kind of leap doesn't happen by accident — it takes work, consistency, and a willingness to trust the process even when it feels uncomfortable.

What About Slower Progress?

Some students work hard and still progress more slowly than others. That happens. When it does, mindset becomes even more important. We keep climbing the mountain one step at a time. A slower road doesn't mean a failed one.

What Leads to the Best Results

What every student has to own — regardless of where they're starting — is their practice and their commitment to using the strategies I teach instead of defaulting back to old habits.

Students who see the biggest gains do their homework, run real test materials, and apply the methods. The ones who go back to doing it the way school taught them leave points on the table. Every time.

The good news: most students don't need much convincing. They come in skeptical sometimes. They usually leave that first session ready to work.

5–10 Typical ACT composite point improvement for students who complete the process
30+ Students who have reached a 30 or above through More Than Standard coaching
36 The perfect ACT score — achieved by a More Than Standard student from Franklin, TN

Is This Right for Your Student?

Not every student is ready for this, and that's worth saying plainly. Here's how to know.

This works well for students who…

  • Are willing to practice between sessions and do the work
  • Want to learn a new way to approach the test, not just repeat what hasn't worked
  • Are open to mindset coaching alongside strategy coaching
  • Have a parent who is invested in the process and values the partnership
  • Are serious about a target score for college admissions or scholarship purposes
  • Want a coach who will actually know and care about them as a person

This is a harder fit for students who…

  • Are looking for a magic strategy that bypasses the work
  • Won't commit to practicing with real test materials between sessions
  • Default back to old habits instead of applying the methods taught
  • Aren't ready for the financial investment that premium coaching requires

I'll work with any student who shows up. But a student who isn't willing to put in real practice will improve less than they're capable of — and that's on the table upfront.

Matt Hallock
ACT & SAT Coach · Franklin, TN
17 Years
200+ Families
800 SAT Math

About Matt Hallock

I've been coaching students on the ACT and SAT since 2009. Seventeen years. That kind of experience has a way of speaking for itself.

My official credentials are not my strongest qualification. I have a B.A. in Communication and a partial seminary education. Neither of those is what you're hiring me for.

The Story That Actually Matters

When I first got into this work, I was applying for a position at a tutoring company in New York. They told me I'd need to teach the SAT. I was honest — I wasn't sure I could. Math especially. I told them flat out: there's no way I can teach that.

They handed me a diagnostic test anyway.

I scored an 800 on math. Which, for the record, was better than my 750 on English — and I was the guy who said there was no way he could teach math.

I had scored a 1340 on the SAT in high school — decent, nothing I was bragging about. But somewhere between taking the test as a teenager and sitting down with it as an adult, something clicked. I understood it at a different level. That moment told me something important about what I was built to do.

My Real Resume

Look at the scores. Look at what parents say. Look at the students who came in at a 19 and left with a 30, or who walked out of test day with a perfect 36. The results are the resume.

See the Results

Schools We Work With

Students from these schools and more have worked with More Than Standard for ACT prep in Franklin, Brentwood, and across Williamson County, TN.

Franklin High School Ravenwood High School Independence High School Centennial High School Brentwood High School Page High School Summit High School Nolensville High School Battleground Academy Christ Presbyterian Academy Franklin Classical School Williamson County Homeschool Fairview High School Spring Hill High School Online / Nationwide

To the Parent Who's Been Burned Before

I'm not going to try to convince you. That's not how I operate.

If you've been through another program, if you're skeptical, if you've watched your student work hard and still walk out of test day disappointed — I understand why you'd be cautious. That caution is reasonable.

What You Actually Get

If you give me a try, you get my best. Not a curriculum. Not a college kid running through a workbook. Me — fully present, fully invested in your student.

I'll mentor them, coach them, build them up, and work on how they see themselves — not just how they take a test. Most of my students look forward to our sessions. I've had more than a few who dreaded finishing our work together. Students who invite me to graduation parties. Students who reach back out years later when life gets complicated.

I do my best to help them encounter God in such a life-changing way that they remember me as way more than a test prep coach. And in the process, I'll get their scores to the best they can be. The results speak for themselves.

One More Thing

If at any point you have a concern, a question, a frustration — tell me. I want to hear it. Your opinion matters to me. I want you to feel good about what we're doing together.

And if you don't? End it. No hard feelings. I'd rather you be honest with me than quietly unsatisfied.

This works when it's the right fit. I believe it can be the right fit for your student. But you get to decide that.

Schedule a Free Consultation

Frequently Asked Questions

Every student I've worked with has improved. The typical range is 5 to 10 points on the ACT composite. The biggest single gain I've seen was a student who came in at a 19 and finished with a 30. Results depend on how much practice the student puts in and how consistently they apply the strategies between sessions.
It depends on how much time a student has before their target test date and where they're starting. Most students work with me for several weeks to a few months. I'll give you an honest assessment after hearing about your student's situation on the free consultation call.
A few reasons. Most programs use third-party practice materials that don't replicate the real test accurately. Many use tutors who know the test but have never been trained to teach it to someone else. And almost none address the mental side — confidence, mindset, and how a student thinks under pressure. That combination is usually what's missing.
Yes, and this is one of the areas where I spend the most time early in the process. I teach specific strategies for defeating anxiety and building genuine confidence. We talk about how elite athletes approach high-stakes performance. For students of faith, we go deeper into what Scripture says about identity and capability. Test anxiety is real, and it's addressable.
I've written letters on behalf of students who were initially denied extended time and had their appeals approved after submitting my letter. If your student has a legitimate need for accommodations and has been denied, reach out and let's talk about it.
Both. I work with students locally in the Franklin and Brentwood, TN area, as well as with students nationwide online. The process is identical either way.
Those programs are built for volume. You get a curriculum, a workbook, and a tutor who may or may not know this test well. What I offer is one coach, fully invested in one student, using real test materials, teaching strategies that actually work, and coaching the mental game as seriously as the content. That combination is rare.
I'm not the cheapest option in Williamson County, and I'm upfront about that. This is premium, one-on-one coaching from someone with 17 years of experience and 200+ families behind him. Contact me for current rates — I'm happy to walk you through everything on a free consultation call.

Let's Talk About Your Student.

A free consultation call is 30 minutes. No obligation. I'll listen, ask questions, and tell you honestly what I think I can do for your student.

Schedule Your Free Consultation

Let's Talk About Your Student.

Fill out the form and I'll be in touch within 24 hours. Or call or text directly — I'm a real person, and I actually answer.

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Franklin, Brentwood & Williamson County, TN — plus Online Nationwide
Investment

Premium, one-on-one coaching priced to reflect 17 years of experience and real results. Reach out for current rates — and ask about the free 30-minute consultation call.

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