Free March2Success program adds MCAT, DAT practice tests and ACT, SAT prep courses
By Jeff Ross
March2Success, a free online academic readiness program, added several new features this month to help students prepare for standardized admissions tests for college and beyond.
The U.S. Army-sponsored program now has free full-length practice tests for the Medical College Admissions Test, the Dental Admissions Test, several different nursing tests, and a full prep course for the ACT and SAT to complement the free ACT and SAT full-length practice tests it has provided for several years.
March2Success is an interactive online test preparation system featuring curriculum designed by Peterson’s and the College Options Foundation. It provides cutting-edge assessment software and education content in an easy-to-use, self-paced format that is available 24/7. The program is free and requires no obligation to the U.S. Army.
“We decided to expand March2Success because we’ve seen the benefit across the country, how it’s helping students and educators, and so we wanted to provide more resources,” said Tony Castillo, education division chief with U.S. Army Recruiting Command based at Fort Knox, Kentucky. “We see this program as the Army’s gift to education.”
In 2017, March2Success reached over one million registrants, and in this year alone, there have been more than 100,000 users who have registered to use the program.
According to Castillo, there aren’t a lot of free programs out there like March2Success. Many test prep courses and materials cost a substantial amount of money, and providing this public service allows for greater accessibility to a much larger population, he said.
“The U.S. Army wants to help create productive members of society, and we know kids who graduate from high school are more likely to be successful in life,” Castillo said. “Now we’ve moved beyond helping students in secondary school, and we’re helping students who are pursuing medical careers, of which we have a shortage in this country.”
The program supports student goals by creating a customized learning path unique to each student. March2Success consists of up to 30 hours of instruction in more than 50 self-paced online lessons covering science, technology, engineering, math, language arts, and test-taking skills. The march2success.com website offers a variety of study materials such as flashcards, lessons, practice tests, and interactive video games to make the program user friendly for many learning styles.
Parents and teachers can also use March2Success to monitor students’ progress toward their goals and view frequency of site use and content access, and they have the option to manage individuals or groups. This means parents of more than one student user can monitor each of their students’ access and progress. Teachers can group students by the classes they teach, grade levels, and student needs.
March2Success was designed based on input from educators, Castillo said. Their ideas and feedback have been integral in making the program what it is.
“A lot of things we have on March2Success are because of the feedback we have received from educators across the country, and that’s how we’ve enhanced it,” he said. “The tracking mechanism educators can use to track their students — that was a recommendation from an educator out of Houston, Texas. We are always looking for new ideas.”
To learn more about the free program, visit march2success.com.
Jeff Ross is Chief of Public Affairs for USARBN, Salt Lake City.
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