I was an SAT/ACT instructor for a little while before becoming a lecturer. I was teaching a summer SAT test prep class. Now, this is a class that people pay for so that their kids can get practice. Students learn test-taking skills and take several rounds of SAT tests to get practice.

I had one student who received a fairly high score on one of the practice tests near the end of the class, and his mother berated me because he got an A+ on his essay, but not a perfect score. She was literally yelling and complained that I’m obviously not competent at my job. She complained to the owner of the company as well, and he said that she went on about how I’m not exactly a superstar because I didn’t go to an ivy league and I’m just a loser teaching SAT classes. It was pretty cold-hearted.