Stanley H. Kaplan Biography
For decades, people asked Stanley H. Kaplan the secret of his success in building the nation's largest test preparation company. His answer was simple: a life-long love of teaching, sharp entrepreneurial skills, the ability to seize an opportunity, and the unwavering belief that students can never be too prepared to take a test.
Born in New York City in 1919, Mr. Kaplan grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, where his parents owned a small plumbing and heating business. His grandparents were European Jewish immigrants who instilled in their families the value of hard work and the importance of education.
Mr. Kaplan was a natural-born teacher. As a child, he would assist his teachers without them asking, reciting classroom lessons for his schoolmates. With students often initially reluctant to receive his instruction, he made them an offer they couldn't refuse: "I'll pay you a dime to let me teach you!" By the time he was 14, the tables had turned and Mr. Kaplan was getting paid for his efforts, earning 25 cents an hour.
At 16, the precocious Mr. Kaplan began attending the City College of New York, while continuing to tutor professionally. When a professor confused Mr. Kaplan's biology grades with those of another Stanley Kaplan in the class, Mr. Kaplan invented the middle initial "H" to prevent further mix-ups. Years later, when asked what the "H" stood for, his response would often be, "Higher scores."
In 1937, near the end of his college career, Mr. Kaplan applied to all five New York-area medical schools, but was rejected by every one. Believing that his working-class, Jewish, public-school background had hurt him, he longed for a way to demonstrate that he was equal to the task. At the time, no standardized admissions test for medical school existed. The experience instilled in him an appreciation for tests that could level the playing field, measuring students by their talents rather than their heritage.
After graduating from City College, Mr. Kaplan opened his own tutoring business in his parents' home. He also wrote study books for the New York State Regents Exam for a small publishing company run by another entrepreneur, Manuel H. Barron. In 1946, one of Mr. Kaplan's students asked for help preparing for a college admissions test called the Scholastic Aptitude Test (the name was subsequently changed to the Scholastic Assessment Test and is commonly referred to as the SAT). Mr. Kaplan has said it was love at first sight upon seeing the SAT handbook, for here was a test that measured problem-solving and thinking skills, rather than rote memorization of facts. His introduction to the SAT ignited a half-century-long love affair with the test that would eventually lead Mr. Kaplan to expand his modest home business into an international enterprise of private education.
The test's creators, the College Entrance Examination Board, issued written advisories stating that SAT preparation was a waste of time, but Mr. Kaplan felt certain that students could benefit from review. Word of Mr. Kaplan's services spread in Brooklyn, and he soon had a classroom full of students preparing for the SAT. One year later, 200 students had enrolled. Students loved Mr. Kaplan for his ability to understand their academic needs and to make learning fun with his quips and anecdotes.
In 1948, Mr. Kaplan married Rita Gwirtzman, a social worker and fellow Brooklynite. They soon had three children: Susan, Nancy, and Paul. (Tragically, Paul Kaplan died in 1985 from complications associated with the HIV-AIDS virus.) In 1951, Stanley and Rita Kaplan purchased a brick-and-stucco home about a mile from his parents and moved his flourishing tutoring business to their basement. The SAT was now being taken by three times the number of students that had taken it just a decade before, as more colleges began using the test to screen applicants. The whole family helped manage the flood of students pouring through the doors, while Mr. Kaplan taught his classes and developed his test preparation material, including practice tests similar to the SAT.
The business soon outgrew the cramped basement space, and Mr. Kaplan began to rent space outside the home for the first time. His first "school" was located at a busy intersection near a Brooklyn subway stop. Here he hired extra teachers, receptionists and typists to help him teach and produce the growing body of study materials and practice tests he had developed. By the 1960s, admission tests for graduate schools had come into wide use, and Mr. Kaplan seized the opportunity to expand his business to include preparation for law, business and medical school examinations.
The appeal of top-notch teachers, specialized study materials, personalized service, and of course higher test scores caused admissions hopefuls to beat a path to Mr. Kaplan's door. When Mr. Kaplan discovered that one of his students had been flying in from the University of California at Berkeley to attend his classes, he knew it was time to expand nationally. In 1970, he opened a center in Philadelphia, soon adding more in Washington, D.C.; Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; and Miami. By 1975, Mr. Kaplan's test preparation centers were in 23 cities from coast to coast.
While the number of Kaplan centers grew exponentially with the increasing popularity of standardized admission tests, the test's creators continued to claim that coaching produced negligible results, labeling Mr. Kaplan "The Cram King." In 1975, the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation of the advertising, marketing and sales practices of Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Center Ltd., based on the company's claims that it could improve students' test scores. Three years later, the FTC released its conclusion: contrary to the test makers' claims, preparation could in fact improve SAT scores. The test makers were required to withdraw their statements that test preparation did not work. Kaplan and other test preparation companies gained new respect in the education world.
Scrutiny over the role and administration of standardized testing now shifted to the test's creators, who, under public pressure, began to make composite SAT samples available for review. As a requirement of New York State's "truth in testing" legislation, test scores and answers were made available to test takers nationwide for the first time. Mr. Kaplan was recognized as a maverick in the struggle for test takers' rights, empowering students and families by enabling them to get the information and tools they needed to become active participants in the college admissions process.
By 1984, Mr. Kaplan had opened more than 100 centers nationally with about 600 part-time satellite offices serving 95,000 students a year. Several companies approached Mr. Kaplan about buying his business, but when The Washington Post Company made an offer, Mr. Kaplan felt he had found a buyer that shared his commitment to education and communication.
Later that year, The Washington Post Company purchased Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Centers, Ltd. and Mr. Kaplan stayed on, serving as President and Chief Executive Officer.
In 1986, Mr. Kaplan and his wife established the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation which supports education, health, the arts, social action and Jewish causes. The Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Cancer Center at New York University Langone Medical Center promotes cancer research and treatment, and the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan serves as a community meeting and performance space. The Foundation also supports the Albert G. Oliver Program to enable economically-disadvantaged students to attend college. At least half of the Foundation grants are allocated to Jewish causes, including international and domestic programs in women's education, childcare, civil rights and Jewish education.
Mr. Kaplan retired from the Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Centers, Ltd. in 1994 to devote his full attention to the Foundation. He passed away at the age of 90 in August 2009, leaving his legacy to millions of students and Kaplan employees.
Kaplan has grown well beyond its test prep roots to include higher education, which serves more than 75,000 students on campuses and online; after-school learning programs in 80 centers nationwide; K12 educational services, which partners with hundreds of school districts around the country; a publishing unit, which produces nearly 200 titles annually; and professional and career development services, which provide 600 products for institutions and individuals. Kaplan has grown from an $80 million test prep company in 1994 to a $2.3 billion global education firm in 2008. Today, it is the largest revenue producer and fastest-growing business unit of The Washington Post Company. It remains a pioneering force in for-profit education and is a leading international provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses.
“Stanley's passion for teaching left an indelible mark on education in this nation,” said Andrew Rosen, current Chairman and CEO of Kaplan, Inc. “He founded an industry that helped students gain access to higher education that they had never before thought possible, and forced greater transparency in college admissions.”