Acme Learning Center - Palo Alto, California

Christina Q.

My daughter has been attending ACME afterschool since kindergarten, she’s 2nd grade now, and we’ve had very good experiences with it. The Chinese program is well built, we are happy that she learned many Chinese characters, get to know more about Chinese culture.
The homework club helped with English and math, so we don’t need to spend time at home on those. There are many elective classes as well (extra fee but reasonable), convenient for kids to try different stuff.
The front desk staff is always friendly and helpful.

Nan H.

My son has attended ACME afterschool for many years and he loves it, even though he is not interested in homework and hence always negotiated towards a reduced homework load.

Compared with several few afterschool nearby, I think ACME is outstanding from the following aspects:
1. A wonderfully friendly teacher&staff team. Kids and parents can easily approach the staff team and communicate quick on any issues, even though it's a fairly large program.
2. ACME has a wonderful selection of activities. Even kids not interested in mandarin should have a large set of choices.
3. ACME helps maintained driver team who is mostly composed by local parents.
4. ACME indeed has a rigourous curriculum of mandarin, the most rigourous in PA/MTV/LA/MP area. It really depends on the expectation of parents and the interests/readiness of the kid to select the best fit. I feel lucky that we have ACME nearby which maintaining a high standard while also providing lots of flexibility for parents' and kids' needs (they allow flexible Chinese level assignment, can help push harder or reduce workload depending on each family's situation, and care about the kids' interests)

Amelia L.

My kids have been going to Acme afterschool for years. I like the great learning environment. The Chinese class is serious with quizzes and tests. They also do some English and math workbooks. The afterschool also provides many elective classes that are conveniently located in Cubberley.

Jacob C.

Speaking as a former student who has also attended the Mustard Seed afterschool and Stanford Chinese School, this is a terrible place. The staff is unnecessarily strict and the rules are overly restrictive. The Chinese curriculum is shallow, sanitized, and basically Communist Chinese propaganda (this is not an exaggeration; one lesson exalts the 1997 Hong Kong handover). Also, students are made to do very tedious math (i.e. arithmetic) and English assignments in their spare time.

Wei X.

My two kids have been attending ACME since 2018 and even their online programs during COVID. I am really grateful for the community that ACME builds for our kids and I have a lot of great things to say about ACME

1) Chinese: ACME has wonderful, caring and responsible Chinese teachers, and rigorous Chinese curriculum. We all know how hard it is for our kids to keep learning Chinese. The everyday practices in class, the fun cultural activities throughout the year, the friendship kids build with each other, really keep them engaged in Chinese learning.

2). Homework Club: Kids also receive homework assignment (2 pages of English and 2 pages of match each day). The nice thing is that parents can be involved in deciding the right level for their kids to start with. It's not a lot each day, but it adds up and it helps build a more solid academic foundation over time.

3) Extra-curricular Activities: In additional to their core program, ACME also offers a wide range of academic and non-academic activities throughout the week with additional fee required. This was actually the main reason I chose ACME vs others. My kids get bored very quickly and they have many many options to choose from to stay busy in school, including soccer/basketball/tennis, drawing/dance/KungFu, writing/public speaking, Olympiad math/coding/modeling, etc, etc.

4) Operations: The organization runs very efficiently. Front desk staff is super responsive and proactive in communicating with parents; Teachers are always helpful, they give real time feedback and are willing to work with parents when issues come up; Director is very organized, open-minded, easy to work with as well.

Overall, it has been great experience for our family.

Di L.

Not sure why there are so many 1 star reviews - I think this is a very good school for Chinese education - Teachers are good and I feel my kid learnt so much from it! I am pleasantly surprised to find out that she had a solid grasp of the characters that she learnt. The teacher definitely helped them not just learn it but also kept reviewing it.

Long L.

Great Chinese program and after school programs

Bingyin W.

very good！