I began teaching the SAT in 1998, trained and employed by America’s largest SAT prep company. Because of my unusually strong results and feedback, it took them less than a year to name me a “premium tutor”, commanding the highest tutoring rate they charged.

 

As I continued to teach, noting what approaches worked best for my students, I developed my own strategies and techniques to attack the test. In time I realized I had outgrown my training and it was time to teach on my own. I wrote a textbook’s worth of worksheets to demonstrate my principles.

 

Over the last twelve years, I’ve taught students of all levels. Many already had outstanding scores but wanted to improve even more to get to an Ivy League level. Through a charity program, I’ve taught disadvantaged kids in inner-city schools who had scores in the bottom 10%. I’ve also worked with students with different challenges, such as learning disabilities and even brain trauma. I’m very proud to say that my wonderful students in all groups had impressive improvement in their scores.

 

It’s quite unusual for a tutor to do this job as long as I have. The vast majority of SAT teachers weren’t teaching the SAT two years ago and won’t be doing it two years in the future. For me, it’s not just a temporary thing I do between “real” jobs, it’s my career. It’s my calling.

 

I’ve been doing this job for twelve years because I truly love it! I love teaching kids and I find it incredibly fulfilling to help them achieve their dreams. I also enjoy outwitting the test. I’ve never lost the sense that defeating the test was a fun game, and I believe that sense of fun makes tutoring enjoyable for my students, too.