Harvard Review Test Prep

My prices reflect the results that my students achieve. Like with many things in life (health, education, etc.), you get what you pay for.

My process is different for each student. I am highly analytical in my approach, but I am also intuitive, and need to evaluate an individual student and his/her learning style, strengths and weaknesses, before coming up with a customized plan of Instruction.

My continuing education is to repeatedly take the Exams that I offer tutoring for, and to continue to study and write books. There is no finer education than to master these extremely challenging tests.

I was a Physicist who enjoyed my work. However, while being a Professor at a University, I began taking the SAT and all of the other standardized tests every year and getting perfect scores, mostly for fun. I was also tutoring part time, and started to see how much fun it was to work one-on-one with students and help them achieve massive score increases. So in 1995 I opened my first Learning Center and quit my day job, and the rest is history. I have written several Test Prep books, continue to take the tests and score perfectly, and have watched hundreds of students achieve their highest scores possible. What could be more rewarding than that?

If a student is local to NYC or Long Island area, I typically do one-on-one Private Instruction or Group Tutoring. If a student is from another part of the country or another part of the world I typically do Skype/Telephone Instruction. My results teaching via Skype are exactly the same as the results I achieve with face-to-face meetings.

I recently tutored a Chinese student who wanted to go to MIT. She already had a perfect 800 on the Math SAT, a 780 on the writing SAT, but could not score above a 610 on the Critical Reading section of the SAT. Before she had come to me she had gone to a private tutor, and her score hadn't moved. Then she went to a supposedly good tutor, and finally to a supposedly really really good tutor. Still, her score didn't budge. Finally she came to me and we worked for 3 months during her Senior year; a time when most students her age had already written off doing any further Test Prep. But her tenacity coupled with my Instruction helped her increase her 610 up to a 770, and she was admitted into MIT!

While I would never advocate for someone to spend money on an Elite Instructor if they truly cannot afford it, if you are in the process of trying to hire someone with work with you or your child, it is worth it to look at the actual results a tutor can achieve and to spend the extra money. There are times when someone has come to me who could not afford my services, but had a very bright child and confided in me that they were considering sending the child to a mass-market organization, or to some part-time tutor who was smart but not truly qualified to be tutoring for standardized tests. And I recommended that she have her child self-study rather than spend the money on the tutor, because at that point the child was already smarter than the tutor, and would have accomplished nothing but wasted time and money. Don't just go with whomever your friends are recommending either. Parents hire tutors who make their kids feel good, or who their kids like all the time, but in the end the results just aren't there. If you are going to pay for a tutor, you should be paying for results, period.

I wish they knew how much time I spend thinking about and planning for my lessons with my students. I wish they knew how much I try to be a good steward to all of my students and go above and beyond for them. While I only charge for the time I spend actually tutoring them, I spend many additional hours every week prepping for them, painstakingly picking out the best materials for them, and thinking of ways to keep them motivated. I truly love what I do and it is an honor to be given the opportunity to work with some of the future leaders of our world.