The best GMAT prep possible doesn’t mean easy
Our GMAT tutoring program is powerful and versatile, and it could help just about anyone improve their GMAT score. But it’s demanding, and we hold our students to a high standard, so it isn’t the right fit for everyone. We’ve been refining this system for over twenty years, first at other NYC test prep companies and since 2012 at Atlantic.
If you’re thinking about hiring us, read the rest of this page first. It explains how we’d work together on your GMAT prep and should give you a clear sense of whether our approach suits you. If you’re looking for current GMAT tutoring rates, they’re here.
Ready to get started? The GMAT Consultations page walks you through the process. One thing to plan for: it usually takes at least a week to book a first session. We always start by sketching out your entire preparation, then get on a call to go over the plan and make sure we’re a good fit.
Our GMAT Tutoring Guarantee
We’ve built a curriculum we’re proud of, gathered the best available resources and reorganized them to fit our tutoring system, developed a day-by-day way to structure GMAT prep so that we shape what happens between sessions and not just during them, and sharpened all of it with thousands of hours of teaching.
Even so, our GMAT tutoring isn’t a magic bullet. We can’t guarantee a 99th percentile score or a seat at Harvard Business School. We’d never tell you that studying for the GMAT is easy, or that tutoring equals guaranteed success. On its own, far from it.
What we can say honestly: we can structure your preparation and provide the knowledge, materials, and accountability that dramatically increase your chances of success. We’ve helped students with a wide range of starting scores and profiles earn the GMAT scores they needed for M7 admission, some with scholarships covering a large part of their MBA costs. We’ve helped students achieve 190-point increases and less dramatic 30-point increases (to clear 675, or to push an already strong 665 higher) that they hadn’t been able to get with anyone else. We have a long and documented track record of helping MBA aspirants reach their goals.
The Bad
Let’s face it: the GMAT is rough. It isn’t a memorization test. It’s a detailed logic test that covers a wide range of math, reasoning, and data concepts, all tested in unorthodox ways. For most people studying isn’t an easy habit to build, and improving a GMAT score is hard. Some people do very well preparing on their own (if you’re going solo, our GMAT Study Schedules can give you some structure). Others study for the better part of a year without reaching their goals.
The GMAT is built on simple rules, but mix enough simple things together and you get a complex soup (think DNA). A GMAT tutor makes sure you know not just the rules but how they combine. On a test like this you need a real method for problem solving. You have to think critically and work with scarce resources to find solutions. If you hire us, we’ll push you to work hard and smart to reach your GMAT goals, whether that’s a one-month sprint to 705 or a longer, steadier build from a lower baseline. Either way, we’ll be honest with you about the effort it takes.
Working Out
Getting your GMAT brain into Olympic condition takes serious practice, more than most people expect. Anyone who tells you they can get you a big increase without a lot of work is either lying or really does know magic. Huge score increases are possible, but they require substantial preparation. For a realistic picture, read these two debriefs: The Long Road to a 675+ GMAT and Earning a Harvard GMAT Score.
The good news: working with someone who has a lot of experience keeps you on track and organized, and gets the most out of your GMAT potential with the least effort. That doesn’t mean a million hours of tutoring, but it does mean meaty amounts of homework and review, and possibly a longer timeline than you’d planned on so the material actually sinks in. The least effort can still be a ton of work. Here’s an example of a GMAT tutoring schedule from one of our past students:
The Brutal Tutor
If you want a brutally honest (but genuinely kind) GMAT tutor who will threaten to quit if you aren’t doing the work needed to get your score, we’re a good match. Just for reference, we’ve only ever stopped working with one student and that was for chronically not doing his homework. It worked. He re-hired us a few months later and went on to improve his score by 150 points.
This page has been mostly about how much work it takes. That’s real, usually underestimated by people studying, and consistently under-represented by test prep companies. Even with the best possible program, an incredible score can take an incredible amount of work.
If you’d like an honest assessment of what that would look like for you, send over your GMAT history. We’ll come back with a plan and an estimate of hours, then set up a call to talk it through and see whether we’re a good fit.