Totally Worth It

Definitely worth it! Mike was my tutor for the GMAT. My GMAT score jumped 100 points. I started getting tutored in March, took the test in May.

I took the test once on my own. I went through the Manhattan Strategy Guides. I didn't have a lot of structure. I didn't study consistently. Mike brought structure and confidence to my studying. When I was shopping around for tutors, I met with two tutors via skype. The first tutor was lackluster and didn't seem to care about my background (e.g., education, strengths, weaknesses). Everything was very cookie cutter. When I met with Mike, it was the exact opposite. He was full of excitement and positive energy. I had a good feeling ending that call. Turns out my intuition was right. He had a big smile and great energy every time we chatted! It got me motivated. He believed in me, which made me believe in myself.

For the next two months, Mike gave me weekly hw assignments for ~12-15 hours a week. What I loved was that I didn't have to review or analyze my mistakes. I just did the problems and logged them into a Google Sheet. We met once a week for 2 hours, where we reviewed problems I missed and new topics. It felt well paced, not too fast, not too slow. Homework was personalized to my needs. I struggled with sentence correction -- but on the GMAT I got 40 on my verbal, so quite an improvement.

While I did improve by 100 points (590 to 690), I think I could have done even better. A lot happened from March to May, I quit my job, got a new job, moved across the country, and moved in with my boyfriend. Basically a lot of change that was not conducive to studying.