Welcome!

Let’s face it – sometimes even the strongest students need a little professional help when it comes to standardized tests.

Whether it’s a matter of rebuilding your math skills from 7th grade up, providing structure and direction for your study, training you in the techniques that make the test less painful, or just being a mentor as you work through all the details that make for a strong application, I’m here to help!

For more information about tutoring services, check the links above. And please don’t hesitate to call or email with any questions about my services – or just to chat about your academic goals.

LSAT: How low can you go?

Sweating your chances because of, shall we say, an unimpressive undergrad performance?

Thanks to a cool tool from LSAC, you can figure out, based on your undergrad GPA, approximately how high your LSAT needs to be to secure admission to the law school of your dreams.

For instance, if you squeaked out a 2.7, you can still likely get into, well, most schools out there – provided you rock the 180. With 160 you still stand a decent chance at Gonzaga, Hofstra, South Dakota, Syracuse, and Whittier (among others).

The rules of zero

Zero is a pretty magical number in GRE, GMAT, SAT and ACT math.  Here are the five important rules of zero for any of these tests:

1. Zero is an integer
2. Zero is neither positive nor negative

The Car Talk Puzzler

The NPR show Car Talk is so much fun, it’s hard to imagine that it can also help you with the math portion of the SAT, GRE or GMAT – or the games on the LSAT.

Each episode of the show contains a Puzzler – a brain teaser introduced by hosts Tom and Ray, and then solved during the next week’s show.

First steps: How to start your study

Before you begin your study – on your own or with a tutor – it’s super-important to know both your target score (the mean or median scores for your target schools) and your starting score.  There are great guides out there that will help with the former. For the latter, nothing will take the place of taking a real practice test.

But taking a pre-study practice test doesn’t have to be painful.  For starters, free official tests are available online for all of the major exams.  

What’s my GRE worth in GMAT land?

With a growing number of business schools accepting either the GMAT or the GRE these days, how do you know which test is going to be the better choice? The short answer is, the one on which you’ll do better.

Even though the GRE has a reputation for being the easier exam, this isn’t true for everyone. Ignore the differences in price and length — you want the test that will give you a higher score.

What’s your degree worth, anyway?

There’s a fascinating discussion going on over at the New York Times about the value of various masters-level degrees.  The consensis seems to be that professional degrees (law, business, medical) are a good buy, as is engineering.  Religious studies? International relations? Maybe not so much.

What Is a Master’s Degree Worth?

The New York Times Exercise / Reading Comprehension

Standardized tests always seem to come with those pesky Reading Comprehension passages — long essays followed by nit-picky questions about the author’s tone or the meaning of “chiaroscuro” in line 27.

One helpful way to boost your reading comprehension is to practice the very focused reading style that you’ll use on the real test.  The New York Times website offers an almost unlimited number of essays that are ideal for this exercise.  

Seniors: Why are you applying where you’re applying?

Right now on the ACT website there’s a poll (highly unscientific – the best kind) that asks:

What’s the most important factor you are considering in your college search?

I will admit that I voted for location, just so I could see the results – which you can see without cheating by checking the image above!

Congratulations to the UNM EMBA class of 09-11

Congrats to the Anderson School’s latest batch of Executive MBA students! Sure, the GRE and/or GMAT were hard, but wait until you hit Operations!

I look forward to seeing many of you in November, for the Managerial Accounting Math Refresher. In the meantime, best of luck picking a solid study group. Oh, and do try to stay sober during orientation weekend.

Best, Sophie