by Lisa Dzialo | Dec 5, 2018 | Tutor Interviews
Bio
Jennifer graduated from Emory University with a BA in English and MAT in Secondary Language Arts Teaching. She began her career as a high school English teacher in 2001. After three years, she pursued an MBA from the University of Georgia, concentrating in finance and entrepreneurship. She then worked as a financial analyst for CSX Transportation.
In 2010 she returned to the education field, which is her true passion. After relocating to California in 2011, Jennifer began her career as an educator in the private sector. Since then, she has worked as an English tutor, college counselor, and SAT instructor for various companies, culminating in a position as the director of a large tutoring center in the East Bay. These experiences prepared and inspired her to open a tutoring center of her own. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Nov 2, 2018 | Blog, Tutor Interviews
Vince Kotchian grew up in small-town Connecticut and completed the honors program at Boston College, graduating with a B.A. in English Literature. Though he loved the intellectual climate of Boston, it eventually dawned on him that life would be much better without Boston’s physical climate (long, gray winters and muggy summers)! He moved to San Diego in 2007, and he’s been working full-time as a test-prep tutor and author ever since. When a student texts him that she aced the test or got into her reach school, he still literally jumps up and down and grins.
In his spare time, he likes traveling using miles and points (next trips are Spain and Japan), reading fiction (favorite authors too numerous to list but include Haruki Murakami, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Philip Pullman), watching The Great British Bake-Off (and sometimes actually baking things), hiking and camping, and rooting for the Red Sox and Patriots. He lives in the Kensington neighborhood with his hilarious wife and their crazy cat.
Vince tutors the SAT, ACT, and GRE (and teaches classes).
He meets with students in his Sorrento Valley office or online.
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by Erica L. Meltzer | Oct 3, 2018 | Blog, Tutor Interviews
I’m happy to introduce a new series for this blog: each month, I’ll be posting a short interview with a different tutor. While I no longer tutor myself, I still get asked for recommendations of tutors who use Critical Reader books/methods, and so I’ve decided to introduce readers to these people directly. The first installment, below, is with reading and writing specialist Valerie Erde. Valerie student-taught with me for several months, and her students have consistently achieved outstanding results on both the SAT and the ACT. She recently founded her own company, Veridian Prep.
Tell us about Veridian Prep.
VeridianPrep is a Greenwich, CT and NYC-based test prep, tutoring, and college advisory company that prides itself on a small, but highly experienced, team of subject experts that provides personalized, evidence-based, and structured instruction and guidance to get measurable results for our students and families. We believe that excellent diagnostics, high-quality instruction and materials, and individualized attention have been the keys to our students’ successes.
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