For countless numbers of graduate school applicants, preparing and sitting for the GRE, GMAT, LSAT or MCAT can be extremely stressful. If you are considering working with a test prep organization, you will most definitely want to follow this blog series. MyGuru offers excellent test prep services for grad school applicants. They offer GMAT tutoring, GRE tutoring, LSAT tutoring, and more. Perhaps more importantly, has the outcomes to prove that their strategies and individualized approach with students works.

We are delighted to offer this interview series, which will feature a new interview question every two to four weeks.

Below is our eighth question for MyGuru.

What would you consider some of your greatest success stories?

Stefan Maisnier, Director of Online Tutoring: Such an open-ended question this time! It reminds me of being interviewed for my first full-time position at ESPN years ago. I was asked to name a recent accomplishment that made me feel proud. I think the interviewer was asking professionally, but I responded by regaling them with the story of a recent seven-plus mile hike to the top of Yosemite Falls. I didn’t get the job that time. However, I did get a second interview a few months later. The interviewer remembered me as the “Yosemite Falls guy” and I did get the job on that attempt. This is all to say that I may have a slightly different definition of “success” than most, ha!
It would be easy to cite test prep success as being defined by students who went on to attend top schools, and we’ve had students go on to attend the list of usual suspects: MIT, Harvard, Yale, U. Chicago, etc. Just this month, I learned that of a three-person GMAT small group we had the attendees accept offers to MBA programs at Stanford, Wharton, and HBS, respectively. Not a bad three out of three, if I do say so myself! Beyond the United States, we’ve sent students to McGill, Cambridge, Oxford, INSEAD, and Hong Kong U among other prestigious global institutions of higher education. Honestly, and this isn’t meant to be a “humblebrag”, there are so many great schools that it probably diminishes the impact of any individual admissions success story.

A bit more impressive of a success to me is when a test score helps someone get a scholarship. One student turned a 170+ LSAT score into a six-figure scholarship from Northwestern Law. Another this year got a full-ride first year scholarship at his dream school in the forest as I liked to call it – Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Not every student has to go to a T14 law school or M7 MBA program though and I consider a student who got a full-ride to University of Illinois-Chicago / John Marshall Law to be just as much of a success story as any other. Often the students I consider most successful are those who attend group classes at lower price points. I’ll always enjoy the student in my Northeastern Illinois University GRE class who let me know that she got into her master’s program at Cornell after reaching her school goals, and I cherish every opportunity to help students without the advantages that so many take for granted.

However, my greatest success stories are all of the students that reach out to me years after our last class to give me an update on their academic and professional journeys. Some give personal referrals to friends and families. Others have become repeat students themselves for different subjects or tests and, best of all, some have become good friends. The reason that I do what I do is to help folks achieve their dreams; that I can claim any of their stories as partly my own is unequivocally the greatest success of all.

DISCOUNT ON DR. DON’S BOOK RIGHT HERE ON THE GSRM WEBSITE!!

Be sure to check out Dr. Don’s book, “Road Map for Graduate Study, A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students,” right here on the GSRM website. For a reduced price CLICK HERE, go to The Book page, scroll down, click on the Order Now box, and use discount code GSRM.