Last Updated on June 17, 2023
If you’re preparing for the GMAT to apply to business schools, you may be considering different types of preparation resources. Or you may be wondering how to speed up your progress or more easily learn topics you’ve found particularly challenging.
In any of these cases, you may be wondering whether GMAT tutoring would be helpful for you and whether GMAT tutoring is worth the cost. So, in this post, I’m going to discuss some key aspects of GMAT tutoring that you can consider to determine whether GMAT tutoring is worth it for you.
Here are the topics we’ll cover:
- What Are the Advantages of GMAT Tutoring?
- GMAT Tutoring Can Help You Learn Faster
- A Tutor Can Help You Optimize How You Prepare
- A Tutor Can Diagnose Reasons Why a Student Is Having Trouble
- An Experienced GMAT Tutor Can Provide Information Not Found Elsewhere
- A Tutor Can Help You Identify and Change Habits and Ideas That Are Holding You Back
- A GMAT Tutor Can Support You Through the Preparation Process
- Is a GMAT Tutor Worth It for You?
- How Much You Get Out of GMAT Tutoring Depends on You
- How Do I Find a Good GMAT Tutor?
- GMAT Tutoring Key Takeaways
Let’s begin by discussing the advantages of GMAT tutoring.
What Are the Advantages of GMAT Tutoring?
To determine whether GMAT tutoring is worth it, we first need to know how exactly it can be beneficial. So, let’s consider the main advantages of working with a GMAT tutor.
GMAT Tutoring Can Help You Learn Faster
The most basic benefit of working with a private GMAT tutor is that a tutor can speed up the learning process by showing you concepts, strategies, and other things in ways tailored to you. Yes, a book or a course could explain how to answer various types of quantitative and verbal GMAT questions. At the same time, a tutor can show you how to answer questions in ways that you personally understand. Also, if you’re confused, a tutor can help you address what you don’t understand, so that you learn quickly.
A Tutor Can Help You Optimize How You Prepare
In addition to helping you learn specific things, a tutor can help you organize your preparation and find approaches to preparing that work well for you. This advantage of working with a tutor can make a huge difference because, often, GMAT students don’t learn as fast or as well as they would if they prepared more effectively. So, by helping you optimize how you prepare, a tutor can save you time and help you get better results.
A Tutor Can Diagnose Reasons Why a Student Is Having Trouble
Often GMAT students aren’t making the progress that they expected to make, or they find that their performance is plateauing and aren’t sure why. An experienced tutor can figure out what’s going on by talking with a student and observing what the student is doing. Then, the tutor can make recommendations regarding what the student can do differently to get better results.
An Experienced GMAT Tutor Can Provide Information Not Found Elsewhere
Another key benefit of working with a GMAT tutor is that a good tutor will have deep expertise in the GMAT and so can provide information that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. A GMAT class or the Official Guides can provide only so much information, and that information will generally be limited to what is useful to the average GMAT student. In contrast, a tutor can be a source of all kinds of little-known information that applies specifically to you and what you need to accomplish in order to achieve your GMAT score goal.
A Tutor Can Help You Identify and Change Habits and Ideas That Are Holding You Back
A perhaps less commonly known benefit of working with a GMAT tutor is that a tutor can help you identify things that you habitually do or firmly believe that aren’t actually working for you. One of the main things that can make learning difficult is having habits or ideas that seem to make sense to you but aren’t actually effective or valid. Of course, the fact that they seem to make sense to you can make identifying and changing them on your own challenging. On the other hand, a tutor observing from the outside can more easily identify such habits or ideas, explain how they’re holding you back, and help you change them.
A GMAT Tutor Can Support You Through the Preparation Process
One more benefit private tutors can provide is general support. As you can imagine or may have already experienced, the process of preparing for the GMAT has its ups and downs and moments when you’re wondering what to do next and whether what you’re doing is going to work. An experienced tutor has been through the GMAT preparation process many times and can help you remain motivated, confident, and on track.
KEY FACT:
GMAT tutoring has a variety of benefits, ranging from speeding the process of learning specific concepts and strategies to helping you remain motivated, confident, and on track through the GMAT preparation process.
Now that we understand the advantages of GMAT tutoring, let’s discuss some factors that you can consider to determine whether GMAT tutoring is worth the cost for you personally.
Is a GMAT Tutor Worth It for You?
While GMAT tutoring has all the advantages we just discussed, as you likely know, private GMAT tutoring costs anywhere from around 100 to several hundred dollars per hour. So, determining whether GMAT tutoring makes sense for you requires doing a cost-benefit analysis. Some factors to consider to determine whether a GMAT tutor is worth it for you are the following.
How Much Time You Have
Most people are able to prepare for the GMAT for a reasonable amount of time each week. However, others are so busy with work or other things that they have trouble finding time for the GMAT. If you are in the latter group, GMAT tutoring may make sense for you. After all, as we discussed, one of the primary benefits of GMAT tutoring is that it can speed up the learning process and thus save you time.
Your Learning Style
Some people learn well by studying alone, others prefer a classroom environment, and others learn best by working one-on-one with another person. If you fall into this last category, then private GMAT tutoring may make sense for you.
How Fast You Are Progressing
If you find that your progress has slowed, that you have plateaued, or that you don’t seem to be getting the expected results from your GMAT preparation, then some GMAT tutoring may make sense for you. After all, as we discussed, a GMAT tutor can help you diagnose what is going on or identify and change habits or ideas that are holding you back. So, in such situations, a few hours of GMAT tutoring to get you on track could make a big difference.
Whether You Need Help in a Specific Area
If you’ve identified a specific area of the GMAT that you’re having trouble with, working with a tutor can be a great way to make progress in that one area and become as strong in that area as you are in others.
How High Your GMAT Score Goal Is
If you have a particularly high GMAT score goal for some reason, such as that you are from an overrepresented applicant pool or plan to apply to schools with high median GMAT scores, then tutoring may make sense for you. In such a case, the right tutor could help you to understand and take the steps necessary for achieving an unusually high GMAT score.
KEY FACT:
Whether GMAT tutoring is worthwhile for you depends on how much time you have to prepare and other factors personal to you.
All that said, how much a student benefits from GMAT tutoring depends to a large extent on the student. Let’s discuss how this is the case.
How Much You Get Out of GMAT Tutoring Depends on You
How much you would get out of GMAT tutoring depends to a large extent on things you could do on your end. After all, the tutoring process is not all about the tutor. Rather, the student and tutor work together to achieve results.
For instance, the clearer you are about what you want help with, the more effective a tutor can be. For example, if you say you need help with GMAT Verbal, a tutor may not know what to focus on. On the other hand, if you say that you are having trouble with meaning in Sentence Correction, a tutor will be able to help you develop just the skills you need.
In general, the more communicative and proactive you are in the tutoring process, the more you’ll get out of it. If you have questions, things will go better if you ask them. If you have concerns, things will go better if you make them known. A tutor is just one member of the partnership. As the other member, you have to play your role as well.
Finally, to get the most out of working with a GMAT tutor, you have to remember that the tutor is just there to help, and that you have to do the learning. In other words, you won’t avoid all the challenges of the learning process by working with a tutor. You’ll still have to do a lot of studying and practicing on your own.
TTP PRO TIP:
How much you would get out of GMAT tutoring depends to a large extent on you.
Now that we understand how to determine whether GMAT tutoring is worthwhile, let’s discuss how to find a good tutor.
How Do I Find a Good GMAT Tutor?
There are a few different ways to connect with GMAT tutors. Possibly the easiest way is simply to contact a major GMAT prep company and sign up for one of its online or in-person tutoring packages. There are also services that can connect you with tutors and provide ways to choose one. Meanwhile, the ability to do online GMAT tutoring allows you to work with many GMAT tutors located around the world. You can find all kinds of information about these online GMAT tutors by doing internet research.
Regardless of which of these approaches to finding a GMAT tutor you use, there are some key things you can do to find a tutor who will truly help you. One is to find out about the tutor’s years of experience and other qualifications.
Criteria to Consider in Selecting a GMAT Tutor
Possibly the most important criterion to consider in selecting a GMAT tutor is experience. The simple fact of the matter is that tutoring is something a person becomes more skilled in over time. Even tutors who are knowledgeable or have had great training learn more as they work with students and see what gets results. So, to find a good GMAT tutor, consider how much experience each potential tutor has.
Another criterion to consider, while not as important as experience, is a tutor’s official GMAT score. It’s true that many good tutors do not have high GMAT scores, and a high score does not necessarily mean someone is a good tutor. All the same, the fact that a tutor has scored high on the GMAT means that tutor knows how to master the test. So, a tutor’s having a high GMAT score can be a good sign that the tutor can help you.
Related to a tutor’s GMAT score is how much GMAT-specific knowledge a tutor has. Often, subject experts or tutors with experience with other tests go into GMAT tutoring. While these tutors can be effective, it can also be that a tutor who knows a lot about a subject such as math or English but not a lot about the GMAT exam is not ideal. So, when talking with tutors, find out how much they know about the GMAT. If a tutor comes to the GMAT from another background, find out why that tutor expects to be able to help you master this test.
TTP PRO TIP:
To find a good GMAT tutor, consider a tutor’s experience, GMAT score, and GMAT-specific knowledge.
It’s also helpful to talk with potential tutors to get to know them. Let’s discuss why.
Talking With Tutors to Evaluate Fit
Every student and every GMAT tutor is different. Thus, some tutors will fit you better than others regardless of how knowledgeable or skilled any of them are.
For instance, if you want help with Critical Reasoning, a tutor who is particularly strong in GMAT Verbal will likely be better for you than one heavily focused on GMAT Quant. Meanwhile, different tutors have different styles. Some tutors are very patient and into helping people starting at low GMAT scores work their way to their targets. Other tutors are more comfortable helping test-takers already scoring relatively high put the finishing touches on their GMAT skills.
You can see how someone who is a “good tutor” may not be the best GMAT tutor for you. So, it’s good to talk with tutors you’re considering to see whether their strengths match you and your situation. Also, you don’t have to go all in with a particular tutor from the outset. Rather, you can book one or two tutoring sessions and see how things go.
TTP PRO TIP:
You don’t have to go all in with a particular tutor from the outset. Book one or two tutoring sessions and see how things go.
Let’s wrap up by reviewing the key takeaways from our discussion.
GMAT Tutoring Key Takeaways
Here’s a quick rundown of key points to keep in mind when considering whether GMAT tutoring is worth it for you:
- GMAT tutoring has a number of benefits, including that a tutor can help you learn faster and provide support to keep you motivated, confident, and on track.
- Whether a GMAT tutor is worth the cost for you depends on how much time you have and other factors personal to you.
- How much you would get out of GMAT tutoring depends to a large extent on you and things you could do on your end.
- To find a good GMAT tutor, consider experience and other criteria and talk with tutors to evaluate how well they fit with you.
If you think you may want GMAT tutoring and would like to talk with one of Target Test Prep’s veteran GMAT tutors, you can contact us here.
