Mark Sullivan Reviews

I was thrilled to work with Mark. He knew his stuff and laid out the perfect plan for me to be successful. What I liked about the private tutoring was how personalized it was. I relayed my feedback on certain topics or question types and he was able to respond to that to meet my needs. We worked hard over 8 weeks and I got the score on the Executive Assessment that I was looking for on the very first try: 160 (18 IR, 11 VR, 11QR). Mark is extremely patient and has all the right strategies for success. He is someone that I think can help all different types of students as well. His style of tutoring is not one size fits all. If you are looking for a structured and personal experience, go with Mark.

Note: there was no section on here for executive assessment score so I just inputted it into the GMAT classic score what would be the equivalent for EA.

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I got private tutoring with Mark, and he made things so easy for me.
First, I was impressed he didn't make me do a ton of random practice problems on some form just so he could tell me what areas I needed improvement in. He was able to diagnose from my practice test scores & official GMAT score I had taken.
He created a very individualized plan to help me improve, and I really looked forward to every meeting we had. He was so helpful & personable it truly was just incredible.
After each session, he assigned homework (with links! again just so helpful at every turn, making my life easy) that was very specific to me and helpful to my exact areas of weakness.

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Mark Sullivan was an incredible teacher and resource throughout my time studying. His energetic and analytical approach to the 9-week course, as well as his advice leading up to the test (and subsequent re-test) was invaluable. He made the entire experience feel much less overwhelming, and instead connected what we were learning to the topics we might encounter in business school. Quant is a particular strengh for him: he shared additional drill sheets and resources to help me raise my quant score, which ultimately led to me increasing 40 points between my first official test and second official test. I couldn't have succeeded without his guidance and coaching, highly recommend!

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I took the Advanced Manhattan Prep GMAT course with Mark Sullivan. He was an excellent instructor, and really put a lot of effort into clearly explaining how to approach the test and different question types, rather than how to simply solve a specific problem.

I had taken the GMAT previously (~3 years prior), but the prep I received from the course with Mark made me feel much more confident about my ability to achieve a high score.

In particular, the post-course assessment with him (30 minutes to talk through a customized post-course study path) was very useful to prioritize how to prepare ahead of the exam.

I can't recommend taking classes with Mark enough.

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Before I started working with Mark Sullivan, my dream to get into an M7 program was just that - a dream. I scored a 620 on the practice test and I needed to significantly increase my scores to be in contention for a top program.

I was in a general management position that could be all-encompassing - so I knew that I needed a structured program to keep the ball rolling, that was also compatible with my travel schedule. Taking all this into account, the live online program was the perfect fit for me.

From day one, it was an absolute pleasure working with Mark. He was friendly, approachable, and was always enthusiastic about the subject matter. As a 790 scorer, he had lots of tips and tricks to solve problems more effectively. He helped us reframe "problems" to look at them as "puzzles", and challenged us to find the quickest way to the destination. In addition to the Manhattan Prep material, he had tons of additional tools, such as the "arithmetic game" to sharpen our skills. Also, he worked with us to put together individual study plans for us to increase our scores.

He was a great teacher, and a pleasure to learn from. Would wholeheartedly recommend him to anyone looking to sign up for GMAT classes.

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I took both the Manhattan GMAT course and 1x1 sessions with Mark Sullivan. He was AWESOME. He's naturally a great teacher (probably b/c he is a professor by trade!). The class was super engaging (I can genuinely say I actually enjoyed the class and looked forward to it every week, as odd as that sounds!) and he was really good at flexing the material and difficulty levels to the needs of the class. He is SO patient, and adapts the explanation from your point of view, i.e., how you went about the problem and your thought process. He was also SO helpful in follow-up questions I had after class. For one specific instance, I had a quant problem that I followed up with him on via email, and he not only responded quickly, but followed up with a recorded video of him explaining the problem... I was mind blown at the dedication and generosity.

I also really enjoyed our 1x1 sessions. I was struggling with how to organize my personal prep after the class over, so I sought 1x1s with him to prep the last mile ahead of taking the test. He laid out in extreme detail, the daily prep schedule, with drills, additional exercise sheets, etc. Definitely super helpful to have Mark on your team, he is all around a thoughtful, kind, and pleasant person to be around, who inspires confidence in your success :)

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The GMAT is daunting, and I didn't know where to start studying. Thankfully I stumbled upon this Manhattan Prep course and decided I might as well invest in something this important. Luckily, Mark was extremely well prepared, easygoing, and fed us exactly what we needed to know in order to ace every section. We worked through problems in class and strategies for dealing with pesky data sufficiency or critical reasoning questions that I struggled with. He showed us how to analyze our practice tests to hone in on what we should revise and time strategies. I ended up with a 750 that somehow got me into Stanford GSB, and I owe it to Mark!

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After taking a GMAT prep course and studying for two months without seeing my score improve, I decided private tutoring may be a good option for me. I did a lot of research and found Mark had great reviews so I reached out with one month left until my test date. All I can say is THANK GOODNESS I did! Mark helped me pick apart my strengths and weaknesses. He showed me exactly what to focus on to increase my score. Not only that, he also taught me tips and tricks on how to best take the test. Mark is patient and always happy to help, and he knows this test inside out. If you REALLY stick to the homework he assigns (redo log especially), you will see an improvement. Every penny was worth it. THANK YOU MARK!

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I worked with Mark Sullivan one on one to fine-tune a few skills after completing the Manhattan prep in-person/online nine-week course. Mark was great! He was extremely organized and helped me find out how to squeeze a few more points out of the test. His nightly homework assignments kept me super focused until test day, and his advice about how to prepare in the week/days leading up to the test truly helped me go into the test with the confidence that I would get the score that I was hoping for. Mark was a great instructor and I highly recommend him to students who are looking to further their GMAT studies.

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I started my GMAT journey in the summer of 2019. I took a practice test and scored a 640-- I wasn't sweating it because I had been out of school for a few years and I knew I could brush up on the quant rather quickly (or so I thought). Just for reference, I have a masters degree in chemical engineering.
Kaplan
I signed up for private tutoring with Kaplan online 10 hour course. I watched some of the lessons, but quickly got bored. They were slow.. I did not feel my tutor was very helpful and about halfway through I started searching for alternatives. (I've had good luck with Kaplan for LSAT (scoring a 167) but this does not seem to be their strength).

In Person tutoring
I did two months of in-person tutoring and was able to increase from 640 practice tests to a 690 real GMAT test. I took the GMAT 3 times (690,Cancelled,690) and wasn't making much progress. I was having timing issues in the quant section (either too fast or too slow). I often panicked when I got to a quant problem that I felt I should know, but couldnt think how to solve. I was frustrated with this tutor (who also crossed some professional boundaries) because usually standardized tests are a strength of mine, but the GMAT was winning.

Manhattan Prep Advanced online course

This is where Mark comes in, after 3 attempts at the GMAT, I was willing to try something new. I signed up for the advanced online class through Manhattan prep. I typically stay away from online group study classes because it's easy for me to get distracted completely defeating the point..

Mark's advanced online class was excellent. It skips the basics and jumps right into how to increase your score. He keeps everyone engaged by "cold calling" which kept me from playing on my phone and I learned a lot from my classmates. What I learned especially on verbal was that while I may have gotten the right answer, it wasn't necessarily always for the right reasons!
I also challenged myself to make sure I did ALL the homework in between the lessons. I really enjoyed the Manhattan prep video lessons that they had on topics. I watched all of them multiple times. However, my mistake here was that I did not do all the practice tests. Therefore I still struggled with timing and test stress when I took my 4th GMAT a month after the class finished.
My score improved (finally!) to a 710 (Q44, V44). My verbal score benefited the most from the advanced online class and I went from a 40 to a 44.

Mark Sullivan Private Tutoring
I was happier with the 710, but still not satisfied. I really felt I had more I could do on the quant. I reached out to Mark to see if he was available to help me while I prep for my 5th and final GMAT about a month later. Luckily he was and we got started right away.
Working with Mark for private tutoring after the Advanced Online class was absolutely the right choice for me. I had the strong base (from doing all the homework) and I knew how he taught. We were able to build on that really quickly and I improved every tutoring session. He had me practice every day on timing and I did regular practice tests. The private tutoring was great because then we could really expand on my unique questions.

Thanks to Mark I had a 40 point improvement in my GMAT score!

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