Erin: Will you start teaching outside of the Bay Area?

[mikey]

Hi Erin, I am somewhat new to your site, I have visited it numerous times and recieved lots of great information regarding the gmat I wanted to thank you for putting up this site.

I noticed that currently you only have your classes for gmat prep only in the Bay Area ( Where i used to live) , I currently live in the Midwestern part of the U.S. My question is do you have any plans of expanding your classes to anywhere else in the U.S. ?

Did i hear correctly that you were working on a test prep book for the gmat that we could purchase sometime in the future, if so please let us know.

I find that this site is the best of the best when it comes to information for the gmat, and I have visited lots of them. I have found that this is the most comprehensive of all. I have come here many times for help with math problems that i simply could not figure out and it was explained to me to where i could understand it. There are lots of people here that know what they are talking about.

Anyways just wanted to drop you a note and say keep up the great work going here makes me alot more comfortable in my preparation for the gmat. Thanks again Erin. :-)

[Erin]

Mikey, I'm very happy that you've found my site helpful!

Unfortunately, I have no plans to expand my GMAT courses beyond San Francisco right now. To be honest, GMAT is a small part of TestMagic right now (SAT prep is what pays the bills), so writing/developing GMAT materials is really more of a hobby than anything.

That said, I do hope to "unload" much knowledge and experience I've collected over the years, in book form, here in the forums, and on TestMagic.com, and in a new site I hope to develop in the next year, SentenceCorrection.com.

I get calls and emails every day from people who ask if I teach anywhere else, and I have to tell them that I teach only in San Francisco. I have had a few people in the past come here to SF on their vacations to study with me for a week or two. As you may have guessed, my specialty is helping people with the Verbal Section, and I've been pretty successful with most of my students, but to be honest, I'm not sure how well what I know would translate, even if I trained others in what I know. Much of what I am able to do, I am able to do because I typically work in small groups, and I can usually quickly figure out what mistakes people are making. With that insight, I'm able to adjust my teaching to what I think the student needs. In other words, I'm just like (I hope, anyway!!) every other good teacher you know! Over the years, teaching people, watching other teachers, and trying to train people, I've come to believe that teaching is really more of an art than a skill; some people have it, some don't.

I am currently considering making videos of explanations for questions in the Official Guide, but again, I'm just considering it. To do that, I'd have to charge a fee for the access (the website is already pretty expensive for me, both in dollars and in time), and of course, all the technical stuff would be have to be figured out, too. But there's just no substitute for a "spoken" explanation, IMHO.

Well, it seems you've got the inside scoop now!

[mikey]

Thanks for the scoop Erin Maybe i will have to make another vacation over to the bay area.. :-)

I will certainly be looking out for you material from TestMagic whenever it comes out, so just let us know.

Talk to you later.