Oliver Butterick

I’ve had a unique set of life experiences that have led me to becoming a GMAT coach, and it definitely wasn’t a direct path. I studied Philosophy at the university for 7 years- 5 undergraduate and 2 graduate school. You may think, “Wait! I’d rather have an engineer teach me math!” Maybe you’re right, but the GMAT isn’t a math or English test. The sections are called Quantitative Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning. Guess which subject is entirely based on reasoning! Philosophy! As a side note, I’ve found that engineers often have a lot of difficulty with the Quant section because they spend too much time solving for an exact answer when it’s not necessary.

For about a decade, I was a professional gambler. This required a lot of mental math and knowledge of probabilities, but it also taught me a lot about working in a high-pressure environment, not entirely unlike taking the GMAT.

I also have a lot of teaching experience, ranging from teaching math to 4th graders to teaching ESL to Argentine business executives. I’ve also helped students prepare for the TOEFL and GMAT exams. Speaking of standardized tests, I’ve always been pretty good at them. I scored 790/800 on SAT Math, 800/800 on GRE Math, and 50/51 on GMAT Quant. My verbal scores were pretty good, too… just not good enough to brag about them on the internet.

Did I mention that I wrote a Geometry test prep book?

These are some of the business schools where my students have been admitted: Harvard, Columbia, Kellog, LBS, Fuqua, INSEAD, IESE, Purdue, Booth, Yale, Tuck, Sloan