GMAT Compass

I’m really happy I worked with Erfun. He is extremely knowledgable about all facets of the GMAT, be it the content, structure, strategies, or timing. The entire process of preparing for the exam was pretty intimidating, but he made it bearable and sometimes even fun. He knows what to focus on and more importantly, what NOT to focus on. He is not only an awesome teacher, he really helped me with tips on how to handle the homework and manage my study time. Overall a fantastic experience. ⁵⁄₅ would recommend.

Unlike the other reviewers, I came to Erfun without having done any prior GMAT preparation. I was pretty stressed about the test, and I needed someone who had GMAT expertise and could identify what was giving me difficulty. We worked together on Skype for about 12 weeks, focusing mostly on Quant and Critical Reasoning. Erfun did a great job of explaining the concepts, but, just as importantly, he showed me why I was falling for traps, the different types of approaches for each question, and how to save precious time in certain questions. He was organized and reliable, and I really liked that he assigned homework targeted toward my weaknesses. Surprisingly, being held accountable was a big motivator for me to stay on top of my studies! Yes, it wasn’t cheap, but he charges about the same as MGMAT, Kaplan, etc., and he provides what I genuinely believe is a superior service. Highly recommended.

I started working with Erfun after I took a Kaplan course and had unsatisfactory results. Within the first hour, he knew exactly what was troubling me — it wasn’t just the content, I needed to learn the right strategies and way of thinking, and that’s what his tutoring focused on. He helped me understand why, I was being inefficient, why it was taking me so long to answer the questions, and why a lot of the Kaplan approaches really just didn’t work. I came to him with the goal of scoring 700, and ultimately ended at a 750 (after a 640 on my diagnostic test). I really appreciated how personable and committed he was and the genuine concern he showed for my situation. I 100% recommend him to anyone looking to boost their GMAT score.

I came to Erfun through a referral from a friend, and he was exactly what I was looking for. I didn’t know much about the GMAT when I started, and the entire process was intimidating, but his professionalism, patience, and knowledge of GMAT skills and strategy were a tremendous boost to my preparation. A quick rundown of the tutoring: We started off with me taking a diagnostic (I scored abysmally on that — 540, if I remember). He used this diagnostic to target my weaknesses, and from there, we launched into the lessons. Erfun is awesome, not only because he knows the content inside-​out, but, more importantly, because he understands his students and knew what was tripping me up and why it gave me difficulty. He was also very structured and helped me lay out a timeline on when to take the exam, how to do my homework, and how to do it effectively. His tutoring wasn’t cheap, but it was worth every penny.

When I began studying for the GMAT I relied primarily on the Official Guides and MGMAT books. For 4 months I studied every night and completed every practice question I could possible find. However, after all of that studying, the highest score I was able to attain was 640 — it was extremely disappointing.
Finally, I decided to get a tutor here in NY. I looked online and found Erfun (
) who does one-​on-​one sessions for two hours — his guidance and help were priceless.
I must say I totally underestimated the value that a tutor could provide. Once I started working with Erfun here was our strategy:
— We reviewed all of my past practice exams and
— I began to focus on my weakest areas in Quant using official guide problems and the Official GMAT Software.
— As my comfort level with Quant, we began doing work on Verbal using some Official Guide questions as well as LSAT questions.
— After 2 months of review I began taking practice tests.
A GMAT tutor can be extremely useful when studying for the GMAT. Yes, everyone knows that the GMAT tests the same type of skills all the time, but a tutor can provide excellent insights on how to approach tough questions and how to effectively study so that weak areas are improving and strong areas remain strong. After a lot of hard work I finally scored a 720!

After taking Manhattan GMAT and still getting subpar quant scores, I researched tutors and came across Erfun and chose him due to his flexible schedule a month from my exam and fair price for his 1:1 tutoring services. We focused on quant at my behest and I increased my quant score from 40 to 49 in the span of about 6 weeks. Because I had focused on purely quant, my verbal score dipped a little but I achieved 700 overall, which was my minimum desired score. Attending top 10 school this fall. I end saying that Erfun was a quality tutor who definitely knew his quant, and was easy to work with and learn from. His practice materials/​questions were very useful and he was effective at targeting question sets which I needed to work on. Overall great experience.

Erfun was really helpful.
I had taken the GMAT on my own in December 2011 and got a 660. I came to Erfun with the goal of getting 700+. He quickly helped identify my weakness areas — quant timing and sentence correction and then we worked on them. He is well organized, very knowledgeable, and has a decent amount of resources that makes his services well worth the cost (I am not saying it is cheap but I think it is well worth the price of admission).
Net-​net he helped raise my score from 660 to 740.
I must commend him for his ability to help get me up to snuff on sentence correction (I was terrible at this previously and he helped teach me the basics and get to where I was quite good at it).
To go out and individually acquire all the resources he has I think would likely be in excess of the cost of a few hours of tutoring — and that is completely ignoring the value of the hands on, one-​on-​one instruction which is very helpful for anyone who has a problem area like I did. So while it may look pricey upfront I think its far superior to any of the other offerings (Knewton, Kaplan, etc.).