Test Preparation (ISEE, SSAT, SAT, ACT, SHSAT, GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT) Archives

Brielle Babiar

September 29, 2024

Brielle Babiar is an experienced writing coach, English professor, and academic tutor with over a decade of experience in education and pedagogy. With a teaching background in both secondary and higher education, she has a comprehensive understanding of students’ academic journeys. Her tutoring sessions offer inspiring and thoughtful instruction. She has an engaging teaching style that prioritizes curiosity and critical thinking, encouraging her students to ask questions and take ownership of their education.

Over the course of ten years, she has helped more than 200 students secure admission to top universities and gain scholarships. During the pandemic, and in response to the limitations of traditional test preparation programs, Brielle developed a comprehensive curriculum to guide students through the college test preparation and application season. She believes that college prep should not be a daunting, one-size-fits-all process, but instead an opportunity for students to discover their academic strengths and passions.

Brielle holds an MFA in Fiction from Hunter College, where she had the privilege of working with mentors such as Pulitzer Prize finalist Adam Haslett, National Book Award winner Sigrid Nunez, and Booker Prize-winning novelist Peter Carey. There she completed her first novel and began her second—both works of literary fiction rooted in historical settings. She was also the recipient of the Hertog Fellowship. Her current academic research spans topics such as obscene modernism, rejection, and women’s studies, with a particular interest in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet.

In her current role as an adjunct professor at Hunter College, Brielle teaches composition, literary studies, and creative writing. She is also an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), where she teaches courses on business communication, arts and design writing, rhetoric, and research methodologies. While at the University of Rhode Island, she taught communication courses.

Her interdisciplinary foundation enables her to tutor language arts, literature, history, and communication. Most of all, however, Brielle is truly passionate about writing and helping students feel the same love for the craft, honing students’ creative habits in the process. Whether coaching a student through an essay, brainstorming college personal statements, offering mentorship for standardized tests, or rigorously reviewing for AP exams, Brielle strives to make each session enjoyable and challenging. Her goal is to help students feel confident in their abilities, ready to meet the demands of high school, college, and beyond.

When she’s not teaching, Brielle is working on her own fiction projects, including short stories and her second novel. She enjoys early mornings, cappuccinos, and long walks with her dog along Riverside Park. She also has a deep appreciation for the art of breadmaking and is in the perpetual search for the perfect loaf of sourdough.

Jane Rosalyn

May 23, 2024

Jane Rosalyn is a Columbia graduate dedicated to inspiring, developing, and supporting her students’ confidence and eloquence in writing. Before college, Jane was fascinated by neuroscience and thought she might enter this academic path if it weren’t for her growing passion for music and the arts. Her internship at Brain Balance, a holistic after-school center centered on brain training exercises and activities, fostered a care and curiosity for children’s learning and development. This continued in community service with Circle of Friends, an organization pairing children and young adults with special needs with friends who support, encourage, and uplift them, fulfilling the social and intellectual needs of the growing people in the special needs community. In keeping with this learning and development path, Jane had begun teaching piano at age 13 and still does to this day, helping all ages learn a new aural/visual music language and develop the fine motor skills of technique, gross motor skills of rhythm, and kinesthetic awareness to read, internalize, and execute musical ideas.

Towards the end of high school, however, Jane’s trumpet playing began inciting more and more music commitments and she began envisioning a life of music ahead of her. Greatly inspired by her classical piano upbringing and jazz trumpet adolescence, she started at Columbia knowing she was to concentrate in jazz studies and some writing-focused major for the purpose of songwriting.

At Columbia, Jane studied jazz composition and performance, shifting back to a piano focus and composing for large groups with multiple players. She also began songwriting and working on her solo music. At the same time, she began taking classes at Columbia’s acclaimed history department. She became fascinated by the specialization of Intellectual History, which broadly meant a survey of religious and philosophical history. It was the history of human thought, and it quickly took on a very psychological framework for Jane. To complete the major and graduate with a rigorous history, philosophy, and literature humanities education,she became well-versed in essay writing. The process of working with dense reading materials, distilling ideas, forming an argument, and explicating the argument forcefully and concisely felt natural and exciting. It quickly turned to tutoring in the subject and helping others reach their admissions goals through college essay writing.

Jane believes in kind and supportive insight coupled with the rigor and motivation to concentrate one’s ideas with language. Her background in songwriting supports this ethos as well, developing more writing insight into author’s purpose, diction, and working with form. It also helps to encourage authenticity and drive to write something students are genuinely proud of. Her psychological interests also encourage the genuine benefits of authentic writing, which tends to help the admissions process and overall writing success, simultaneously benefitting the authors themselves.

Coming from a matrilineage of public school teachers, Jane understands the reciprocal relationship of inspiring and receiving inspiration from her students. She has had creative nonfiction and poetry writing published to literary magazines and works with labels to distribute her solo music. She graduated early to pursue music full-time; when she is not teaching or tutoring she is touring as a keyboardist/synthesist, at some working on music, or reading about psychology and psychoanalysis.

Claire Nottman

April 25, 2024

Since childhood, Claire Nottman has always been captivated by problem solving, from word games to jigsaw puzzles. As she grew up, she found her favorite types of puzzles to solve were those she encountered in her math and science classes. This passion led her to pursue a path in Biomedical Engineering. As a junior at Columbia University’s Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Claire gets to combine her love of creative problem solving with her admiration of elegant scientific solutions as she works towards innovation with a meaningful impact: improved global health.

In addition to her own academic pursuits, Claire enjoys sharing her love of math, science, and learning with others. Through her competition math team Mu Alpha Theta, she has tutored students with various backgrounds in topics ranging from middle school math to advanced calculus. Inspired by the students she worked with, Claire founded the Female Leadership Association in Math, Engineering, and Science (FLAMES) to facilitate community outreach dedicated to inspiring other girls and young women to build their knowledge and pursue a path in STEM. As a volunteer in her school’s Math Lab, Claire learned strategies for approaching problems in ways that center students’ strengths and build their skills and confidence simultaneously.

When working with students, Claire strives to make intimidating topics more accessible by breaking down complex ideas step by step and helps students to make connections between the material and their own passions. Claire is excited to work with middle and high school students as they learn about biology, chemistry, physics, computer science, and advanced math (through Calculus III), and prepare for standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT, or AP Exams.

Outside of the classroom, Claire conducts research with a lab at the Columbia Medical Center, where she studies the biomechanics of pregnancy. She also serves as a Scientific Review Editor for a campus medical journal, where she works with her peers on their written pieces to ensure both accuracy and clear scientific communication. She is an incoming summer intern at an NYC-based consulting firm specializing in healthcare and medical technology. In her free time, Claire enjoys reading, running, baking, and exploring New York City – particularly its vibrant food scene!

Betsy Carroll

February 16, 2024

A beloved NYC Stand-up comic by night and established computer science practitioner by day, Betsy Carroll has the unique ability to be a ray of sunshine on even the most intimidating and confidence-shattering topics in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

In addition to her charismatic, fun energy and sense of humor, the key to Betsy’s success as a private tutor is her empathy, which she acquired through firsthand experience: She knows what it’s like to not absorb or understand things the same way (nor as quickly) as the other kids. She went from struggling to even keep up as a child due to learning difficulties, to reaching the top of her class and gaining admittance to and thriving at her dream college, Columbia University, where she pursued Mathematics and Architecture. She continued at Columbia for Graduate School, where she studied Machine Learning and Computer Science. Following her education at Columbia, Betsy became a successful computer programmer and engineer specializing in the elite field of Artificial Intelligence. Betsy Carroll is living proof that grit is a learned skill that will take you as far as your dreams.

Because of her own life experience, she knows that a child’s comprehension differences are actually what can make them an even stronger Math student than their classmates in the end, so long as you can identify their obstacles and thus their corresponding strengths. Though her STEM expertise goes up to the highest graduate school level, she loves working with very young children just as much as more advanced older students. In her experience, children as young as 3rd grade are at such a major crossroads in their attitude towards Math and Science, and Betsy particularly excels at showing them the way before they take up the kind of adaptive coping mechanisms that are not exactly right for them and serve as a band-aid covering up deeper issues.

Applying the same curiosity, vigor, and unique “nothing is assumed true” mindset that got her to the top of all her Math classes, she will figure out why your kid “doesn’t get” their material. She truly believes that everyone can be good (or at least significantly better) at Math if only they figure out their way in. She believes in building strong conceptual understanding and teaching students how to think visually, spatially, and algorithmically; how to take in new information in the way that is most efficient for them; how to love Math because it is beautiful, awe-inspiring and incredible; and most importantly, how to relax and enjoy the process of achieving their academic dreams!

Cara Hill

February 12, 2024

Cara Hill is a seasoned educator, with over twenty years of classroom experience in public and private schools in New York City. She has taught at the Packer Collegiate Institute, the Berkeley Carroll School, School of the Future, M.S. 51, and the high school academic outreach program Upward Bound at Columbia University. Throughout her teaching career, Cara has tutored, relishing the chance to work on a one-to-one basis with students across age groups and disciplines. In addition, she has mentored and trained many teachers at the middle and high school level, giving her a strong understanding of a wide array of teachers, students, and schools.

Expertise

Much of Cara’s work with students is focused on reading, writing, history, and the social sciences. She also has considerable expertise with neurodiversity, having worked closely with school counselors and learning specialists over the years to keep abreast of the latest pedagogy and technology in learning support. She has guided families on educational testing, Individual Education Plans (IEPs), and Learning Plans, through both the testing process and academic accommodations. Over the years, Cara has developed many executive functioning and test-taking strategies. She has prepared students for many standardized tests, including: the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT): English Language Arts section; the ACT: English, Reading, Optional Writing, and Science sections; the SAT: Evidenced-based Reading & Writing section; the AP English Literature and Composition exam; and, the English Language and Composition exam. In addition, Cara has worked as a college essay mentor, both at Packer and as a private tutor, the latter work extending beyond the United States, supporting students applying to schools via the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) for the United Kingdom.

Philosophy

Cara Hill is invested in diversity—not only in neurodiversity, but in thinking across cultures and disciplines. For the STEM kid, literary analysis might best be translated into an algebraic order of operations, a way to remember how to unpack sections of text in sequence. Relating to aspects of one’s culture and history also can help connect students more deeply to a concept or approach. Cara believes that recognizing and even appreciating individual learning styles and temperaments can be valuable tools when developing strategies to achieve not only academic success but genuine investment in school.

I love witnessing that “Aha” moment, that instance when inspiration and belief come together for a student. Often such moments come when there is trust between the educator and student, not just in ability but in appreciating how a student’s mind works.

Additional Experience

Cara Hill has a degree in English and African-American Studies from Princeton University. She is an active alumna, serving on various committees, including the high school award for the Princeton Prize for Race Relations. She has a Masters of Arts in English Education from New York University as well as New York State Public School Certification in English Education, grades 7-12. She is a member of the Academy for Teachers, a nominated group of master educators from both public and private schools in New York City. Outside of education, Cara works in film and television as a script consultant, advising on and editing screenplays. She recently completed an intensive film workshop via the Academy for Teachers with actor and director John Turturro. She is also a writer, currently working on a stage play after studying with Slave Play creator Jeremy O. Harris. This combination of the artistic and the academic informs her work as a tutor, enabling her to offer diverse strategies to unlock student capacity. She has done numerous independent studies with students, both creative and academic, including intensive studies in film writing and production.

One of the many blessings of working as an educator is the strong bonds formed with not only students but families. Students praise Cara for her ability to empathize and strategize as she empowers them to realize their best work. Families appreciate her knowledge of schools, not just as an educator but as a parent. She raised a child in the New York City school system, navigating public and private school admissions, an IEP, and a successful transition from high school to university.

Cara brings a wealth of personal and professional expertise to her work as a tutor, and she relishes the chance to have a role in helping young people realize their full potential.

Brielle Babiar

Jane Rosalyn

Claire Nottman

Betsy Carroll

Cara Hill

Expertise

Philosophy

Additional Experience

Company Overview

School Planning

Private Tutoring

Test Preparation