The Star Tutor, GMAT and GRE Prep - Chicago, Illinois

Esteban V. V.

Working with Tara was honestly one of the best decisions I made during my test prep journey. I’m based in Mexico and was looking for someone who could really help me make sense of the quant sections for the GRE, EA, and GMAT. From our very first session, I could tell he knew these exams inside out—but more importantly, Tara knows how to teach them in a way that actually made sense to me.

I came in with rough scores, especially in quant, and I felt pretty overwhelmed at the start. But Tara was super patient and methodical. We focused on understanding the “why” behind each concept, not just memorizing formulas. That shift made a huge difference in how I approached the test. My confidence grew over time, and the results followed—my DI score alone jumped up by 40 percentile points.

One of the things I appreciated most was how Tara always gave me multiple ways to approach a problem. He’d share clever tricks, tools, and different strategies for solving each type of question—so I could choose the one that made the most sense to me. That flexibility made a big difference and helped me become a much more intuitive problem-solver.

If you’re struggling with quant or just want to take your score to the next level, I couldn’t recommend Tara more. It felt like I had someone genuinely invested in my success, and that made all the difference.

Joy

Very late review (as I’ll be graduating from my MBA in the upcoming months), but I cannot stress enough how helpful Tara was in my GRE prep journey. His structured approach and helpful guidance helped me to improve my score and gain acceptance into a great program. Thank you Tara!

Alyssa K.

Tara was an incredible tutor for the GMAT Focus. I can't rave about my experience enough. I started working with Tara about 3 weeks before my GMAT Focus exam, specifically on quant, and he is a big reason I am one and done on the test! His knowledge about the GMAT Focus algorithm and shortcuts for quant problems helped me tremendously. Tara truly goes above and beyond as a tutor and I feel so lucky to have found his website a few weeks before the exam.

Casey C.

Tara was extremely helpful for me in my grad school application process. I was applying for a MS in Computer Science, so I was really looking to focus on the Quantitative section of the exam.  I took the GRE in July 2024 (the new 2 hour exam) and met with him for about a month before taking the test.  I started out with a 156Q score on practice exams and my score improved by 8 points, earning a 164Q on the exam and getting into my top choice program!!!  He was great to work with, especially if you have some math background and want to take your score to the next level.   I enjoyed the interactive meeting style, challenging me to answer questions on the spot and practice mental math, which was crucial for time saving in the exam.  Also, he is genuinlely interested in the success of his students, and was supportive throughout the process. I would recommend using Tara at the Star Tutor to anyone looking to take the test.  Cannot say thank you enough!

Morgan

I highly recommend Tara for GRE Prep! Tara helped me improve my GRE quant score by 6 points in just 1 month of sessions.

Tara was extremely patient in helping me assess my fundamental skills, and identify which specific areas needed more practice. Then, he provided me with strategies that helped me save significant time when taking the actual test. I previously struggled with time management on the exam, and was able to complete all sections on test day with additional time to review my work.

Tara provides relevant problems during the lesson and ample practice problems. He is extremely knowledgable about the structure and pacing of the exam, and was able to answer any and all of my questions. Thank you Tara!

Elizabeth S.

Tara is more than just a fantastic tutor, he is a total GMAT coach. My GMAT experience spanned 2 years and 4 tests. My goal from the beginning was to earn at 700 or better on the GMAT in order to be a competitive b-school candidate. I scored a 640 on my first test and 650 on the second and third tests. I was about to accept that I wasn't going to hit my goal score but decided to give it one more shot. I was referred to Tara by a close friend and found every minute of our tutoring sessions valuable.

Tara is a very patient tutor who will break down very complex topics like combinations and permutations into easy to understand steps that give you the fundamentals to tackle every problem. One of my favorite things about working with Tara was the examples he provided. He came up with problems on the spot that were realistic to what you would see on the GMAT.

And, when I say Tara is a coach, I mean he is aware of your overall GMAT goals. I was performing fairly consistently on math, but my verbal score as a native English speaker was not as high as it could be. He advised that I spend a bit more time with verbal to get my overall score up.

Thanks to Tara's incredible quant tutoring and holistic coaching, I grew my score from Q40 V37 to Q44 V44 and scored a 710 on the exam. He helped me grow my score by 70 points and I so appreciate his time and patience with me throughout the process.

Elias M.

I worked with Tara in 2018 preparing for the GMAT. He focused our sessions on the areas I needed improvement in and provided targeted study work in between that helped me gain confidence in quant concepts for the exam. Moreover, Tara was incredibly friendly and a pleasure to work with and I highly recommend him to anyone beginning to prep for the GMAT.

Casey K.

I had a fantastic and very successful experience working with Tara in my preparation for the GMAT. I had taken the Veritas Prep course before and had been studying for ~4 months before I started seeing Tara. My best live GMAT score at the time was 610. I had been scoring 660 on practice tests consistently but on test day I couldn't seem to put it all together. . so after a collapse on my 3rd GMAT exam I decided I needed to make a change.

I started researching GMAT tutors and Tara stood out in particular so I reached out and he was very helpful/prompt in responding. I worked with Tara multiple times over a 2 week period in preparation for another swing at the GMAT. There were a lot of holes/gaps in my quant capabilities, which is why my scores were fluctuating so much. . so working with Tara over those 2 weeks helped me fill in those gaps, improve my floor, and greatly increase my confidence going into test day. I not only increased my floor with Tara, but he helped explain in very fine detail how to go about solving some of the far more challenging problems as well - things I had never really considered prior. Additionally, he does a great job with general test taking/timing strategies, as well as teaching & explaining the core math skills required to excel on the GMAT.

Test day #4 finally arrived and I was the most confident I felt going into any exam, and was ecstatic to see that I scored a 720!! Tara was instrumental in my 110 point improvement and for anyone serious about excelling on the GMAT and getting into a top tier business school, Tara is an easy choice.