Dave Goldstein, GRE & GMAT tutor

Dave has taught test prep since 2004, winning teacher-of-the-year awards from two major test-prep companies before joining GMAT Ninja.

Dave is the ultimate academic Swiss army knife: he graduated magna cum laude with a concentration in Finance from the Wharton School and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, and he also earned 99th percentile scores on both the GMAT and GRE. Dave’s diverse academic pursuits have helped him hone his two most indispensable traits as a teacher: patience and empathy.

While helping his students achieve success on standardized tests has always been deeply rewarding, Dave particularly prizes the lasting relationships he builds with his students. Over the years, Dave’s students have been admitted to Stanford, HBS, MIT, Kellogg, Tuck, and other top programs. A handful of these students have even accepted his open invitation to enjoy a celebratory dinner with his family, post-MBA. (Apparently, the more children Dave has, the less palatable this invitation becomes.) To see Dave in action, check out this video about verbal tutoring, or this one about deciding when to cancel your score.

When Dave isn’t teaching, he’s either enjoying time with his wife and two young daughters, writing, or feeling guilty about the fact that he’s not writing. His fiction and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s, Tablet, The Antigonish Review, and Punchnel’s, among other publications. He recently completed a novel and is in the nerve-wracking early stages of seeking representation for it. (If you know a good literary agent, let us know!) In his seven minutes of daily spare time, Dave enjoys reading very long books, watching basketball, and making creative egg-based dishes for his family.

Our favorite review of Dave’s tutoring:

“Dave was an absolute GODSEND and the match couldn't have been more perfect (thank you Charles!). Look, I'm pretty neurotic and probably made this whole GMAT experience way more stressful than I should have but Dave was there to keep me grounded, focused, and confident.

Dave was flexible in scheduling sessions, extremely emotionally intelligent (literally went life-coach mode on me a couple times), and patient (like, Dalai Lama levels of patience).”

For the full story of how Maria gained 160 points on the GMAT, head to our Yelp page. More reviews of all of GMAT Ninja’s tutors can be found on our reviews page.