Academic record

I completed Algebra 1 Advanced in eighth grade. In ninth grade, I took Geometry Advanced and Algebra 2 Advanced concurrently, which required specific approval from the school, and I held a 98 or above in both across the year. In tenth grade, I doubled again with AP Statistics and Advanced Precalculus, finishing at the top of both classes. This year, I am enrolled in AP Calculus BC, the hardest and final math class at my school.

A 4.0 unweighted grade point average and a class rank within the top one percent, with A grades throughout my academic career. Scores of 5 on every Advanced Placement examination I have sat for to date: Statistics, Chemistry, World History, and Human Geography. 99th percentile SAT score, including a 770 in mathematics (top 1%).

I set these figures out because parents are entitled to know that the person teaching their child has genuine command of the material.

Approach to teaching

Students who struggle in mathematics are seldom lacking in ability. Far more often, a single concept from an earlier course was never properly secured, and every subsequent topic has been built on an unstable foundation. Locating that concept is the first task of any productive tutoring relationship.

The initial session is therefore diagnostic rather than instructional. I ask the student to work aloud through problems they have already attempted, and I listen for the point at which the reasoning becomes uncertain. Instruction begins at that point, which is frequently a chapter or more before the topic the student had identified as the problem.

In subsequent sessions, the student does the majority of the work while I ask questions. Retention is considerably better when a student reconstructs a method independently than when the same method is demonstrated for them.

I work with students from first grade through the first year of college. A young child developing number sense and a senior preparing for the AP Statistics examination require very different instruction, which is the principal argument for teaching one student at a time.

Beyond the classroom

I founded the Debate Club at McKinney North and currently serve as its president. I play violin in the Varsity Orchestra and hold the position of Public Relations Officer for the orchestra program. Last winter, I worked as a research assistant at the University of Texas at Dallas on a study of property ownership and zoning, assembling a database of more than six hundred records in collaboration with researchers from UT Dallas and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Away from academic work, I am usually found in coffee shops or thrift stores, reading memoirs and literary thrillers, or adding to a growing collection of vinyl records.

I intend to study applied mathematics at university and to work subsequently in quantitative finance. Teaching has been a substantial part of that interest. Explaining a concept precisely to another person is the most reliable test of whether one understands it.