Our Instructors >> Mark Sullivan
Mark Sullivan
Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Mark packed his bags and headed west after high school to major in Math at Caltech. It was in college that he began teaching math, science, and test preparation to Pasadena's youth. However, his greatest achievement during college was learning to solve a Rubik's cube in under a minute – a skill which he demonstrated during his MGMAT interview. Although his score of 770 and years of teaching experience got his foot in the door, Mark is quite sure that he was hired so he could teach cubing to all MGMAT employees.
Mark continued to add to his teaching resume after moving to Seattle for a PhD in Mathematics at the University of Washington. For the last four years he has taught undergraduate classes from Business Math to Calculus to Linear Algebra, and he will occasionally explain a bit of stable homotopy theory at dinner parties. He has also run an after-school Math Olympiad program (you know, for young Mathletes) at a local elementary school and once had the kids use sidewalk chalk to fill up an entire parking lot with math problems. He and his wife have a (non-GMAT) tutoring business catering to the pre-college crowd.
Despite spending his days trying to prove theorems for his thesis and most of his nights and weekends teaching in some form or another, Mark find the time to watch college football (Roll Tide and/or Go Huskies!), comfort his wife after Chicago Cubs losses, and play hours of "jingle ball" with his two Jack Russells. He also enjoys perfecting classic cocktails which, much like the GMAT, takes hours of study.
Feedback From Mark's Recent Students
"I really like Mark's strategy of making the students feel at ease and at comfort with learning new challenging questions. Also, he explains the solutions to questions very well: slowly and well structured."
"I think Mark understands how to help his students get past their sticking points. For example, he asks questions that helped me change my thinking and approach - even more specifically, he helped me simplify."
