Our Instructors >> Tommy Wallach
Tommy Wallach
Tommy is a huge fan of standardized tests, as evidenced by his 99th percentile scores on the GMAT, GRE, and SAT (once upon a time). He has tutored both the GMAT and the GRE for years, and is excited to bring his mad skillz (with a “z”) to the students of Manhattan GMAT.
Tommy hails from Seattle, WA, where half of the world’s rain is produced. As a child, he played too many video games, and also performed in a lot of professional musical theater. As an undergraduate, he originally enrolled in NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Dramatic Writing Program. However, after freshmen year, he decided to do a full transfer to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland (where the other half of the world’s rain is produced) to study English. After a year there, fickle Tommy decided to do a full transfer back. He graduated from NYU with a degree from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. After spending a couple years teaching the GMAT and GRE in LA, he went back to school. He completed his M.A. in Journalism at Stanford University as of 2009.
Believe it or not, Tommy also has many interests outside of standardized testing. As a writer, his fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous national magazines, such as (note the correct usage of “such as”) McSweeney’s, Tin House, Wired, and Salon (note the correct usage of the serial comma). He has written six novels, none of which has yet sold (note the correct subject-verb agreement here with the deceptive “none”). This is a sore point for Tommy. Try not to bring it up too often.
Tommy is also a professional musician. He has played piano for over 15 years, and dabbles in guitar, mandolin, melodica, and kazoo. As a singer-songwriter, he was signed to Decca/Universal Records, and last year he performed in the middle of the Guggenheim Museum with OK Go. You can see the video/song that got him there on YouTube.
Feedback From Tommy’s Recent Students
“He was so enthusiastic and made me laugh a lot. It was hard not to pay a lot of attention to him and digest what he said.”
“Really engaging teacher that provides examples of difficult questions presented in class. Had very thorough explanations when questions came up.”
