About Next Step

The Next Step Test Preparation Story

By John Rood, President and Founder

Dear Student,

I wanted to use this space to introduce myself and discuss how and why Next Step differs from other test prep options.

Why we offer one-on-one tutoring

For a brief time, I worked at one of the nation’s largest test preparation companies (one of the ones you’ve heard of from flyers on campus or ads on Google). I learned two things from that experience.

Students learn better from individual attention. When I taught LSAT prep courses, the curriculum was designed around the “average” student as it had to be for a class of 20 students. However, that disguised a lot of variance. Students who started under that average often got lost, as the pace of the class zoomed by them. On the other hand, we had high-performing students looking to break into the 90th percentile who were bored to tears. And often students would fall into both camps — lost on one topic while completely bored in an area they had mastered. That contrasted with my work in one-on-one tutoring environments. When students work with a personal instructor, they move at the students’ pace. If the student needs extra assistance in one area, we focus there.
The price of a prep course is outrageous! Given how important these tests are, I think making an investment in professional prep makes sense. However, when I did the math, I learned that while I was being paid $18/hour, the company was bringing in roughly $500-$800 per hour. (Please do the math yourself!)

I knew we could fix both problems. That’s why we offer nearly all one-on-one tutoring — I firmly believe that’s how people best improve, and our outstanding results and student testimonials back up that proposition. Think of it this way — have you ever learned better in a lecture environment than when speaking with someone individually? Our students come to us to help them get into the best graduate schools.

To me, the lecture-style approach is no different from going to the doctor with 20 other patients.

Further, we offer a totally different price model. If you haven’t heard of us before visiting our site, our business model is why. The nation’s biggest test prep company spends over $100 million each year on marketing: full-time staff members, part-time staffers to put up posters, $10 million in ads on Google. If you’ve ever wondered why it costs $1,500 to be in a class with 20 other people, that’s why. We decided that instead of investing in marketing, we would invest in our instructors, and offer prices that make tutoring a more affordable prep option. If you chose Next Step, your investment goes to fund personal attention from an elite instructor, not ads plastered all over campus.

Our Instructors

Something everyone in the prep industry knows is that students make bigger score gains and get into better schools when they have the help of veteran instructors. We hire very carefully. In fact, we find most of our instructors proactively — we hear about great instructors working independently and make them part of our cause. Our instructors have:

Top scores (generally 98 or 99th percentile)
Years of teaching experience
A proven track record of helping people make quantitative score gains.

Our instructors are specifically focused on one-on-one instruction. Rather than giving a lecture, they understand how to help students identify their specific strengths and weaknesses and make adjustments to raise their score. You can click here to find more information about our instructors.

When you work with Next Step, you’ll work with a single instructor tasked with designing and executing a personalized learning plan based on your needs and diagnostic test scores.

Personal Attention

Students and parents who contact Next Step always speak to me personally before committing. That means that you get the real scoop on our services, and are likely to learn something about the admissions process that you couldn’t learn speaking to someone at a phone bank. At every step, you’ll be dealing with test prep experts — not salespeople.

Please Look Around!

I hope this gives you some ideas about what we value in test prep. If you believe that you or your son or daughter would benefit more from personal attention than a series of lectures, I invite you to contact us by email or phone.