#8 in a series of Q&A’s with representatives of leading LSAT companies.
Bara Sapir, Founder and Executive Director of TPNY, filled me in about her company.
How long have you been offering LSAT prep?
We have been offering LSAT training consistently: 13 years of my tutoring independently and three years since TPNY has brought on a team of expert tutors.
Where are you located?
TPNY is based in New York City with exclusive tutors in Washington, D.C.; Boston; and Los Angeles—and we offer our services remotely as well.
Please describe your traditional in-class courses?
We do not offer group LSAT classes. Our tutoring is mostly focused on one-on-one coaching. We find students achieve the highest results, including substantial increases in scores, when we work with them individually and address their particular needs.
Please describe your online options?
Distance learning is our primary online option, though we’ll be launching our Full Potential mindset audio course as a subscription service within the year. We utilize technology—a variety of different programs and hardware—so learning can take place in real time. We use online conferencing software so that tutors and students can work together on the logical reasoning and logic games.
For all our tutoring, we administer a diagnostic assessment, followed by a phone (or in-person, if possible) consultation. We create an action plan based on the results of these two evaluations. Remote learning is very similar to working one-on-one in person and gets comparable results.
Do you offer a self-study option or study guides?
We encourage those studying the LSAT to work directly with a tutor, because the learning is more efficient and streamlined, and the improvements more consistent. We expect to be offering more self-study options in the near future for those who are inclined to study by themselves, but it has been our experience that the vast majority show greater improvement when they interact with a skilled tutor.
Do you offer any one-on-one or individualized tutoring?
Our one-on-one tutoring has three important components. It’s important that students understand what LSAT content is really testing: the LSAT questions simulate the kind of thinking law students and professionals need to use. The reading section of the test introduces the ongoing expectation that the legal student/professional will read a huge amount of (often very dry) material and make links between many different details and sources.
The second component we address is the test-taking strategy, including time management and methods to approach each question type, including guessing, especially if time runs out.
The third component is crucial: optimizing the student’s mindset. This is what makes a good test taker into a great test taker. Students learn to maximize perseverance, remain calm and focused, and draw on the confidence necessary to succeed.
What is the focus of your instruction?
Again, we focus on the student as a whole. If the student has issues with the logical reasoning, then we make sure that they’re up to snuff with that. If they understand how to take the test and perform well when not in a real testing situation, but have found that on the REAL test they don’t perform up to their potential, we provide the skills to build confidence.
Do you cater to any particular kind of student?
We cater to the student who wants to get the best score. Often, our clients come to us after they haven’t seen improvements with other programs or other methodologies. If students need to get the best scores, and don’t want to play around—they’re going to come to us first.
We offer the highest level of personal service. We’re not a factory, and ours is not a one-size-fits-all program. Everything is geared toward what the individual needs.
What qualifies someone to teach for Test Prep NY?
Many of our LSAT tutors are lawyers who graduated from top schools and who either left the field or enjoy teaching so much that they do it on the side. Other LSAT tutors hold PhDs in Cognitive Linguistics, English and Philosophy. A TPNY tutor is a stellar communicator and scores high on the LSAT. Coaches certified in allied fields—hypnosis, energy work, neuro-linguistic programming—while also fully knowledgeable about the thinking required on the LSAT provide the content for all of our holistic/full potential training.
What are your company’s unique strengths?
Our strengths lie in the integrated and comprehensive approach I described earlier.
Many of our students, as I said before, have gone through other test prep companies, and they really understand the test, but they’re not sure why they’re going in and not scoring to their potential, so we work with them to figure out what they need to do to score more. We also see many clients only for our mindset program (one-on-one, in person or online)—and we are the only company to do so. We also have a potent 5.5 hour audio program available. This is complementary to other courses or self-study the student has done.
Like other companies, we offer preparation for other tests—we don’t offer only the LSAT, and the LSAT isn’t our biggest program or the one we promote the most—but we have a stream of clients going through our program and consistently getting incredible score results through an understanding of the test and how it mirrors what’s going to be expected of them in law school and beyond.
About 
