Tim's Background

Tim has been tutoring students for over 20 years. He is a North Jersey guy who has lived in Bergen County, Passaic County, and Morris County. As a student  at Don Bosco Prep, Tim challenged himself in the classroom and on the track. He took to chemistry, math, and economics courses in particular, going on to take and thrive in AP Chemistry and AP Calculus. His SAT score was good enough to rank him among the top 3% of test takers in the country. He ran varsity cross country and track for one of the top teams in the state and went on to run for four years at the Division 1 level, so he's able to relate to the varsity athletes who work with him and provide valuable insight.

As a student at Holy Cross, Tim continued his studies in chemistry, math, and economics. He struggled to pick which discipline would be his major, so he opted to major in two - chemistry and economics - and later take linear algebra as an elective. Given his strong chemistry background from high school, Tim ended up helping many of the students in his dorm pass 1st semester chemistry. This experience let Tim know he had a valuable skill - the ability to make very difficult material make sense to a wide array of people. He continued to tutor throughout the rest of his undergrad years. After deciding that his next step would be graduate school, Tim prepared for the GRE and earned a perfect score on the quantitative section.

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Tim started his graduate studies at Penn State in the chemistry program in pursuit of a Ph.D. While working as a teaching assistant for general chemistry 1 and 2, he realized he enjoyed being in the classroom and teaching far more than he enjoyed conducting research. It is this experience that Tim credits with taking his understanding of chemistry to the next level. With a teaching award in hand, Tim switched over to the college of education, concentrated in science education and earned his M.Ed. He continued to tutor students throughout grad school.

 

After a year of student teaching in Pennsylvania, he returned home to North Jersey to get a high school teaching job. He ended up having his pick of schools and chose to work in Morris County. In the summer of 2009, Tim began the ACT/SAT chapter of his tutoring career. He cut his teeth working several years for a few boutique test prep companies, eventually going out on his own to start Capital Test Prep.

 

He has worked with hundreds of students over the years, eclipsing the 10,000 hour mark several years ago. He prides himself on the fact that so many of his clients come from referrals. He has worked with every child in the family for countless families and is grateful to them for spreading the word and passing along his information to family and friends. There are pages on the site listing the high schools his students attended and the colleges/universities they have gone on to attend.

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Tim is currently in his 15th year teaching high school chemistry in Morris County, with experience teaching introductory, college prep, honors, and AP levels. Over the years he hasn't quite seen it all, but he's certainly seen plenty. He draws on his classroom teaching experience to constantly improve his presentation of content to the students he tutors. Each student comes to Tim with a unique set of background knowledge, which Tim will channel to help the student master each challenging new concept or previously missed concept. He still considers it a treat each time he gets to watch students experience those a-ha moments when everything finally clicks. 

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Tim is an active member of the National Test Prep Association, routinely conversing with colleagues to discuss best practices and new developments in the world of standardized tests. He attended the 2023 national conference in Texas, so if you look closely you can find him in the picture on the NTPA homepage. He has lots of contacts throughout the country that he can refer clients to when their needs are beyond his skill set.

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Though he has won a handful of local 5k road races over the years, his current recreational activity of choice is golf as his cap hovers in the mid to upper single digits. He thoroughly enjoys the daily Wordle, as he has won 99% of the time (n>675) and has 3 aces. He is still chasing his first hole in one on the golf course, though.