Prep Corps

Melissa Bass, Esq.

From the time I was a young girl in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, I was infatuated with logic puzzles and numbers. I excelled in my math classes throughout my primary and secondary education and would often tutor my classmates and neighbors in subjects ranging from Pre-Algebra to Calculus and Statistics. By the time I reached my senior year of high school, I was working after school at a nationwide financial investment company and tutored my boss to prepare him for the quantitative section on the GRE.

After high school, I flew off to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri where I received a Bachelors Degree in mathematics with a focus in statistics and probability. Throughout college, I worked at a small tutoring company where I tutored adults in preparation for the GRE.

My love for math came from an innate desire to see the logic behind problem-solving, whether for a simple math equation, a spatial geometry problem or a statistical inference problem. This desire to see the logic in problem solving gave me the tools to help my peers, neighbors, and others I tutored in math grasp the content they were learning and ultimately be able to recognize concepts more readily and confidently on their tests.

Upon graduation I signed up for multiple courses in the Masters in Secondary Education program at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in order to pursue my love of educating. The courses gave me a deeper understanding of how important it is to recognize each person's individual learning style, and they allowed me to observe classes in progress for hours at a time. During that time I could see first hand techniques teachers used that were beneficial to their students and those that were not. While taking classes, I was also a substitute math teacher and tutor.

Although I wanted to be an educator, I decided to pursue my interest in law by attending American University's Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C and earned my Juris Doctor. I subsequently moved to Los Angeles, took the California Bar Exam, and was sworn in as an attorney. The skills I gained in strategic tactics for legal reading and writing provided me with more tools to impart on my students as I guide them in preparation for taking standardized tests. Each student and I will work together to discover which strategies will work best for his or her method of attack on test day.

Despite my newfound appreciation for the law, I could not ignore my passion for educating, so I took a job working for a national test prep company where I taught SAT classes throughout Los Angeles County. Although I found great satisfaction in helping students achieve their SAT goals, I knew it was imperative I work for myself to have the freedom to teach for the individual, rather than for the masses, in order to make a greater difference in each student.

I have since opened Prep Corps LLC as an exclusively private test prep and tutoring company, fulfilling my dream to use my knowledge and skills to enrich the lives of each student I tutor.