The GMAT is often the last thing standing between you and your top business school.
If you’ve been grinding through practice tests for months and your score still isn’t where it needs to be, you’re in the right place. Most of the people who end up on this page are in the same spot.
Hey, I’m Paul Janka, and I run Pinnacle GMAT. I wanted to tell you a little about myself, as we’ll be working very closely together to improve your GMAT score!
Quick version: I studied Physics at Harvard, scored 760 on the GMAT (top 1%), and I’ve been teaching standardised tests full-time since 2002. I’ve focused on the GMAT specifically since 2013. I’ve taught somewhere north of 1,100 students by now, most of them working professionals trying to get into prestigious business schools like LBS, INSEAD, Wharton, Booth, HBS, Oxford, and Stanford.
The reason I mention all that isn’t to puff myself up. It’s because when you’re about to trust someone with a few months of your evenings and weekends, aiming to get a GMAT score that could make or break your GMAT application, I really want you to know who you’re dealing with, as I only work with students for whom I will be a good fit.
Here’s what working together will look like:
We start with a free call, no pressure, usually about 15-30 minutes. I ask about your current GMAT score and the score you’d like to achieve, your timeline, the schools you’re aiming at, and what you think has been going wrong so far in your GMAT prep.
By the end of the call I can usually tell you:
- whether I think I can help
- roughly how many hours of tutoring it’s likely to take
- what the plan would look like, and
- what kind of score we can expect to achieve together.
If we decide to go ahead, every session will last for +/- 90 minutes, delivered online (or in person if you’re in London). There is no fixed syllabus as every student I have ever worked with (over 1,100) has had unique needs. I build the plan for your GMAT prep around where your score is leaking points, not around a generic curriculum that assumes everyone has the same gaps.
Sessions are usually available from 6am to 11pm London time, weekends and public holidays included, because most of my students are squeezing their tutoring in around a full-time job in banking, consulting, tech or other demanding roles.
Between sessions I will set you targeted homework. Not hundreds of random questions, but specific problems chosen to stress-test the things we worked on most efficiently. Then in the next session, we’ll go over anything you’re struggling with together and figure out what’s going wrong. Most of the real progress happens in that loop when we iterate from try ➜ see where weaknesses are ➜ discuss strategies for improving ➜ test for improvement ➜ repeat (until you get an amazing GMAT score!).
A few things about me outside the tutoring:
- I grew up in the United States and moved to London in 2011 after spending years teaching in New York.
- My wife Emma runs the admin side of Pinnacle GMAT, which means if you’ve ever had a scheduling email from us, you’ve already met half the team.
- Physics was my concentration at Harvard, and I still nerd out about it. There’s probably a reason I ended up teaching a test that rewards clear logical thinking.
- Outside of work I am a serial entrepreneur with multiple successful businesses, I love travelling and exploring different parts of Europe and I’m still trying to stand up on the surfboard for more than 3 seconds!
- I don’t believe in selling people things they don’t need. If tutoring isn’t the right fit after our first call, I’ll tell you. I’ve pointed plenty of people toward suitable alternatives, or just told them they’re closer to their target than they think and give them the simple approaches they need to make up the gap on their own and save their money.
Ready to find out if we’re a good fit?
If any of this sounds like the kind of help you’re looking for, the next step is easy: book a free strategy call. We’ll talk through where you are, where you need to get to, and whether I’m the right person to help you close the gap.
Or if you’d rather start with a message, drop us a line on WhatsApp. Emma typically replies within a few hours, and then we’ll take it from there!