GRE Compass - Biography

Erfun Geula, Founder

Erfun Geula, the founder of GRE Compass, is one of the world’s most accomplished GRE tutors. An honors Yale graduate with a perfect GRE score, Erfun has tutored the GRE and GMAT full-time for the past 13 years and has over 15 years and 15,000 hours of tutoring experience. If anyone asks, Erfun will proudly admit that he’s a bona fide GRE geek. So much so that he was commissioned by McGraw Hill Education as the sole author of McGraw Hill’s Preparation for the GRE, a 500+ page comprehensive guide to the GRE. The book is now in its 8th edition and has sold over 80,000 copies worldwide. Erfun was even interviewed by US News World Report for an article on the GRE.
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Before focusing his efforts on GRE tutoring, Erfun refined his test preparation expertise by working as GMAT Content Developer for one start-up and as Director of SAT Materials for another, roles in which Erfun wrote, edited, and explained several thousand practice questions. Through these positions and the in-depth question analysis they required, Erfun developed first-hand insight into the test makers’ perspective, the fundamental reasoning skills they assess, and the crafty ways they manipulate seemingly simple concepts into complex puzzles.

Now, as the head tutor at GRE Compass, Erfun has been fortunate to help students across the globe, from aspiring MBAs in New York City to civil engineers in Saudi Arabia to Psychologists in Paris. Erfun has been honored to have helped scores of these students gain admission to such prestigious schools as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Wharton, and Columbia, and he’s confident that he can do the same for you.

Matt Douglas

The proud owner of a perfect 340 on the GRE, Matt Douglas, GRE Compass’ newest addition, comes to us after a ten-year stint as a one of the “big” test prep companies, where he was named Instructor of the Year and helped write and edit over 1,000 practice questions. A decade as a crack test prep operative may not have been the most swashbuckling way to spend his 20s, but Matt’s loss is your gain: having taught standardized tests for more than 12,000 hours to more than 3,000 people, Matt knows every trick, loophole, and strategy in the book.
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Matt’s extensive test prep experiences have taken him across the globe: he can almost boast of having taught in person in every time zone, and through his teaching Matt has met all sorts of fascinating people – African footballers, EMTs, Australian miners, Navy SEALs, Saudi princes, an international almond magnate, Mexican narcos (Matt survived), Venezuelan political exiles, a professional wrestler, the son of a prominent Haitian voodoo priest, and best of all, three veterans of TV’s Cupcake Wars – and has been privileged to repay their amazing potential and energy with thrilling tales of proper word choice and introductory algebra.

Now, as a member of GRE Compass, Matt looks forward to another decade of meeting awesome people, helping them achieve their graduate schools dreams, and making thrilling topics like prime factorization as fun as they could be.

Denis Maguire

The proud owner of a 99th-percentile GRE score (Quant: 167, Verbal: 167), Denis Maguire is a rare breed: a test prep wizard, with a lifelong devotion to and passion for education.

Currently studying at NYU to obtain his Master’s in Teaching (with a specialization in Secondary Math, the exact content tested on the GRE Quant), Denis comes to GRE Compass after studying Mathematics and Education at Bowdoin College and spending the past four years as a Mathematics Teacher and Department Head at a major boarding school. Concurrent with this coursework, Denis also cut his teeth spending several years tutoring math students all the way from basic numerical concepts up to calculus. No slouch at Verbal, Denis achieved a near-perfect GRE verbal score with only minimal prep. And while all of us at GRE Compass are happy with this score, he’s eyeing a GRE re-take sometime soon to join his GRE Compass colleagues in the perfect-scorers club.
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When Denis isn’t refining his teaching skills, you can find him attending to his other passion: ultimate frisbee. Living in Brooklyn, he competes with Blueprint Ultimate, a local club aiming to qualify for the National Championships in San Diego. Aside from education and ultimate, Denis has a multitude of interests including skiing, playing saxophone, visiting museums, and finding the best ice cream spots in NYC (taking recommendations).