Brad Attaway

Why do I coach?

Because no job I have ever had is as challenging or as much fun.  As a coach, my job is not merely to present my own understanding of testing concepts, but to build a unique and fundamental understanding of those concepts into the mind of each student.

Every student is unique: unique in strengths, unique in perspective, and unique in background.  Espousing my own understanding--no matter how eloquently--is necessarily different than developing a student's understanding of that same concept because our minds operate in different ways. One can think of each student as a different set of Lego bricks (note to students: Legos are like Minecraft blocks for old people), and from that set each must build the strongest test model possible.

My success as a coach is rooted not in my ability to get perfect test scores for myself--basically a parlor trick--but rather my ability to reduce testing concepts to their first principles and help students build, from those principles, their own complete and unique understanding of their upcoming test.

Education

I  graduated as a National Merit Scholar from Phillips Exeter Academy in 2003.  I was a varsity oarsman, the team captain, and the winner of the Brown University Book Award as a journalist/photographer for the school newspaper.  I applied to college with an SAT score in the 99.9th percentile. After a gap year rowing with Penn AC's Pre-Elite program in Philadelphia, I matriculated with the Harvard College class of 2008, where I rowed to three squad national championships and studied economics, sociology, and government.  My final paper analyzed the commoditization of knowledge through technology as a vector for eclipsing institutional expertise, and the emergence of a practical hive memory as an unintended consequence of ubiquitous mobile social sharing (In other words "Whoa, Facebook!" writ in academese ;-)).

Profession

I fell into tutoring during my senior year of high school--first for my sister, then friends, then siblings of friends, then friends of siblings of friends, and so on.  I excelled at the logic underpinning standardized tests, and I had a knack for communicating my solving methods such that others gained similarly deep understanding.  

I joined test prep juggernaut Kaplan as a Master LSAT Instructor in 2012, and have since partnered with a menagerie of elite Bay Area coaching firms.  Over the years I developed tools and methodology all my own--tools that my students' performance suggests are without equal in the industry--and have become fast friends with some of the finest coaches in California. To bring those tools and talents together I founded Attaboy Test Prep in 2015.

Prior to tutoring full-time, I was saved from an ill suited career as a lawyer by a couple of Harvard classmates whose marketing startup went gangbusters with the help of my photography.  Their company, HungryFish, brought me aboard straight out of college to direct media production.  After HungryFish's meteoric rise, I answered the Silicon call of California and have been blessed to work and consult with Google, Heyzap, Skycatch, and DivTech, among others in the Bay tech scene. I continue to consult, and will always love technology, but teaching is my calling.

Other Pursuits

Outside of test coaching, I continue to train as an oarsman and have at various points competed in MMA, Cycling, Swimming, Triathlon, Olympic Lifting, and Rugby.  I spend as much time as I can in the outdoors long-distance backpacking, alpine climbing, and mountaineering.  I can still be convinced to pick up a camera, and I compose music weekly. In springtime I foster special needs kittens for Saving Grace Animal Shelter.  I can take all challengers at Guitar Hero and I noogie my little sister at least annually.  Serves her right for being born second.