Why I Started Cosmic Prep

People often ask me why I started Cosmic Prep. The short answer is that I wanted to create quality and accessible curriculum to thoroughly prepare students for the SAT. But my journey to starting this company goes much further back.

As a child, I wouldn’t have described myself as someone who “loved learning.” What I “loved” was doing well on tests. My fifth-grade teacher once said that I took great pride in “displaying” my knowledge on tests and projects rather than learning for learning’s sake. Before many exams that I felt worried about, I would try to predict every question my teachers might ask, creating my own practice tests that mimicked their style as closely as possible. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t just studying but analyzing how assessments were designed. What began as an exercise to ease my test anxiety led to a sense of intellectual fulfillment and provided me with a creative outlet that foreshadowed a long-term career.

After graduating from Georgetown University, I took a job teaching SAT classes while deciding what I wanted to do long-term. I spent hours refining my lessons, practicing explanations on a whiteboard in my room, and searching for better ways to explain everything from grammar rules to algebra concepts.

While the experience was rewarding, I noticed certain things that bothered me.

The curriculum often emphasized the wrong things. Important concepts and question types were often ignored, while less important ones received disproportionate attention. Some students lacked the background knowledge needed to keep up, while others needed more challenging materials to stay engaged.

Thus, I began adapting my instruction to meet my students’ needs. After practice tests, I created personalized progress reports identifying each student’s strengths and weaknesses. I wrote my own review sheets and practice materials to address concepts that I felt deserved more attention than the published curriculum provided.

One day, a student told me that my review materials were so helpful that I should write my own SAT book. I initially laughed off the comment, but with my sister’s encouragement, I ended up taking that suggestion seriously.

When the College Board announced a major redesign of the SAT, I saw an opportunity to build the type of resources I wished I’d had as an instructor. I wanted to create materials that taught students the underlying concepts, anticipated common misconceptions, and gave them ample opportunity to practice their skills.

That project became my first set of SAT review books.

Since then, I’ve written multiple review books and supplementary workbooks used by students and learning centers throughout the country. What began as a few review sheets for my own students eventually grew into the curriculum that powers Cosmic Prep today.

The most rewarding part of my work, however, has never been publishing books. It’s watching students realize they’re capable of more than they believed.

I still remember one student who needed to raise his SAT score significantly to be competitive for his target colleges. Despite months of hard work, he remained more than 100 points short of his goal. During one meeting, his mother asked—right in front of him—whether there was any hope or whether he simply “wasn’t smart enough.”

At that point, we adjusted our approach. Together, we focused intensely on the specific skills that challenged him most and built a study plan around those weaknesses. By the time he took his final SAT, he actually exceeded his target score by more than 100 points.

Moments like that remind me why I do this work.

My time as a teacher, tutor, curriculum developer, and educational entrepreneur has also shown me broader challenges in education. Many students, even high-achieving ones, have significant gaps in grammar, reading comprehension, and foundational academic skills. Those observations ultimately led me to pursue graduate studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I earned a master’s degree in Mind, Brain, and Education. I wanted to better understand how students learn so I could become a more effective educator and create stronger instructional materials. Interestingly, this was the first time in my own educational journey where I entered with a genuine curiosity for enhancing my own  learning, not just a desire to “display” my mastery on assignments.

That philosophy continues to guide everything we do at Cosmic Prep.

Our goal isn’t simply to help students earn higher scores. It’s to help them understand concepts deeply, think critically, develop confidence, and become more independent learners.

Cosmic Prep began with the simple idea that students deserve resources designed around how they actually learn. More than a decade later, that mission remains exactly the same.