John S.

John began tutoring as a Team Read tutor with Seattle Public Schools before working one-on-one with UCSD students in general chemistry and introductory biology.His experience teaching students with different academic backgrounds has continued through his work with Roots of Care for Refugees, a UCSD organization focused on improving healthcare access for refugee and asylum-seeker communities. There, he trains volunteers with varying levels of clinical experience, adapting instruction to help them develop technical skills and confidence.

Alongside his teaching experience, John conducted research in the Pelham Lab within UC San Diego’s Department of Psychiatry. His work on parental monitoring and adolescent behavior resulted in three peer-reviewed publications in Evidence-Based Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, JCPP Advances, and Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology. .

John currently works as a behavior technician at Kyo, where he provides individualized applied behavior analysis (ABA) skill-building protocols for children with autism. Working closely with children who learn and respond in different ways has further strengthened his ability to recognize learning styles, adjust his approach, and communicate concepts in ways that make sense to the person in front of him. John brings that same individualized approach to MCAT tutoring. He begins by diagnosing why a student is losing points, whether the issue is content knowledge, passage interpretation, reasoning, timing, or applying familiar concepts in unfamiliar contexts. From there, he builds a study approach around the specific patterns holding that student back rather than treating every missed question as a simple content gap.

As a tutor, John’s greatest strength is helping students move beyond memorization toward broader conceptual understanding. He understands how much a weaker section can improve with the right study approach. His goal is to help students reach the point where intimidating passages become recognizable problems and to give them strategies they can apply independently on test day.