Parssa A.

Parssa has developed deep expertise in the biological and behavioral sciences through rigorous academic training and research. At Amherst College, he completed an honors thesis on the effects of stress and caffeine on persistence and performance in human behavior, later publishing the work as first author in Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental. He also conducted neuroscience research focused on autism spectrum disorders and molecular neurobiology before serving as a research staff associate at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where he studied fetal brain development. 

In addition to research, Parssa has strong teaching and mentorship experience. He served as a teaching assistant for neuroscience coursework at Amherst College, helping students master foundational neuroscience content. He has also mentored students through multiple stages of the medical school application process, including course planning, extracurricular development, MCAT preparation, and personal statement writing. Students Parssa has tutored have earned acceptances to the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania, and UMass Chan School of Medicine.

As an MCAT tutor, Parssa builds strong relationships with students and tailors their tutoring experience to help them achieve their goals. His teaching style is rooted in empathy, understanding the immense challenges that students face when studying for the MCAT. Parssa uses a systematic approach to pinpoint and address students’ weaknesses. By helping students develop conceptual mastery of content, strategic test-taking, and pattern recognition across passages and question types, he has helped students earn high scores and develop the clinical reasoning skills necessary for success beyond the MCAT.