Siddhant Nagpal

About Siddhant

If you had told me ten years ago that I'd leave an MBA at UCLA to teach the GMAT full-time, I wouldn't have believed you. I graduated in engineering in 2015 and spent the next three years working in my family's third-generation day-care hospital. Although I learned a great deal there, I wanted to build a career in the corporate world. That decision led me to the GMAT, a 750 score, and eventually an admit to UCLA Anderson. Little did I know that UCLA would be the catalyst for RACEtheGMAT. My GMAT journey did not start with a 750- I was stuck around the 50th percentile despite doing everything I thought I was supposed to do. I hired tutors, spent countless hours on forums, and worked through material from nearly every major GMAT company. Nothing seemed to move the needle. My progress began only when I stopped asking, "How do I solve this question?" and started asking, "What skills is this exam actually measuring?" Once I understood the cognitive abilities behind the questions—not just the questions themselves—everything changed. Looking back, scoring a 750 wasn't the most valuable outcome of the GMAT. The real reward was becoming a better problem solver and a more disciplined thinker. I learned how to reason under pressure, break down complex problems, and think with greater clarity. Those are skills that have stayed with me long after the exam. During my time at UCLA, I realised my true passion lay in mentoring other people to be the best versions of themselves, and thus, I left the MBA to start RACEtheGMAT. As a consequence, since 2019, I've had the privilege of mentoring students from around the world (27 countries to be precise) for the GMAT and Executive Assessment. My goal has never been to teach shortcuts. It's to help people think better, because higher scores are usually a by-product of becoming a better problem solver.