Bara Sapir is an internationally recognized expert in high-performance coaching, personal empowerment, and transformative test preparation.

Inspirational, highly skilled, and passionate, Bara is an expert coach and educator who has over 20 years experience in teaching test preparation. A pioneer in the test prep industry with her mindful test-taking method only available at City Test Prep, Bara has taught test prep for six years as an instructor for The Princeton Review.

Sapir initiated bringing mindful and holistic, human potential techniques to the test preparation study regime. She created Full Potential Methods which include HypnoPrep® and Yoga for Your Mind®. These techniques optimize the test-taking experience, improve scores and result in academic and professional success by reducing anxiety and enhancing concentration, confidence, and ease.

To make these proven techniques available to a wider audience, Sapir produced the Full Potential Audio Course, a unique interactive 5-hour course for standardized tests, as well as study support for college and high school: 10 titles in all.

Bara has coached hundreds of clients including:

• Students who were accepted to leading high schools, boarding schools, and universities such as Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, INSEAD, London School of Business, Northwestern, Stanford, University of Chicago, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin and more:
• Physicians taking high-level medical boards
• Leading entertainment and advertising professionals
• Advisors to U.S. government leaders
• Executives at Fortune 500 companies

Bara’s test prep expertise has been featured in several magazines and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, Cosmogirl, Next Step, and Positive Thinking. She has appeared on television, including CBS Bay Sunday, the radio, including programs on National Public Radio (NPR), in CNN/Fortune Magazine’s, The Jewish Forward and Women’s World, and is a regular speaker on webinars (Accepted.com, Forte Foundation, IECA) and at conferences (IECA, HECA, AET, and more), as well as a speaker in schools.

Along with her head verbal instructor, Dr. Karen van Hoek, Bara wrote The Full Potential GMAT Sentence Correction Intensive and The Full Potential Manual published by Nova Press, and is co-writing the forthcoming The Full Potential GMAT Quant and IR Intensive and the MCAT CARS Intensive with tutors on staff. Her Full Potential Handbook for Test Taking Success will be available soon.

Sapir also developed MindFlow: the Mindful Speed Reading Workshop for middle school, high school, college and for adults, offered in person monthly and as an online course. She is Creator and CEO of the MindFlow Speed-reading Platform.

Bara holds Master’s degrees in Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Art History from the University of Michigan. She has certification in Hypnosis, Neuro-linguistic Programming, Integrative Life Coaching, Counseling from Interchange, and is a Reiki practitioner. She is a published author and professional artist. 

Bara is a founding board member of the National Test Prep Association, a board member of the Networking Entrepreneurial Women of Marin (NEWofMarin), on leadership of Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC), and co-hosts on MBAWaves, weekly on Clubhouse, with Eric Lucrezia of Candidate Coach and author of The Getting into MBA series. 

Bara conducts workshops for students, parents, educators, business people, and creative professionals seeking high-performance results at school, work, and in life. Visit barasapir.com

Bara lives with her rescue pup, Chata, and is a huge advocate for shelter/rescue dogs.

Alan Brown

City Test Prep Hero, General Manager