She Had All the Right Answers. So Did He, Eventually.
Simon Kyu Seung Yi likes to jokingly credit himself with Dr. Gem Marian Manalo's academic success. After all, he was her SAT coach during the summer of 2005 — reviewing math tips like the mnemonic PEMDAS rule order of operations and building vocabulary through Mad Libs.
'This guy must be a huge nerd,' Dr. Manalo said she recalled thinking, one of three students in the course. 'Who spends the summer tutoring students for the SATs?'
She was 15, and about to enter her sophomore year at University Liggett School, a private school for prekindergarten to Grade 12 in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., where she grew up.
'I'd call on Gem because she always had all the answers,' Mr. Yi, now 38, said.
He was a 19-year-old rising sophomore then at the University of Michigan, from which he eventually graduated with two bachelor's degrees: one in business administration, and the other in economics.
'He felt so much older than me,' said Dr. Manalo, now 34, who began her freshman year at Michigan the semester after he graduated.
It was there that she earned a degree in art history and biology, followed by a master's degree in medical science from Boston University and a medical degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. She is now an anesthesiologist at Midtown Endoscopy & Surgical Center in Manhattan.
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