If you’re looking into test-prep tutoring for yourself or someone else, you have some goal in mind. You may be looking to attain a certain score, to gain admission to a particular university or program, or simply to do as well on the test as you possibly can; whatever the ultimate goal, you want the tutor who can best help you achieve it.
But how to find that tutor?1 These days it’s straightforward to find candidates; your friends or schoolmates probably know someone, a google search will turn up hundreds of possibilities, and of course the big test prep companies would be happy to oblige. So that part, you can probably do. But when it comes time to choose whose help you’re going to rely on for a test that may be the most important you’ve ever taken, how do you do better than just taking a guess?
Here are the questions I think it’s critical to ask any potential tutor:
How many students have you worked with?
Ask for a number; don’t accept a vague “a lot”, and assume the lowest possible interpretation of any vague answer, so for example “dozens” probably means 13 or more, not 60.) Now, try this one: How many students have you prepped for this particular test? That someone has worked with lots of SAT students, and one or two on the LSAT, does not make him an experienced LSAT teacher.
How many of your students have been in the relevant score range?
What’s the relevant range? It’s where you are right now [take a practice test to see], and where you realistically hope to get. Some tutors specialize in particularly high-scoring students, or in remedial work; you want someone who is appropriate for your needs, not someone else’s.
A big one: Have you taken the test in question? When, and how many times? What was your score?
Most tutors don’t like this question, though of course a few do. And the test prep companies hate giving straight answers to it.2 But it’s important to know. There’s a lot more to teaching than acing the test, but at the very least you want someone who has done considerably better than you’re hoping to do. Also, there are certain minimum scores that I think are necessary to ensure competence; I discussed that in detail in a previous post.
Notes
- You may be expecting me — a tutor — to tell you it’s simple: Just hire me. Well, I’m not going to do that. For one thing, I’m not the right tutor for everyone. Maybe you need help with a test I don’t teach; maybe you want an in person tutor and you’re not near me; maybe you’re looking in a different price range. All well and good, but I’d still like to help.
- Even if your tutor got a perfect score, the companies don’t like the question because they don’t want people shopping like this … because their other tutors didn’t score that well.