OK gig but don't overstay. Quality of your experience will depend largely on center admin
Pros
- The work isn't especially taxing, and students are generally polite and friendly (if a bit overextended). You’ll have some downtime if sessions aren’t fully booked. - You can make your own schedule and aren’t pressured to fill in since tutors work independently of each other. - As a tutor, you won’t (rather can’t) interface with parents. - Hourly bonus for AP Certification through C2. Get certified ASAP. - The SAT and ACT curricula, while not perfect, do work (to a point) if the students apply themselves, and it’s satisfying to see students meet and exceed their own expectations. The digital SAT curriculum is also very easy to work with. - If you have a capable, motivated, and kind Center Director, you’ll feel supported.
Cons
- The hours (3:30–9:20 PM on Mon-Thurs, 9:00 AM–5:20 PM Sat) are unpleasant and hard to organize a life around. - Again, the work is manageable, but you’ll want to have quite a bit of social stamina and a penchant for small talk; workdays can feel like 6–8-hour long elevator rides. - You won’t know how many students or classes you’ll have until the night before / day of. - A bad Center Director will bend company cancellation policy at your expense to appease parents. You may see last-minute cancellations for which you aren’t paid. - While few tutors work full time, you can break 35+ if your center is busy (I did), but the odd hours can make even 25-30+ feel like a full-time commitment without full-time benefits. - AFAIK, tutors can accumulate a maximum of 56 sick hours but may only use 40 per year, which isn’t uncommon. However, C2 does not offer tutors PTO, so you might find yourself calling out for personal reasons. I don’t think that this was ever telegraphed in training. - Yes, the students are cool, but a lot of parents seem to think that they can substitute behavioral therapy with tutoring, and I’ve had many, many students with some level of executive dysfunction. Nothing against the students, but you can’t teach agency. - The curricula for elementary / middle schoolers are bad, and it’s difficult to support students who are coming for GPA support / enrichment instead of standardized test prep. - There are some meaningful differences between our SAT curriculum and the official test. You may need to periodically supplement the curriculum with College Board resources. - Supplementary training was not particularly helpful, and courses were partially written by AI. - Some centers don’t have windows.