Pros
I am matched with students who fit my skills. Reporting hours and getting paid is easy. Curriculum is fundamentally sound. Training is adequate. Increasing students' test scores is predictable if a tutor sticks to the curriculum.
Cons
I continue to tutor for StudyPoint because of the ease of getting paid, the sound curriculum, and the generally high motivation of students. As the culture of StudyPoint has become more corporate each year, however, my experience as a tutor has become less positive each year. 1. My supervisors change more regularly and know me less well. With the regular turn over, my supervisors no longer build a strong relationship with me or with students' families. 2. My students' parents regularly express confusion about whom they should be speaking with at the company level. In some cases, I am caught in the middle when I am well liked by a family while the family feels confusion or even animosity toward SP staff. I apologize more often than I would like for SP staff lack of communication or mistakes. 3. Supervisors are rewarded for keeping their tutors' average hourly rates low. Thus, the more experience a tutor has and the higher the tutor's hourly rate, the fewer students the tutor gets. A recent change to a "premier tutor" status for experienced tutors was ostensibly meant to help more experienced tutors get more students - but families pay significantly more for a premier tutor so the pool of students for experienced tutors remains small. For example, I used to be able to have 5 to 10 students (or even more) at a time. Now, I can't seem to get more than 3 - despite the fact that my availability in hours and geography have stayed the same, and StudyPoint always seems to be hiring more tutors. If a prospective tutor plans to tutor for StudyPoint for a year or less, he or she will likely have a more positive experience.
