StudyPoint reviews about "training"

--you'll make less than you would tutoring in person --it is not always in the company's interest to tell parents the truth very bluntly (eg: your kid should not be studying for the SAT/ACT, as they are too far below college level to expect to perform well in college). To be fair to the company, they do try to communicate such things in gentler terms, but at the end of the day you have to be able to stomach the realities of test-prep tutoring: often the kid's time would be better spent in remedial classes, with a subject area tutor, in extracurricular activities, or [on rare occasions] even with a therapist, but even when you recognize that fact, you have no power to do anything about it.

1. I was hired with the promise of quick raises after a certain number of hours. They consistently advertised on Craigslist for tutors in my market, but they didn't offer me a single student for about four months, and I tutor a wide variety of commonly requested subjects. 2. They don't give you the option of refusing a student; if they assign you the student, you're stuck with them. 3. You're expected to use materials that aren't very good - the critical reading passages are downright terrible. 4. The salary as a fraction of what the student pays is appalling; I made about 15% of what the students were paying. I stopped accepting students once I learned that. They also expect a lot of preparation and outside work, but they don't pay nearly enough to justify it.

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.

There are a few things that make working at StudyPoint a bit challenging: -You are not able to screen or veto prospective students. I understand the challenges, since part of the sale is the specific tutor, but there are sometimes outstanding issues or last minute life changes that affect one's ability to serve a student well -Lack of compensation for mileage and time in a car. While we can set up our radius where we are willing to tutor, traffic, fluctuating gas prices, etc. make this a huge drain on profits. -Pay is not commensurate with how much StudyPoint charges and with how much work a tutor has to do. I think this is most true for academic tutoring, where the tutor has to lesson prep, print materials, buy books, etc. without compensation.