Frequently Asked Questions about Tutoring

I try to help students in a very efficient way compared to group classes or other private tutors. Typically, I begin by having the student take a practice test that I provide before we meet, and then during the session we focus on what the student missed and how to directly improve on those questions. After that, the student applies those strategies on another practice test, and we gauge the improvements and meet again to review that test. We repeat the process until we’re seeing the score we’re looking for, and seeing it consistently.

On average, I spend about 5 hours with a typical student to prepare the student for the SAT or the ACT.

More specifically, about 60% of my SAT or ACT students use about 5 hours, while 20% of my students use fewer (around 3) hours, and the remaining 20% of my students need 7 or more hours.

It usually depends on the student’s starting score, or how much the student is trying to raise their score. A student who starts with a lower score will likely need more hours, while a student who starts with a very high score will likely need fewer hours. Of course, it always depends on the individual student, so you never know for sure!

For LSAT, GMAT, GRE, and MCAT, tutoring might be as short as 3 hours, or much longer. It all depends on what sort of help the student is looking for. If you’re looking for tutoring for those tests, contact me and we can discuss all the options!

At my $300/hour rate, 5 hours of tutoring costs $1,500, which is the list price of an SAT group class from the major test prep companies, but instead you get private one-on-one tutoring with me.

If you’d like to know more, contact me and I’ll be happy to answer your questions and discuss my tutoring process with you!

When we meet for an online tutoring session, we are looking at a shared whiteboard where I write all the strategies we discuss. I put each problem you missed on the screen, and we work through the problem together and write down the strategies you should use on similar problems in the future.

Everything I write on the whiteboards is saved as a PDF file that you can review after the session. So, as long as everything makes sense to you during the session, you don’t have to actually take notes; all the notes are right there for you to review in the future.

My first goal is always to achieve what I call a “reasonable score increase”, which is a score increase of 100 to 200 points on the SAT, or around 3 points on the ACT.

That’s the score increase that at times has been claimed by some of the major test prep companies: students who take one of their 25-hour courses, do lots of hours of homework, and take four practice tests, on average would earn increases in that range.

So, if we can achieve an improvement in that range in just a few hours of tutoring, that is a great result!

However, the reason people choose to work with me is because I have a well-earned reputation for helping students achieve what I like to call an “unreasonable score increase.” I want my students to earn score increases beyond that 200-point SAT / 3-point ACT goal described above! And I’m happy to say that it happens often enough that I have lots of success stories from former students!