Our Plan for Resuming In-Person Tutoring
/UPDATE as of April 13th, 2021:
We’re excited to announce that we plan to start offering in-person tutoring again this summer! We’re still figuring out exactly what that will look like and what rules will be in place for the safety of our tutors and students, so stay tuned for updates and details.
While we’re excited about the possibility of meeting face-to-face again, our virtual tutoring has proven to be an effective and convenient alternative for our students, so we will continue offering that going forward.
June 9th, 2020:
As businesses across the country begin to reopen, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about whether it makes sense for us to resume in-person tutoring sessions. At this time, we’ve decided to continue holding all tutoring sessions online. We always aim for transparency, so here are our reasons for sticking with online sessions:
The safety of our tutors, students, and their families is our top priority: Our offices, both in Dresher and Haverford, are relatively small enclosed areas. No matter what protective measures we took, bringing students and tutors into the office would create some risk of COVID exposure.
Online tutoring is a higher quality experience: We believe that our face-to-face online Zoom meetings create a more personal experience than would in-person tutoring with protective measures, which might involve separating a masked tutor and masked student six feet apart, on opposite sides of a room.
The technology allows it: We’ve had an incredibly seamless transition from in-person to online tutoring. Using Zoom and a shared online whiteboard, we are able to bring the live tutoring experience online.
Online tutoring is equally effective: One of our tutors has been doing online tutoring for years, in addition to his in-person tutoring. He’s carefully tracked his data and found that in-person and online tutoring are equally effective at raising student test scores.
Proctored tests are coming: We believe proctored practice tests are a critical component of the test prep process. There is no better practice for the SAT or ACT than taking a practice test in a realistic testing environment. While we can’t currently hold in-person proctored tests, we aim to begin offering remote proctored tests by the beginning of August, perhaps sooner depending on demand.
We will continue to evaluate the situation and update our policy on an ongoing basis. If you have any thoughts or recommendations, you know how to reach us!