Varsity Tutors – San Francisco

Sounds like we had a similar experience to Tom S. As with his review, this is meant to be a commentary on the company vs. the tutor (who was not located in the Bay Area anyway). We contacted Varsity Tutors to help us in the North Bay with SSAT tutoring. They did not have a tutor available to come to us, so they recommended their online package instead. I was initially very excited because my experience booking the initial package was very smooth. The folks on the phone seemed knowledgeable and responsive, although in retrospect I am realizing they were just really well-​trained salespeople. Very shortly after purchasing the package, they sent me the name of our tutor. Upon looking at the tutor’s profile, I immediately asked for a new tutor. This tutor had typos in her profile, almost no relevant tutoring/​teaching experience, and from all indications, had never tutored in the SSAT. I really feel like they tried to pass off their least in-​demand tutors on a new family who might not know any better. As soon as I complained, they sent me someone whose speciality was SSAT tutoring. I think once we got the right tutor, the quality of tutoring was perfectly fine. The bigger problem was that Varsity sells you on this complete package where you feel you’re basically going to get the same support and infrastructure as say sending your child to a group class at Princeton Review. But the reality is that while the tutors can leverage the online materials (practice tests, etc.), Varsity Tutors does not have any set programs designed for these tutors to follow. The tutors are all coming in with their own way (or lack thereof) of approaching the subject which means you can have a very different experience depending on the tutor, and also that as a parent you’ll have to be very involved to understand what the plan is moving forward. With more structured programs, they will have your child take a full practice test first thing, so they can evaluate strengths and weaknesses and figure out where to focus. They’ll then set-​up a schedule to follow in terms of curriculum and additional practice tests for the time between when you start and when the test is scheduled to be taken. We did not get any of that with Varsity, and I actually had to suggest to our tutor that it would be a good idea for my child to take a practice test first before starting our first session. Although the tutor then provided some links to practice tests both on the Varsity sight and elsewhere, I ultimately had to do my own search to find a full test vs. individual sections of the test. While the weekly instruction was fine, there was no set mechanism for the tutor to provide feedback or updates, such that I had to be very pro-​active in asking for this feedback. From all indications, this is a group of very loosely affiliated tutors who receive no training or support from Varsity. The tutors presented to us appeared to be doing this work as side jobs in addition to other education or non-​education related jobs. Varsity basically makes the intro to the tutor, and after that you are on your own. All in all, I find this online model to have so much potential, but the way it is currently executed by Varsity is quite poor. I would not recommend using their online tutoring for test prep. Perhaps single subjects would be different.

My daughter has completed tutoring sessions for the SSAT and we were extremely pleased. The tutor was amazing and has improved her ability in all sections of the SSAT. The prices were a lot more reasonable than any other place and I could not be happier with the level of service we received. The tutor was able to come to our home or do online tutoring whenever we traveled. Honestly I tried few other tutoring companies but I felt Varsity Tutors were always responsive to my needs.

Tutoring for Varsity Tutors has been an amazing experience as they allow me to exercise my passion for teaching by connecting me with great families with whom I share a common goal: to help their students reach their potential and help build their academic confidence. Representatives at Varsity Tutors are always super helpful and always available, whether to aid me or my students and their families. I really don’t feel the more negative business-​oriented vibes that I have received from previous employers with Varsity Tutors. Feel safe when you entrust them with your children’s education.

This is a review of Varsity Tutors, not the actual tutor we had for our daughter.
They had no tutors available to come to our home so we went with the online tutoring. I bought a package deal with the unused hours available for refund. Read the fine print before you get into this situation. Big headache. Administratively I would say these folks are pretty marginal. They did deliver an SAT tutor to my daughter and she said he was ‘ok’ (He was tutoring from the east coast via laptop).
But that was about all the positives — getting an SAT tutor online. Which is their job.
Beyond that, from my end as the paying adult, I would not recommend Varsity Tutors (the business). In fact, I feel had my daughter been privy to all the emails and phone calls she would have been distracted from the goal of being tutored. I think she got her $$ worth but all that was the responsibility of the actual tutor, not the ‘company.’