8 Questions to Ask a Potential SAT Tutor

There are many excellent test-prep tutors online, and many mediocre ones. When you contact a potential teacher, you may find the following questions useful –

“How well can you do on the test?” The low end baseline is set by Kaplan, which demands its teachers score (at least) in the 90th percentile (a 1930 combined score). Students seeking high-end schools should look for a tutor who has reached the 99th percentile – a 760 in Reading, a 770 in Math, and a 750 in Writing.

“Do you work from actual tests?” This is a downside to test-prep companies, who use their own, imperfect, imitations of the test. (They'll tell you there's no difference, but don't believe them. The College Board spends $200 per question to write a test with no 'arguable' answers. People who teach the test can tell the difference.) The book to demand is The Official SAT Study Guide, by the College Board.

“Tell me your plan.” Make sure they have a structured plan on what they'll teach, and not just assign and grade practice tests.

“How will you help my student set a target score?” The correct answer includes a consideration of the average entrance scores at colleges the student might apply to. Without a meaningful target, students don't know what a “good score” is.

“How will you help my student track their progress?” Students should see whether they're practice scores are improving, standing still, or sinking down.

“How will you ensure that what you teach will be remembered on test day?” Bad memory is a dire problem: before I learned the importance of this, I wasted students' time, helping them solve grammar and math problems they forgot by the next week. The important idea is to build a student's understanding of strategies and the mistakes they make.

“Do you think the SAT is a meaningful test?” Answering this is tricky: it really does test basic reading, math, and grammar skills, but it is a timed test; it really does predict college performance, but only roughly. My opinion is that you want to steer clear of tutors who only badmouth the test, because it's hard to get students to work hard on what they think is a meaningless activity. Tutors who trashtalk in order to sound cool usually can't motivate students.

“How do you use the test to prepare students for college?” Simply put, students do poorly on the Critical Reading section because high schools don't prepare kids for college-level reading, they do poorly on the Writing section because schools don't teach grammar, they do poorly on the Math section because schools don't teach mathematical thinking. Your student is going to put a lot of time into studying for the test; it might as well serve double-duty as college prep.

Whoever you hire, choose wisely: find someone who won't waste your or your student's time.