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Most of these tutoring services hire tutors with good academics. Some of very selective and expensive. Others hire mostly college kids at high markup.
In general, individual MCAT tutors can generally be found by searching and you will get locations near you. They don’t get squeezed out by tutoring services as with other types of tutoring, and that is generally your best bet, as decent MCAT tutoring will be expensive anyway.
When you’re looking for help in preparing for the SAT/ACT and other standardized tests, your eye is naturally going to be drawn to tutoring services that are in some way or another associated with the Ivy League or other elite schools. This is a natural association, as these schools require students to have 99th percentile test scores and likely many of these students received some instruction themselves, making them veterans of the system. Although you might think such services are relatively rare based on their selective requirements, such services are relatively common, especially in areas that have an Ivy/Elite school nearby.
These testing services often command serious prices for their work, and so you might be wondering what you are paying for when you ask a tutoring service for a tutor. There is wide variety in different styles, but in general, tutoring services are effectively middlemen-liaisons between a set of tutors under independent contractor contracts and clients. Services usually take around 2/3rds of the total fee for themselves, and that fee is mostly to pay for owner’s profit, office space, the administrative liaisons between clients and tutors, and other such sundry expenses. In some sense, one can think about using a tutoring service as paying for “branding” – tutoring services usually have very transparent reviews, publicity, and other things that allow you to vet their services. However, these services also have extremely high-turnover, and tutors with varying experience levels will all essentially cost the same price. It should be said, however, that such services still often have high-levels of success, drawing from a very strong talent-pool and often will have strong insight and recommendations in and outside of tutoring.
Instead, you might turn to more individualized ivy tutoring and elite tutoring services. For example, Wyzant.com only charges about a third for their tutors, and their tutors all have visible feedback and often excellent credentials and high levels of experience. Another option is choosing individual tutors with well-regarded recommendations and credentials, like Reasonsat, Ken Abbott, or myself.
One thing that’s worth mentioning, especially in a time of coronavirus, is the difference between online and in-person instruction. While in person instruction is likely going to remain non-existent for some time, it can often be more effective than online tutoring services. This comes with several caveats, however: in-person tutoring has to be done at a venue or a home that is quiet and conducive to studying, especially with the tools to make studying effective. Often, it is significantly less convenient than online tutoring, which needs to be taken into account. Moreover, professional online tutors and tutoring services that are moving online will invest into their online learning experience and expertise, creating a more seamless online tutoring experience. All this is to say that in-person tutoring vs. online tutoring is really a matter of preference, but neither should be counted out – ultimately, the most important factor in whether you are getting a quality tutoring service is just that – the quality of the tutoring service itself.
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