5 Things Your Private Tutor Won’t Tell You

5 Things Your Orange County Private Tutor Won’t Tell You

We would all like to have hidden tips from our tutors. Tutors are there to advocate for their students and keep their best interests in mind. Certain tips and tricks are fairly easy for a tutor to hand out. For instance, they can talk about the latest SAT news (READ: “5 Awesome SAT Apps“) or the most successful ways to write an AP essay. Private tutors can help you find shortcuts on those difficult, multi-step algebra problems and they can help you uncover the hidden meanings in Shakespeare’s passages. However, there are some things that your tutor won’t tell you.

Are they keeping valuable information from you? Not at all. In fact, keeping some information confidential, or in context, will actually help you be more confident in your own skills and abilities. Here at TutorNerds, we wish to approach each student as an individual; someone who learns differently from other clients. Therefore, your experience should be enjoyable and unique. That being said, here are five things your Irvine in-home tutor won’t tell you – it’s for your own good!

1. How their other students are doing

Tutors don’t want to talk about their other students. They are at your home to help you and focus on your specific academic needs. Their other students might be breezing through a challenging course or they might be struggling immensely but your tutor doesn’t want you to focus on other students, they want you to focus on you. In reality, it would seem helpful to know how others are doing on the SAT this year; after all they are your competition. But this information is private and stays in the other students’ households (READ: “8 SAT Essay Tips“).

Tutors might talk about other students in general, including students from many years ago or about all students who take a particular AP subject but specific details about advances in learning stays separate. If you want to be able to compare yourself to fellow students (which might be a good idea if you will be attending a college or university that grades on a curve) it’s best to go straight to the source. Ask your friends and classmates how things are going? Are you right in the middle range of your peer study group? Are you at the top or the bottom?

You can also look at your larger competition by studying your nationwide competition. Buy a book that tells you what colleges are looking for this year and then compare yourself to the average student that is admitted. Make sure you are looking at stats for 2014-2015. Anything from 2013 is out of date.

2. The realities of college level study

College is really, intensely challenging. This is the reality. College courses are like AP courses only harder. Unless your tutor really wants to motivate you, they probably won’t mention this. It is not pertinent for a 16-year-old student to worry about tasks that they will be asked to do when they are 20. If you were to focus on the fact that your intensive study in high school was rewarded with more intensive study in college, life as a full time student can become quickly overwhelming (READ: “Summer Spent Well: What Are Colleges Looking For?“).

There is no real need to worry about this in your sophomore or junior year of high school. The reality is that the college that admits you feels confident that you will be capable of completing the work put in front of you when the time comes.

If it makes you feel any better, I was terrified of how successful- or unsuccessful – I would be in college. The first term was tough (Why is building 102 next to building 605 and seriously why is the psychology section in the library next to the art history section?). Once you get past the transition, you will be at an intellectual level appropriate for the studies that you are doing. Of course, if you don’t show up for class or don’t take notes, all bets are off. Your tutor doesn’t want you to worry about all that just now. Focus on the immediate task at hand and enjoy life as a high school student, and when the time comes, hire a private college admissions consultant from TutorNerds.

3. How much easier it was to get into college 10 years ago

This is true. It was much easier to get into college 10 years ago. I am amazed to see what students have to go though today to get accepted into a good university. The 3.8 is now a 4.3, the 1800 is now a 1950 and the cost of college tuition has nearly doubled. I had time to think about non-college prep issues, I had time to see friends and I had time to seep in late on Saturday. Those days are over. Tutors don’t want to make you feel any more stressed or depressed about the current reality so they try not to mention how much easier it was.

4. Subjects that are outside of their specialty

Tutors generally won’t talk about subjects outside of their expertise. Your organic chemistry tutor likely won’t know how to help you with your SAT essay portion and your AP language tutor probably won’t chat with you about physics. There are multi subject tutors out there so it doesn’t hurt to ask but most tutors stick to one to three subjects.

5. Anything specific about another student

Tutors will never tell you specifics about another student. They might say “the average AP European history student…” or they might say “most students applying to UCLA…” or they could say “I had a student several years ago whose scores improved when they…” but they will never talk about identifying information. Specific information is private and confidential. Your personal information is private as well.

One final thing, your private tutor will NEVER tell you to cheat, tell you the answers, or do the work for you. There’s nothing sadder than to see a student with so much potential throw it all away because he or she used somebody’s work as their own (READ: “9 Things You Should Already Know About Plagiarism“).

All blog entries, with the exception of guest bloggers, are written by Tutor Nerds. Are you an education professional? If so, email us at [email protected] for guest blogging and collaborations. We want to make this the best free education resource in SoCal, so feel free to suggest what you would like to see us post about.

The beginning of a new school year is crucial for establishing a strong academic performance. In other words, if your child wants to reach his or her potential, they can’t fall behind from the start. Hiring an Orange County private tutor is much more than extra academic help, it’s a confidence boost. Have your child be the first to raise their hand in the classroom by hiring a college educated tutor from TutorNerds. Contact us today!