While we aren’t happy that COVID-19 has forced us to change our behaviors and adapt to a new normal, shifting to online education isn’t always such a negative thing. Particularly for older students who are capable of working independently and have a drive to meet their goals, online learning can be a valuable tool to help them get there. Many students throughout the world were taking advantage of online tutoring long before COVID-19 showed up. That’s because online tutoring can be incredibly effective, and we think it’s the perfect tool to help high schoolers with college admissions test prep. Here’s why…

The 7 Perks of Online ACT Test Prep

1. Resources

2. Time

3. Cost

4. Accessibility

5. Flexible Scheduling

6. Safety

7. Comfort

Resources

In the 21st century, we’re living in a very interconnected world. Our reality is that we can host virtual meetings with clients on different continents, we can hop on a plane and be a world away in less than a day, and we can talk to virtually anyone via the internet. This is a phenomenal thing to think about and something that is quite new to our world.

We literally have a world of information and resources at our fingertips. This is an asset that we use every single day, and it is an asset that can be applied to education as well.

When you consider in-person education, you’re limited to the resources that are available in your location. If I live in Minneapolis, I need to find a tutor that lives in Minneapolis and who has time to meet with me and help educate me. But if I look to online learning, I suddenly open many, many doors of possible resources. Perhaps the tutor that I think will be the best fit for me is located in California or New York. That’s no problem. All I have to do is take time zones into account and get on my computer at the agreed-upon time. Just like that I have access to many more resources, and perhaps one of these is a better resource for me and my individual learning needs than a resource that I could have found at home.

Time

We all know that time is precious, and, COVID-19 social distancing aside, we generally feel like we don’t have enough of it in a day to accomplish everything that we want to. Online tutoring can be a big help in saving valuable time.

When meeting for in-person tutoring, students and tutors both have to commute to the agreed-upon location. For some, this commute may be minimal, but for others this commute can be extensive. Students are often running from one commitment to the next, which has them exhausted before they even sit down for the tutoring session. By conducting tutoring sessions online, the commute is completely eliminated and students and tutors can jump on a video session from the comforts of their homes just moments before it’s scheduled to start.

Cost

Private tutoring can be expensive. We won’t lie to you. Depending on what skills you’re trying to develop and how much time you plan to spend being tutored, the costs can vary greatly from quite reasonable to very, very expensive. There’s a reason that tutoring has a cost, though. For college test prep, there are real returns that students and families can see on their tutoring investment. Students can be admitted to great schools, they can receive scholarships worth thousands and thousands of dollars, and they can go on to get a great education that will put them on a career path that they love and that will take good care of them. For these potential reasons, tutoring can absolutely be worth the cost.

Yet, if we can cut costs, that can be a really good idea sometimes. Online tutoring tends to be less expensive than in-person tutoring. This is true for a couple of reasons. First, the in-person tutoring rates will account for the time they spend commuting to and from the tutoring session. By tutoring online, that commute is completely eliminated. Additionally, when tutoring in-person, tutors will often provide practice materials for students to work on. When tutoring sessions take place online, those practice materials become virtual, which eliminates their need to provide many supplies, such as paper.

For these reasons, you’ll find that online tutoring tends to cost a bit less than in-person tutoring. You’ll still receive the great education, but you’ll pay a little bit less for it.

Accessibility

Similar to our first point about resource availability, there is also something to be said about equal accessibility. Consider the student that lives in a very rural area where there may not be qualified tutors to help him or her reach their goals in a desired skillset. With the help of online learning, now those students are given equal access as students living in large cities where there tend to be more resources present. The student from the small farm town and the student from New York City can both have the opportunity to work with the highly-rated ACT test prep tutor that lives in Minneapolis. This equals the playing field for rural students who are often at a disadvantage in terms of educational development.

Flexible Scheduling

Schedules quickly can become full and messy when you’re a tutor scheduling multiple sessions each week with many different students. When working with students in-person, tutors also have to consider the time it will take them to get to and from sessions, where they need to go next, how they’re going to make time to eat somewhere between all these sessions, and whether there will be traffic or an accident that puts them behind schedule. It can be exhausting to juggle all these factors at the same time.

Similarly, we know the same is true of the modern high schooler’s schedule. We completely understand that schedules change. Practice times shift out of nowhere, some big group projects gets assigned out of the blue, there’s a football game on Friday that you’d rather go to than sit and learn about the ACT. We totally get it, and we’ve absolutely been there.

But these changing schedules can make it really hard for tutors to juggle. For that reason, tutors are not usually very forgiving about things like rescheduling and late cancellations as they relate to in-person tutoring sessions. It’s difficult to adapt their schedules, and time spent commuting is still their valuable time, so late cancellations usually result in full cost from the client.

With online tutoring, though, tutors are generally more flexible and more understanding when schedules change. After all, there is no commute that they have to consider, so it makes it much easier to adapt their schedules and see where rescheduled sessions can be moved to. Given this, there is not generally a penalty associated with rescheduling scheduled online tutoring sessions unless students fail to show up or cancel after a session has begun.

Safety

With COVID-19 wreaking havoc in many areas throughout the world and for many families throughout our country, safety is even more of a priority than ever right now. We want to keep everyone safe, which includes our students, our tutors, and any community members who they may interact with on their way to or from or during tutoring sessions.

From a public health perspective, online tutoring is the only way to make absolutely certain that students and tutors are safe from COVID-19 at this time. Online tutoring keeps everyone safe and also gives everyone the peace of mind to know that they are safe.

Comfort

There’s definitely something to be said about being comfortable while learning. If students are uncomfortable in a specific environment, they’re not likely to absorb very much new information and really learn very well.

By conducting tutoring in a way that allows both students and tutors to work from the comfort of their homes, everyone is being put into a comfortable learning environment. Students can choose a location in their house that’s quiet and that will allow them to concentrate on the tutoring session. Tutors can set up their environment so that they have all the tools they need and are ready to conduct the best sessions possible. It’s really a win-win situation for both parties.

These are just the factors that made our Top 7. We’re all individuals and have our own opinions, so it’s very possible that some of the reasons you love online tutoring didn’t even make our list. At the same time, we acknowledge that no two people learn quite the same way. For some, online learning can be distracting and retaining information can be extra difficult through a screen. We’re not saying that online tutoring is a one-size-fits-all solution. There are definitely students who will perform better in in-person settings, but at the moment that’s simply not a reality for us.

COVID-19 has left us all adjusting to new normals, and we’re honestly doing a great job. Schools and teachers have quickly adapted their learning practices so that students can continue to learn this spring and won’t have to repeat grades next year. That’s amazing. For students looking for additional educational support, we strongly recommend online tutoring. Whether you’re looking for a chemistry tutor to give you a little extra boost in one of your high school classes or you’re interested in spending your time on ACT or SAT test prep, online tutoring is a flourishing industry and the opportunities are endless.

If you’re interested in learning more about our ACT and SAT test prep tutoring, we’d love to hear from you!

Good luck, and happy studying!

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