Private tutoring is becoming more popular across all academic areas, and there’s really no surprise why: we all learn easier and faster when the instruction is catered to our specific goals and weaknesses. The ACT is no different. Students who work one-on-one with a knowledgable tutor will see much faster progress than those that try to prep independently or in group settings. However, there are a LOT of freelance tutors and tutoring companies out there, so it can be hard to decide who to work with. We’ve compiled a list of all the qualities that we think are important to look for in your tutor search, regardless of the tutoring subject. If you find a tutor with all of these characteristics, don’t let them slip away! Here’s what a great tutor looks like.

There are some qualities that you just would never think to sacrifice when it comes to selecting a tutor. For example, you would NEVER work with a tutor who doesn’t specialize in the subject that you need tutoring help in; you wouldn’t work with a math tutor when you’re trying to improve your reading skills. That’s a no-brainer.

But there are other important qualities of a tutor that sometimes get looked over or set aside. A tutor has to be so much more than a knowledge center that spits out answers when you ask questions. If that’s all you need, you’ll probably find just as much success studying independently with the help of Google, which is FREE. A tutor is a person that is meant to educate students individually. A tutor is a teacher. They need to be able to explain concepts, help students work through information until they understand, and create an environment where students feel comfortable expressing their ideas, asking questions, and learning.

If you think back to some of your favorite school teachers, you’ll probably find that the reason they became your favorites had more to do with their personality than with their knowledge level. My favorite teachers were super sweet, hilarious, fun, and they made me excited to go to school and sit in their classrooms. Tutoring is the same way. There won’t be progress unless the tutor’s personality is a good match for the student, no matter how brilliant the tutor is.

We’ve compiled a list of all the qualities that we think are critical in making a great tutor for any subject matter. Great tutors are out there, so don’t settle for someone that does not display all of these qualities.

What makes a great tutor? A great tutor is…

Knowledgeable
You won’t be able to learn much from a tutor that isn’t knowledgeable about the topic they’re trying to educate you in. An awesome tutor will be full of knowledge that they want to share with students. They’ll be able to walk students through complex problems and topics and educate them on a vast amount of information. Many tutors claim to be highly educated and knowledgeable about their tutoring areas, but make sure to do your research and confirm that the tutor has an appropriate background and amount of experience to get you the tutoring results you’re after.

Specialized
We already talked about how a tutor needs to specialize in the content that they’re tutoring. This is the same for any professional teacher or college professor: they all specialize in a particular category or set of categories. This helps them be better educators because they remain focused on the same areas, which they become experts on. We do this with our careers as well. Consider doctors for a moment. If you have stomach problems, you go to a gastroenterologist. If you’re seeing strange lesions on your skin, you visit a dermatologist. For prenatal care when you’re pregnant you’d see an OBGYN. You wouldn’t even think to see one single doctor for all of those things. (Or most of us wouldn’t - maybe you’re lucky and have found an incredible doctor.) The point is, don’t trust the tutor that says they are an expert in 84 different subjects. They may try to tutor in 84 subjects, but they aren’t likely to be the best tutor at any of those 84 topics simply because they aren’t focused enough on one area to become an expert at it. Your best bet is to find someone who specializes in the topic you need support with.

Someone with a love of learning
If a tutor doesn’t enjoy what they’re teaching and doesn’t have a passion for it, the student is going to be able to tell. A great tutor’s passion will inspire students to want to grow and learn. Additionally, a tutor that loves to learn will grow and change with the times. They will constantly be growing in and adapting their tutoring methods, incorporating new technologies into lessons, implementing new tactics based on research, and more.

Professional
A great tutor will retain an appropriate level of professionalism in all areas at all times. This is true for everything from personal appearance and attire to organization and level of preparedness for each lesson. A professional tutor understands that this is their job and they want to be taken seriously as a leader in their field of education.

Personal
This may seem to contradict the point we just made, but good teaching requires a special blend of the personal and the professional. A great tutor will be able to have a personal relationship with every student and client without losing sight of their professionalism. This ties in to our upcoming point about caring. Great tutors create great relationships with clients and students that are personal and meaningful because great tutors actually care about their students and the success they see.

Patient
Patience is a huge part of being an educator. Learning does not always happen quickly and seamlessly — in fact, it almost never happens that way. A great tutor will understand this and help students to learn and grow by revisiting and repeating content as necessary until they reach the level of understanding that they hope to.

Kind
This one should go without saying, but we’re noting it here anyway. Think back to your favorite school teachers growing up. I’m guessing they were pretty kind people. As humans, we’re drawn to kind, warm-hearted people. In contrast, we shy away from people that seem to have a sharp, negative cloud surrounding them. A great teacher or educator needs to be warm-hearted and kind with students in order to create an environment that fosters learning. For this reason, some of the smartest people in the world might be terrible teachers. A brilliant scientist could teach you an enormous amount of incredible information, but if he is not kind or is impatient or too sharp-edged, you are not going to feel comfortable enough to put your mind into a state of learning. Learning requires you to ask questions, use your imagination, and be a critical thinker. It’s difficult to enter into these deeper states of thought when you’re worried about the teacher getting mad at you for asking a silly question.

Respectful
Learning is not a terribly easy thing. What you’re doing is training your brain to understand and retain new information based on new concepts, which can sometimes be incredibly complex. Great tutors are respectful of students and know that every student does not learn the same way or at the same pace. A great tutor does not judge their students. Great tutors adapt their education plans to meet a particular student where they are at a given point and helps guide them to their goals.

A good listener
Learning requires critical thinking, asking questions, and understanding information inside and out. Effective tutoring requires that the tutor create an environment that allows the student to do all of those things: think critically, ask questions, and understand information. To do this, a tutor needs to reflect on the student’s situation, the level of progress they are making, and adapt their educational plan to best fit that specific student. The student is a tutor’s best source of feedback. You can learn a lot about how a student learns and what is going to work in a learning plan and what is not just by listening to what the student has to say.

Confident
A great tutor should know that they are great at what they do. Someone who is confident in their field makes for a better educator because you can feel the positive energy they give off simply by speaking and doing with confidence. In contrast, a tutor who is unconfident will likely not find their methods resonating with students. Students can tell when a tutor maybe doesn’t know what they’re doing, and this results in tutoring be ineffective, even if the tutor actually does know what they are talking about but lacks confidence. Look for a tutor that knows their stuff and isn’t afraid to say it and scream it and sing it to the world.

Someone who can switch gears
Education and learning doesn’t always follow the roadmap you expect, even when you spend so much time studying it and creating a plan that you think is going to be perfect for a certain student. A good tutor knows that sometimes they will have to switch gears and change course when a certain method or plan just isn’t working.

An open communicator
A private tutor is compensated for assisting a student in their learning of a specific area. Sometimes the tutor will work and coordinate sessions directly with the student rather than the parent, mainly if the student is older. In these situations, it’s really important that the tutor keep an open communication line with the parents to keep them up to speed on the course of tutoring and the student’s overall progress — or lack thereof. A great tutor will recognize when a student is not seeing results, and they will shift the course of their plan, keeping the parents informed all the while. However, there will be some students that just seem to not see results, no matter what approach a tutor takes and what changes they make. It could be that the tutor isn’t the right one for the job based on background and knowledge level. It could be that the student requires attention in some other area before they can see progress in this area. Whatever the case, a great tutor will acknowledge when they are not the right fit for a student, and they will be open about that with the parent. A great tutor is engaged in a relationship with a family and desires to help students learn. A great tutor will not deceive families and make them spend lots of money while seeing little or no results.

Flexible
Today, everyone is crazy busy. We’re all jam-packing our schedules full of work, school, activities, vacations, and more. It can be hard to make room for private tutoring with an already-packed schedule. A great tutor understands this and accepts that having a flexible schedule comes with the territory of being a professional tutor. There will be tutoring companies that try to avoid this flexibility, requiring down-payments and crazy cancellation fees if you don’t notify them within a few days, or things like that, but a great tutor understands that they need to work around your schedule and will be readily willing to do this.

Accessible
In addition to being flexible with scheduling, a great tutor will make sure they are accessible to parents and families that are obtaining their services. They will let parents text message them about upcoming sessions or asking for progress updates at any hour, and they will be right there at their phone or computer ready to help and answer questions. The whole 9-5 standard job is totally not a thing with professional tutors. Great tutors will work crazy hours and be totally willing to communicate with families at odd times when needed.

Caring
If you can only seem to find a tutor that fits some of the characteristics we’ve noted here, please make sure this last one is evident: the tutor cares about your student’s success. Having a tutor that doesn’t care is just like having a teacher that doesn’t care. Student complain about that teacher, dread going to their class, and eventually that teacher probably quits and makes a career change because a teacher that doesn’t care just doesn’t make sense. A great tutor wants nothing more than to help your student reach their goal, whatever that may be.

Now that you have a picture of what the perfect tutor looks like, remember these traits during your next tutor search.

The Prepared Student: A Company of Great Tutors

At The Prepared Student, we make sure that our tutors fit all of the criteria above. We are specialized in the areas of ACT test prep and college application essay support, and we have a proven method for ACT prep.

At The Prepared Student, we consider ACT test prep effective when it leaves students prepared to defeat three areas on test day:

1. Content Knowledge: Students need to be knowledgable about many concepts and ideas in order to do well on all four sections of the ACT. We work to pinpoint students strengths and weaknesses and use focused practice to fill in any content knowledge gaps that may hold a student back on test day.

2. Pace & Timing: The ACT is composed of four sections with some pretty intense time constraints. That means students are tested on how well they can work through content quickly. This is where identifying specific strategies comes into play. Strategies that work well for one student may not work well for another because every student is unique. Our expert tutors guide the student and test various strategies, tweaking any that are effective until they help the student to answer as many questions as possible as accurately as possible in the time given.

3. Psychological Barriers: This is where things like test anxiety and confidence come into play. Some students are naturally more anxious than others when it comes to standardized exams, or exams in general. One main area of focus for our one-on-one test prep is repetitive practice of content and strategies. By building familiarity of the exam with frequent practice, there is no way for the student to be surprised on test day - they’ll know exactly what is coming. This is a huge step in building confidence and lessening any test anxiety. All students differ in this area as well, and the complete approach to lessening psychological barriers will change from one student to the next.

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