eTutoring

Author: Kaitlyn Short

eTutoring is an online tutoring platform that allows tutors to work with students synchronously and asynchronously. Students can have their questions answered in real time or by essay submissions left for review and comments. eTutoring is currently used across North America in more than 130 two- and four-year, public and private colleges and universities.

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The Good

• Learning Tools

Learning Tools

One of eTutoring's highlights is that they offer a great variety of online tools for customers to take advantage of. They have options for text and audio chat, video conferencing, shared whiteboard space, and file sharing. eTutoring has more options available than most other companies in the industry.

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The Bad

• Pricing
• Tutor Availability
• Subjects Covered
• Grade Levels
• Tutor Qualifications

Pricing

eTutoring is partnered up with more than 130 colleges and universities. Students of these institutions get to reap the benefits of eTutoring for free!  However, 130 is only a fraction of how many colleges and universities there are in the United States. When you put that into perspective, only a small number of students will get to use the platform for free. For the students who are not enrolled in those schools, we couldn't find a price. Anything for free is nice, so people who do attend one of these partnered schools should try eTutoring based off the price alone, but if you're not then it might not be worth it.

Tutor Availability

The nice thing about eTutoring's tutor availability is that students can reach out to their tutors online at any time of the day. The only potential problem with this is that a tutor might not necessarily be available online at that time when the student needs help. If there is a pressing question, this could be an issue. However, we also look at how customers are paired with their tutor. Some tutoring companies will match students with a tutor they think will best fit their needs or they will allow the student to fully choose their tutor on their own. Others will allow both options according to what the customer prefers. eTutoring does not disclose how the selection process is done which can be frustrating when potential customers are shopping around. Also, another problem we see is that they do not have any in-person assistance, everything is 100% done online. Students who learn better by having a person directly helping them side-by-side will not be able to flourish very well with this platform.

Subjects Covered

eTutoring does not disclose how many subjects they cover which makes it even harder for consumers to see if eTutoring will work for their needs. People specifically look for tutors who can teach them in a specialized subject, so this is a big problem. What's even worse is that eTutoring doesn't even cover the basic subjects such as foreign language, social science, science, English, and math. If they don't tutor these foundational courses, we have no idea what subjects they will tutor.

Grade Levels

Another setback eTutoring runs into is that they only tutor for college-level students. This minimizes their potential audience significantly whereas other companies offer tutoring services to as young as Kindergarteners. Anyone who is looking for tutoring for anything less than college age will have to look elsewhere.

Tutor Qualifications

The last issue we found with eTutoring is that they do not have any formal processes in place to hire their tutors. We find that the best tutoring companies will require their tutors to have a certain degree or complete a certification to show that they are qualified to help others. This is not the case with eTutoring and makes us wonder how qualified their tutors really are. This is a major concern especially if they are only servicing college-level students. Tutors should be required to show they are capable of helping this older audience.

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The Bottom Line

Overall we found that eTutoring is not the best tutoring services there is to offer students. If you are a student of a partnered school, it might be worth trying solely because it is free. However, if you do not fit in this category, we highly recommend you look elsewhere. The qualifications aren't proven with tutors and customers not finding available subjects are two huge issues alone. This is when going to another company and paying a fee will be more beneficial than going the cheap or discounted route.