University Tutor has more than 90,000 tutors and services 8,000 cities worldwide. Customers can easily look up a tutor's profile which includes their experience and education along with reviews from past students. If you like the tutor, you can contact them immediately to discuss potential tutoring sessions.
thumb_up
The Good
Tutor Options
Selecting a tutor is an important part of the tutoring process. University Tutor is set up where students can select their own tutor online. Students have complete control. Even though the selection process is all done online, this doesn't mean that the sessions need to all happen online too. University Tutor is made so you can find tutors directly in your area. You can meet your tutors whenever scheduled and you can even choose the location, whether it is at a library, coffee shop or on campus.
thumb_down
The Bad
- Pricing
- Learning Tools
- Undisclosed Number of Subjects
- Unknown Grade Levels
- Tutor Qualifications
Pricing
The first thing a customer looks at when researching a company is their prices. It's hard to get a sound price for tutoring companies, but University Tutor's website says their costs range anywhere from $10-250. First of all, this is a pretty wide range and isn't much help. On the other hand, there is no actual way to see how much tutors charge their students. Even if we took an average cost it would end up being $130/hour which is way above what any other tutoring company charges. It would be nice if there was a smaller range so customers could get a better idea of costs or see on the tutor's profile their own price range. But since neither of these options are available, then this greatly affects University Tutor's Overall Score.
Learning Tools
Having the availability of learning tools is a huge benefit to students. This gives them access to additional resources if they want extra assistance and in different learning styles. Even though University Tutor has live chat and video conferencing options, they don't expand much passed that. Other companies will offer other tools in addition including file sharing, audio/visual tools and more. This is one area University Tutor could improve on if they want to be considered heavy competition in the tutoring industry.
Undisclosed Number of Subjects
When students sign up with a tutoring company, it's important that the company covers the subject(s) the student needs help in. We do know that University Tutor covers the basic subjects such as Math, English, Science, Foreign Language, and Social Sciences, but we do not know if they cover subjects outside of those foundational topics. Most companies will list the number of subjects they cover and unfortunately with University Tutor they do not. If a person is looking for a subject a little more specific, then they would have to do in-depth research on their own to see if they can get a tutor in that area of expertise.
Unknown Grade Levels
One of the biggest problems with University Tutor is that they do not display what grades they service. Most companies will tutor as young as elementary-aged students. With the name "University Tutor," some people might argue that they only cover students who are taking college or university courses. If this is the case, then it is very limiting to both University Tutor and potential customers. It's a simple solution to post the available grades online, and University Tutor should look into adding that information online as soon as possible.
Tutor Qualifications
Even though University Tutor makes their sign up process so customers can see the profiles of potential tutors, it does not say whether the company, as a whole, screens the tutors that work with the company. We see it as valuable if the company requires a certification, process, or even a certain degree to become a tutor, but University Tutor doesn't have any formal process set in place. Students are completely on their own when it comes to screening the tutors.