Learn To Be Logo
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Author: Kaitlyn Short

LAST UPDATED: November 21st, 2024

Learn To Be is a 501.3 non-profit that provides free tutor to at-risk students. This online platform allows at-risk students to receive one-on-one tutoring. This program was designed to help decrease the gap for underprivileged students. Learn To Be Believes all students deserve an education. We recommend Learn To Be for students in these types of situations.

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The Good

  • Free access
  • Whiteboard access
  • Certified tutors

Free Access

Learn To Be provides free tutoring sessions to underprivileged students across the nation. In order to qualify for these sessions, which start a one hour week and can change as needs are determined, students and guardians are required to fill out an application. Applications are found online and ask questions regarding the student and guardian to determine their need. Some questions are more personal and ask students' about their favorite book and what they could do to save the world. Once the application is complete, Learn To Be will call the guardian to better asses the situation and set-up a time to start tutoring. While Learn To Be wants to help all students, tutoring typically starts at 5th grade or higher.

Whiteboard Access

Another highlight of Learn To Be is their virtual classroom platform. This classroom gives students help in addition to one-on-one tutoring. Students are able re-watch sessions and gain further information by watching it back. The virtual classroom also has exercises by Khan Academy to help tutors further assess students and make sure they are understanding concepts. This online classroom helps tutors improve their teaching skills by going back and watching videos and seeing what they can improve on.

Certified Tutors

Learn To Be only offers certified tutors for students to learn from. Anyone can volunteer to become a tutor, they just have to go through an application process to be accepted and become certified. All tutors are volunteers; they are not paid to tutor.
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The Bad

  • Unclear subject catalog
  • Limited student availability

Unclear Subject Catalog

Since this is a need-based tutoring platform, the variety of subjects is unclear. Learn To Be does not specify what kind of subjects they provide tutoring for. It seems as though subject matter is strictly determined by the student on what their needs are. In other platforms, this could become a problem, but in Learn To Be's case, they base what subjects they tutor case-by-case.

Limited Student Availability

Most other platforms are based on monthly memberships or per hour for payment, so the amount of students accepted is not an issue. Since this is a non-profit for underprivileged students, there is a requirement to receive tutoring.
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The Bottom Line

Learn To Be provides tutoring to underprivileged youth across the country. Their certified tutors volunteer their time to help kids get education they deserve. We fully recommend Learn To Be as an excellent option for deserving kids across the country. However, if you do not qualify for Learn To Be, check out our top rated companies.
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9 Reviews

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5 grade

33%

4 grade

0%

3 grade

0%

2 grade

11%

1 grade

56%

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Doga Aksemsettinoglu

It's an amazing tutoring platform. My daughter used to tutor for them, and she loved the kids!

1 month ago

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Jim Goldman

While LearntoBe has a wonderful mission I would recommend avoiding this platform as a volunteer or a tutor. From what I have observed there is not much of a vetting process for tutors or students. I had no formal interview to become a tutor. I just filled out an application and filmed myself via webcam answering a few video questions. Due to LearntoBe failing to screen tutors and families, this leads to a variety of issues. Like other people have said you can have tutors or families who are not committed to the program and stop reaching out or disconnect for no reason. This has happened to me several times and is extremely frustrating and disheartening. The other issue I noticed was that often times the student's needs we're not adequately described. I had the opportunity to tutor two students in high school level math, however; the families mis-represented the students' abilities. I was expecting to tutor a high school student slightly behind in math, but I discovered that the students I tutored had the math skills of a 3rd or 4th grader. When I reached out to LearntoBe with these issues, they expressed concern, but took no action. Unless you are desperate I would highly recommend avoiding LearntoBe due to their failure to vet their tutors and students. They are a well meaning, but very disorganized organization.

5 months ago

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TJ Brooklyn, NY

TRASH!!! I had high hopes for this site I really did but the unprofessionalism is ridiculous. Yes things happen and yes it can me free if you decide not to donate but this is not a good site. None of the tutors stick around or keep proper contact, some at least have the decency to just release the child because they can’t stay committed. Meanwhile most of them sell you high hopes stating that they’ll show up to sessions and instead of giving a heads up they just ghost you. Stop hiring kids to work for free & the site could really be something great. Don’t even get me started with customer service, they seem nice at first but some of them like to go back and forth via e-mail trying to tell you exactly what you personally experienced. Just a tiring situation to be in, every other week it’s something and my child is left without a tutor and hasn’t been able to make progress because no one is reliable!

1 year ago

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jessica sloderbeck Ooltewah, TN

Took the time to know my child. When she didn't understand something the tutor explained it in a way that she could. First assignment after her tutoring session she got 100%!!!

1 year ago

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A Mother Carteret, NJ

During my time with Learn to Be, it has not been a pleasant experience. My daughter needed help with physics and as I was looking for tutors, we stumbled upon Learn to Be. It looked reliable and seemed like it fitted our needs but, after our fair share of 5 tutors in the past month, only 1 was actually willing to help. You need to message the tutors, describe them your child's needs and eventually, you would set up a date and time where they could meet through zoom online. Simple, right? Well, actually no. This is not the case when tutors never check or reply to your messages and leave you on days without an answer, ghosting you, and eventually "releasing you". Releasing is when you or the tutor thinks that it is not working out and cut off all sort of communication. Every single time I have "connected" with a tutor, they end up releasing my daughter, even before the first meeting. Another detail, you can't report the tutors to complain or tell people about the tutor, so essentially, they can connect from kid to kid, without ever ACTUALLY helping them and contributing to the platform's goal. Ultimately, my experience with this platform, as you have read, has not been positive and hope this helps any other parents who plan on joining or using this platform to "help" their kids, when it really doesn't. It is a waste of time and the "tutors" there don't help and you most likely, won't actually find someone who wants to help and is actually committed.

1 year ago Edited January 23, 2023

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B A

Signed up and none responded. I followed up and received an email stating "After carefully reviewing your application, we encountered some challenges in evaluating your eligibility due to a lack of information. This made it difficult to assess whether you meet our program's criteria." The professional way to handle this would have been to pick up the phone or send an email seeking additional information.

2 months ago

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Deborah Fox Tucson, AZ

I am a retired, credentialed educator with extensive teaching experience and a desire to provide online help to struggling students.I applied to volunteer with LTB. They did not respond. That meant, per their policy, I was not “accepted” as a tutor. No reason, no questions, no “thanks but, no thanks”. I wonder how serious they are and what their criteria is for accepting volunteers…

1 year ago

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Cindy miller Austin, TX

My sons tutor has been with him for over 3 years. He has been amazing and has helped my son tremendously.

1 year ago

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Kiawannia McMillon

Schedule with two different tutors both say can we reschedule since beginning of June horrible service.

6 months ago