<p>I noticed more and more academically top-performing kids are being privately tutored. The tutoring may be one-on-one, in a small group, or in a camp. I was still of the mind that tutoring was only for kids who cant keep pace at school when S1 told me that nearly all of the members on his schools math team either had private math tutoring or had been trained in math camps. When I looked deeper into this, they werent just being tutored in math. </p>
<p>The concept that already top ranked kids get privately tutored to stay on top in school was foreign to me. May be I was too old-fashioned and didnt realize things have changed. Signing up for SAT tutoring before the test is one thing, getting paid help in school subjects that you are already very good at just to stay on top is quite another. Unless Im wrong, I believe this is a recent phenomenon. Sure there were exceptions in my days, but not on this scale. What triggered this? Do our kids have to play this game just so they can hang with other tutored kids? How do they not be part of this and still be competitive for college admissions?</p>
<p>School is harder. Our S is taking 4 AP classes as a senior (including 2 with after school science labs) and already took 4 in prior years, far more than were available in my day. He attends a relatively average public school with overworked but strong teachers. We have had him going to a tutor 1 hour a week for AP physics and AP math and it has made a huge difference in his enjoyment and understanding of the subjects, as well as grades of course. He now wants to major in physics. Without the tutor, I’m sure he’d be going a different route.</p>
<p>Not too recent, unfortunately. My son, who graduated 7 years ago, had many classmates who went to tutoring after school from upper elementary school through high school. Many of them had SAT tutors in 6th and 7th, when they took the SAT through the TIP program. I never saw the point…</p>
<p>Very common in our area for AP math and science classes.
My friend was completely opposed to hiring a tutor for her son, who is a very talented math student. He finally convinced her when he pointed out that he was one of two students in the whole class without a regular weekly tutor.</p>
<p>I think it is AWESOME!! It is no different than a pitching coach – If you don’t want your child to do this than by all means don’t - Many parents want to encourage their children to do the best with the talents they have -</p>
<p>That’s pretty surprising to me. I cannot think of any student in any honors or AP classes I’ve taken during my high school time who has used a tutor, expect for a couple who were struggling. My school also has state math champions and none of them have private tutoring (many of them don’t have time for after-school tutoring). Perhaps one reason why this doesn’t happen is that my school does not rank.</p>
<p>There is a lot of that going on. Many of the top kids in our area have tutors. We looked into it, but it is expensive and tough to schedule in. Our DD has good grades, but sometimes she complains that the “teachers don’t teach, so I have to figure it our on my own.” There are a ton of athletes that take outside-of-school coaching. I don’t know why it would be any different for math and science.</p>
<p>I have not seen this phenomenon in my part of the country. Top students are not getting outside tutoring in academic subjects. Maybe a few top students are receiving tutoring in some academic subject that’s outside of the high school curriculum in order to prepare for a competition. (In high school, my son studied Organic Chem with his AP Chem teacher outside school to prepare for the Chem Olympiad.) But that’s not high school curriculum. Top students getting tutors to keep up with the toughest high school curriculum? Never heard of it. Similarly, of the kids I know who have earned 35s and 36s on the ACT (most kids around here don’t sit for the SAT) not a single one had any test prep beyond some modest self-study.</p>
<p>This is surprising to me too. My kids attend a competitive, private school (where the parents certainly have the means to pay for tutors) and I have never heard of any kid getting tutored for APs. Perhaps itsbecause the school requires kids to have a certain gpa, sit for a test, and have all As in previous courses to even take an AP. The assumption is if you are taking the class, you should be able to handle the material. I wonder if these kids continue to need tutoring when they get to college??</p>
<p>We’ve hired private tutors on a couple of occasions. Not to help our daughter to win the race to the top or to stay there, but just to keep from falling off a cliff. It would be nice to think that all of our public school teachers know how to teach their subject matter, but that just isn’t the case. There are incompetent tenured teachers, just as there are superb ones. There are also some teachers out there who favor boys over girls or vice versa, and there are teachers who are intellectual bullies. In our case, we’ve had to bring in a math tutor who specializes in helping girls overcome math phobia because of inadequate in-school teaching and, in one case, bullying behavior. Fortunately, we’re in the position to hire outside help, as are those parents who hire tutors to help their child be the best he or she can be. Is it fair that many parents cannot afford this luxury? No. But there has never been a level playing field when itn comes to education or most other endeavors in life.</p>
<p>Not a lot of this going on in our public HS … although I would not be surprised if the families in town that send their kids to private high schools are hiring tutors in much greater numbers than the public HS families fro two reasons … one, the bucks to pay for it … two, a different approach to parenting.</p>
<p>I have heard from some parents that they and their kids hide the fact that they have tutors from their teachers because, in the past, some teachers have taken it as an insult. It is kind of funny - in an absurd kind of way. Can you just imagine a really smart kid “stepping out” on his math teacher and always nervous that he is going to get cought at the chalk board of another math teacher?</p>
<p>Sometimes, when I see stuff like this I remind myself of one of my MIL’s favorite sayings: </p>
<p>“You have to be every age once. If you aren’t 16 when you are 16, you’ll be 16 later in life and it is not a pretty picture when a 40 year old is out acting like he’s 16.”</p>
<p>So, I just remind myself that my children get to study hard and play hard. That time to play is pretty critical. When I remind myself of this I remember that if it takes 12 APs and hours of tutoring and thousands of dollars to get into HPY, then maybe HPY just isn’t worth it. At least to me and my family. </p>
<p>Did I mention that my DS and about 25 other guys are currently out practicing their cheerleader dance routine for the annual Powder Puff football game this week? I think he’s going to look good in that costume…</p>
<p>There is a huge difference. Most school teams don’t have a good pitching coach who can teach beyond the basics or take in account the individual pitching style of the student. Same is true with musical instruments and other types of performing arts, because these activities are NOT the primary focus of our K-12 education. On the other hand, academics IS the primary focus, and teaching it is the raison d’</p>
<p>How do so many of you know whether or not students in your school have tutors? I do not remember this being something that people discussed when I was in high school. It could have been highly prevalent and I would never have known.</p>
<p>Lol. My kids’ tutor has been mostly… me. For all math classes for D1. And for SAT prep for D1. D2 does not seem to need it. Fortunately. :)</p>
<p>The one area I did hire a tutor in for a couple of years was foreign language when both kids were slipping to Cs. I don’t speak the language they are studying (and I have zero talent for foreign language, and they unfortunately have inherited that gene). It helped, both pulled up to B±ish grades.</p>
<p>My younger son probably could have used a tutor for Latin. We tried to arrange it one summer and it fell through at the last minute. Neither of my kids needed tutors, and while I can see needing one perhaps to make up for an exceptionally bad teacher, I don’t feel they are a good idea in a general way. I believe I can be confident that my kids are ready for college because they were successful in high school without support or nagging.</p>
<p>Most of the top math team kids are not tutored. Summer math camps aren’t really in the tutoring vein, they’re more just letting kids with a passion sink their teeth into something more. They don’t necessarily help for competitions, and for some, may distract from contest prep, since topics covered don’t necessarily mesh with contest math. There are camps focused on competition math, but most of the top camps are more interested in expanding horizons. I would not put these programs in the “tutoring” category.</p>