They’ll just hire tutors in college too. That’s what these people do. The problem is these kids never learn how to do anything for themselves and eventually when they have internships or jobs it shows and they’re not always the best employees. Some obviously work out but it’s not like you can take a tutor with to your medical school rotations or to subjective areas of importance in your life.
I honestly didn’t know everyone getting a tutor was a thing until my daughters were seniors. I understand for kids who fall through the cracks or have a bad teacher or just can’t grasp a skill and need to be taught a different way. I’m not talking about those kids. I’m talking about the kids in the AP and Honors track to begin with. The kids that are supposedly “gifted” who in many cases clearly aren’t but their parents think they are.
I’m impressed when kids acknowledge they’ve hit the wall after being the strongest kid in a subject for years and then know when they should switch to the normal class level for a course.
My daughters recently joked that if they had tutors maybe they would’ve been valedictorians lol. I think they did pretty well for themselves considering. My son who just graduated tonight as salutatorian and was a tutor for the school (he never wanted to do private tutoring although as a kid he easily could’ve charged $60/hr here) was only .02 gpa points behind the valedictorian. I would like to be able to say he got it from me but I was a very avg student. But never needed a tutor, only used one for about 5 hours for act review and someone to review his college essays. Other than that he’s just a determined hard worker who fortunately had the opportunity to attend one of the top ranked public high schools in our state. I can’t say enough how fortunate we are to have the opportunities we have here when so many other students in communities nearby don’t. But my kids have also learned that hard work creates opportunities and that nothing is just handed to you. I know my 2 kids that are in college have realized how good of an education they’ve received is and this one will as well. Giving back is important in our home and I hope he will take what he’s learned to be generous with his time to give back to those not as fortunate.
My last day of school is tomorrow!! What a wild and crazy year it’s been!! What’s everyone’s summer plans aside from getting our kids situated with some dorm shopping?
I’m lucky that my kids didn’t need tutors, but for students who use them I think it shows tremendous drive, self awareness, and commitment to achieving goals. I find it commendable that some students push themselves to achieve in AP or honors classes and are willing to use a tutor to achieve their goals even if they aren’t naturally gifted. The student who is willing to work with a tutor is exactly the type of candidate who I look to hire. I mentor several employees where I work and I absolutely view it as a form of tutoring.
Anyone willing to put in the extra time outside of class to learn subject matter is a good thing in my opinion.
That’s an interesting perspective but completely different than what I’m referring to as how people use tutors around here. They aren’t using tutors to get ahead, they’re using tutors to stay afloat. Without that “crutch” they wouldn’t be able to survive. A tutor is not considered a mentor. Our school has a peer mentoring program for students which is something completely different than peer tutoring. Peer mentoring or mentoring when you’re in a job even is when you take someone under your wing and look out for them, etc. Tutors are essentially just 1:1 teachers that provide extra help.
Obviously depending on careers and what not there are different things that someone may need a “tutor” for but if someone is in an AP course and can’t master the material and needs a tutor to help them get by, in some (not all) cases it could be due to an improper placement. There is nothing wrong with kids challenging themselves but for kids who can’t handle the material or keep up with the kids who truly are the top of the heap, there will be some always playing catch up.
That’s great that you would rather hire someone that has had a tutor than not, or at least view it as a positive and want to mentor those people. Hopefully your idea of mentoring then is to teach them how to be self sufficient and do things on their own but also to be able to do things in a team and not be the slacker which is also often one of the issues I often see and hear about at my own job with kids place improperly.
Reading some of the responses here, I hear a definite undercurrent of negativity and elitism for not having to use an academic tutor from many here. And that’s cool. We weren’t that “lucky” I guess.
Maybe we should get back to discussing getting those surge protectors, sheets, blankets and beach chairs purchased and shipped 4 months before school starts.
I just ordered my daughter’s chromebook for next year. Had it bookmarked on Amazon for a bit and it dropped as low as it was gonna go. Now that we have that and the bed stuff and a shower caddy, we are basically done the prep for her dorm. More worrisome now is that there is no guarantee of getting housing at all, and dorm assignments aren’t out until mid-July. I don’t even want to think about rentals that close to the beach in terms of affordability, so everything crossed for a dorm placement.
Reading the whole tutoring sub-thread just killed an hour on my morning Down South in the boonies, tutoring is reserved for lower-level students or situations of truly bad teachers. However, S19’s best friend did have a $5K college coach. S briefly asked back then if we could hire that coach for him - “The coach gave him great advice on how to dress for interviews!” I just stared at S, then told him I hoped he knew how to dress himself.
Jumping ahead, closing ceremonies yesterday , graduation today S21 is one of the speakers and let me read his address a couple days ago. It was so heartfelt, and I couldn’t stop crying. Doesn’t bode well for today.
D21 used a math tutor freshman year. Her geometry teacher was not great and she needed the extra explanation and instruction. She’s now finishing up Calc BC and got a 5 in AB last year. So I don’t think that kids who need tutors shouldn’t be in AP classes. She asked for an English tutor last year because she’s really struggled with timed essay writing for classes, and landed with a probable ADD diagnosis instead, explaining why she won writing competitions in middle school but really struggled with time limits in HS. I agree with others who have commented that the responses of not needing a tutor and “suck it up, figure it out, build character” have an undercurrent of negativity. Yes, there are helicopter/lawnmower parents who will do everything so that their snowflake can succeed, but then there are the rest of us just trying to do the best for our kids.
My D didn’t use a tutor in HS either but it seems like some people are using that as some kind of badge of honor.
For any parents of engineering hopefuls, make sure your soon to be college student knows to go to review sessions, office hours, help rooms, etc… even if they think they don’t need it. Engineering is not a solo sport. Most exams are not a rehash of lecture but applying what was taught to figure out novel problems. The help sessions and tutors get students in that mind set.
Get help and get it often. It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s the smart thing to do.
I don’t know what I would have done if my daughter (class of 22) had ever really needed a tutor since the cost would have been a real issue - however, when she was confused in pre-calc and AP calc (same teacher both years, notoriously not the best at explaining things) I pushed really hard for her to go see him at lunch and after school and get him to go through problems she couldn’t figure out with her. Involved a certain amount of initiative from her rather than me taking it in hand and hiring someone and it was free. The teacher was always willing to work with her (when he was there at least which wasn’t always) and she often had to wait while he helped others, though she would grudgingly admit that she sometimes learned from others questions as well. Especially for a shy kid who often holds back this method had valuable lessons in advocating for herself way beyond a bit of extra help that a tutor would have provided and taught her I wasn’t always going to fix things for her. It also wasn’t as successful obviously, since the teacher’s deficiencies were dulled by 1:1 help but didn’t disappear, but fortunately she was a B+/A- student trying to get an A, so I don’t know what I would have done if she’d needed more help. A friend who struggled more in math did have a tutor for a time and then dropped from honors to normal level and ratcheted back on rigor as well (e.g., will go to AP stats as a senior rather than calc). I think that’s also a valid path - use a tutor strategically to try to bring the kid up to level if they are newly struggling; but if that doesn’t work drop down to a more comfortable level. I cannot even imagine the pressure of needing tutoring every year to stay at a certain level - that must be so hard. My daughter works super hard but she’s able to achieve on her own for the most part (with after school help from teachers as needed); had she needed tutoring for more than a semester or so in a subject we would have considered dropping down a level (I think, of course impossible to say what we would have actually done). No shame in that. But again cost was a huge issue for us, tutoring is not unheard of but not common here and while it was always an effort she always pulled out As, so I never really was out in the position of deciding.
Decorating caps is absolutely not allowed at D’s school. Administrators have a supply of replacement caps in the line-up area at the ceremony if someone comes in with a decorated or non-standard one. No leis or other gown decorations - just the sash and honor cords, if earned. They are very, very strict. (This is just for graduation. The everyday dress code barely exists.)
My daughter wore the same cap/gown as her 2 older brothers, with some hemming on my part. (How considerate of her to save me so much money before I start paying OOS tuition, haha). I recommend using double faced tape to secure cardstock to the cap, and then decorate on top of the cardstock. Hopefully it will all come right off once he’s done.
My kid went to a LAC and persistence is the key. She got on waitlists (more waitlists!) and if there was no movement by the beginning of the semester, she attended the first day of class, got the syllabus, spoke to the professor. She never was denied a spot in a class that she wanted.
Our school doesn’t allow decoration on caps during the ceremony, so many students made decorated cardboard squares with their college logos that they put on immediately afterwards for the reception and photos. My kids framed the decorated squares for posterity.
Hearing about tutors and people paying for counselors makes me even more grateful (if that is even possible) that my girls were accepted to Amherst & Williams. They attended a high school in an area where 3 of the top 10 high schools in the state are located and ours didn’t even crack the top 100. Only one person in the hundreds we have told had ever heard of Amherst and so far no one has heard of Williams. As I end my time with the application process, free options like CC and Khan Academy were critical for the advancement of my next gen Latinx daughters and when I say CC, it’s people. You people. Well, except for that one…lol
Down South in the boonies, tutoring is reserved for lower-level students or situations of truly bad teachers. However, S19’s best friend did have a $5K college coach. S briefly asked back then if we could hire that coach for him - “The coach gave him great advice on how to dress for interviews!” I just stared at S, then told him I hoped he knew how to dress himself.
, graduation today 
S21 is one of the speakers and let me read his address a couple days ago. It was so heartfelt, and I couldn’t stop crying. Doesn’t bode well for today.