Academy’s Tutors

At any given time, Academy has approximately 20-25 tutors.  All are exclusively under contract to Academy, and all have been specially-trained in Academy’s practices and methods.

Typically, a tutor specializes in either the verbal portions of the SAT (Reading and Writing & Language), ACT (Reading and English), or GRE (Verbal Reasoning) or the Math of the SAT, the Math/Science sections of the ACT, and the Quantitative Reasoning section of the GRE.  However, Academy also has tutors who are trained on both sides of the tests, verbal and math.

All of Academy’s tutors have a thorough knowledge of the SAT, ACT, and GRE subject matter for which they are responsible.  However, Academy’s tutors share two much more important characteristics – they have both a common love of teaching and engaging personalities which enable them to interact successfully with their students.

The backgrounds and occupations of Academy’s tutors are varied.  Some are Ph.D. candidates in math, advanced sciences, medicine, English, or other arcane studies at CWRU; some are grad students at other area schools; some are retired or moonlighting teachers; several are practicing attorneys; a few are retired corporate executives.

Referrals from staff tutors provide the most common source for finding new tutor candidates.  Potential new tutors must undergo a multi-part interview/training process in which they are interviewed, take a practice ACT, SAT, or GRE test themselves to verify a base level of knowledge, participate in two or three in-session training sessions with a training tutor and a participating student, and finally conduct their own training session with the student.  All sessions are observed in order to offer suggestions, tutoring tips, and additional training.

Tutors are each required to sign non-compete agreements, are given a detailed workplace handbook (including extensive harassment advice/instruction), and are required – once assigned a student – to arrange meeting times and places (Academy’s business offices in Chagrin Falls are most commonly used, but for geographical convenience some tutors/students meet in public places, such as libraries, school classrooms, etc.) and to report in detail via email to students’ parents at the conclusion of each 2-hour session.  These reports provide ongoing progress assessments and recommendations for suggested study for the next sessions.

As an average, Academy’s tutors have been with the company for over 5 years, are teaching at any one time 4-5 students, and hold 200-300 tutoring sessions per year.