Anyone have any experience as a private/freelance LSAT tutor Forum

[JDeezy]

I live near a university and want to try to add some hours as a tutor to bring in some extra dough.

I've posted on Craigslist and plan to put up fliers.

Any secret tips on how to break in a find some customers?

[2014]

I'd talk to the pre-law advisor at the school, they might be able to send people your way.

[OneMoreLawHopeful]

I'd talk to the pre-law advisor at the school, they might be able to send people your way.

This.

Also, try talking directly to any undergrad profs. you had a relationship with. You'd be surprised how often they can send business your way.

[Nova]

be sure to drop the 99th percentile bomb every chance you can (on the flyers, on the CL ad, etc).

Instant cred.

[ksllaw]

I live near a university and want to try to add some hours as a tutor to bring in some extra dough.

I've posted on Craigslist and plan to put up fliers.

Any secret tips on how to break in a find some customers?

I'm enrolled with TestMasters. Have you considered working for one of the big LSAT companies?

I'm looking at this from a consumer perspective. When I was choosing an LSAT course, I wanted to go with a very reputable one and wouldn't have been willing to trust a private freelance tutor (nothing against them, but it just felt easier to go with a known entity). It felt much safer to go with a large and reputable company and the resources were more plentiful too with TM (homework helpline and online support materials, etc.).

I took the course option instead of private tutoring. But from what I recall, the private tutoring sessions were very very expensive ($150/hour I believe). I'm not sure most college students could afford $150/hour.

Maybe you could have a market if you charged very competitive rates, but again from a consumer perspective I'd have to ask:

++What materials would you provide me (TM gave us access every LSAT question ever released, books, drills, online videos/audio, lesson plans, live lectures, and homework helpline for the course)?

++How would I know if you're a good instructor or not? (TM has a kind of training academy they put their instructors through and they must also score in the 98th+ percentile. Also, they've built a reputation for high quality analysis of the LSAT.)

Would you be able to offer something competitive enough to compete with the big LSAT companies? I'm just asking these things as a way of helping you brainstorm the freelance thing....I'm not saying it's impossible to do or that you wouldn't make a good instructor. Just wanting to give you some things to think about.

[Green Jeans]

As far as tutoring for a company, one thing you must understand is that you'll see a small fraction of that $150/hour. I billed out at that rate for TPR but saw about $30/hour. The reason is that a tremendous amount of revenue for these companies is spent on marketing. And the reason for that is that there are few repeat customers - people tend to take the LSAT (and related tests) once in their life and never use those services again.

If you want to do tutoring on the side you'll face the same reality - that you need to aggressively market to get clients. Don't just flyer, but also start a facebook page; incorporate yourself; do craigslist advertising.

Also, what sucks is that you need to be more creative than if working for a company. Testmasters etc. generally have a pre-packaged syllabus (Lesson 1 - Logic Games, Lesson 2 - Analytical Reasoning, etc.) Repeating the same lessons gets easy after a while. If you're going solo, you will need to adapt to what the client specifically wants. If the client just needs difficult logic games work, you do that. If the client wants the full rundown, you do that. You need to realize that this involves work that is NOT included in your $X per hour rate, so while you now think that you would be fine tutoring for $25/hour, you'll soon see it isn't worth it.

If you are just looking to start this venture to earn beer money, it will be easy - just post a few ads to craigslist - but understand you'll just earn a few dollars here and there and it won't make you rich. If you want to do something more serious, it'll involve a lot of effort.

[gaud]

Local tutoring sites (Wyzant.com, check it out) helped me find a good customer base