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Not sure if this is the right forum to put this in, but if it isn't then mods can you please move:


Basically I'm studying for the LSAT to get a great score to get into a great school like everyone else here. But I was thinking a couple days ago "Why do all this studying & get a great score & just leave it at that when you could make a little money off it too?"


So I wanted to ask about LSAT tutoring jobs. I used the search feature on these forums to see similar topics & here's what I know: scores you typically need, what the companies look for, who's competitive and easier to get into & who pays what.


What I want to know though is: How do the hours stack up? $60/hour sounds amazing until you realize you're only getting 10 hours a week and barely paying the bills. Is there one that pays a respectable amount of money AND gives you solid hours? And how long is the process? I'm about to apply for this SAT tutoring job so that should help establish that I have experience in this line of work by the time I finish my LSAT. That one is $18/hour & offers 16-24 hours/week. Preferably I can find an LSAT job that offers 20-30 hours a week & does roughly $25+/hour (prep time averaged into the equation). I'd be very satisfied with that. Anything higher would be great too.

Does anyone have experience with this who could offer me some finer details about this thing? This seems like a great hustle & honestly will probably provide even more incentive for me to kill the LSAT.



Tl;dr - wanna be a LSAT tutor if I kill the LSAT, what hours can I get ? How much $$ / hour? What is "prep" time & how does that factor w teaching? Can u live off this?

Cart --- Horse

maybeman wrote:Cart --- Horse

So true. so, so, true.

maybeman wrote:Cart --- Horse

Makes no sense

Although I agree with the above posters that you shouldn't be focused on this yet, for the sake of anyone searching for information on this topic, I will answer.

Pay rates vary widely. Some companies (Kaplan) pay very low, often around $18-20 an hour (sidenote: Kaplan does pay for prep time, which is a plus). Others pay $50-60 an hour and travel expenses, but these position have higher LSAT requirements. Last time I checked, Powerscore required something like a 172, but Kaplan would accept a 165.

The job itself can be challenging at first. Being good at the LSAT is one thing, but teaching it to others is another. Students have widely varying levels of success on the LSAT, and it's important to be able to target all levels simultaneously. But once you get the hang of it, teaching the LSAT is very easy money.

Now, if we're talking tutoring, not teaching a class, the job is, in my opinion, a little bit easier. You only need to focus on teaching one person. However, you need to be on guard and able to answer every question they might have. To be able to do this well, you need to understand the LSAT exceedingly well and be able to identify and explain errors. If you answer a question wrong, or explain a question incorrectly to a student, they might lose trust in you as a tutor.

Tutoring rates also vary, and are really whatever you want to set them at. There are some larger tutoring companies who will make you an independent contractor, which is nice because you don't need to recruit clients, but it also comes at a pay cut. You'll probably get $20-40 an hour through these companies, where on your own you may be able to snag $75 or even $100 an hour.

For both teaching and tutoring, both understanding the LSAT well AND being good at identifying mistakes and helping students fix them are necessary skills.

Hope this helps, if anyone reading this has questions, they are welcome to message me directly. I both teach an LSAT class and tutor, despite only scoring a 171 (more proof that teaching ability is as important as LSAT ability).

RareExports wrote:Although I agree with the above posters that you shouldn't be focused on this yet, for the sake of anyone searching for information on this topic, I will answer.

Pay rates vary widely. Some companies (Kaplan) pay very low, often around $18-20 an hour (sidenote: Kaplan does pay for prep time, which is a plus). Others pay $50-60 an hour and travel expenses, but these position have higher LSAT requirements. Last time I checked, Powerscore required something like a 172, but Kaplan would accept a 165.

The job itself can be challenging at first. Being good at the LSAT is one thing, but teaching it to others is another. Students have widely varying levels of success on the LSAT, and it's important to be able to target all levels simultaneously. But once you get the hang of it, teaching the LSAT is very easy money.

Now, if we're talking tutoring, not teaching a class, the job is, in my opinion, a little bit easier. You only need to focus on teaching one person. However, you need to be on guard and able to answer every question they might have. To be able to do this well, you need to understand the LSAT exceedingly well and be able to identify and explain errors. If you answer a question wrong, or explain a question incorrectly to a student, they might lose trust in you as a tutor.

Tutoring rates also vary, and are really whatever you want to set them at. There are some larger tutoring companies who will make you an independent contractor, which is nice because you don't need to recruit clients, but it also comes at a pay cut. You'll probably get $20-40 an hour through these companies, where on your own you may be able to snag $75 or even $100 an hour.

For both teaching and tutoring, both understanding the LSAT well AND being good at identifying mistakes and helping students fix them are necessary skills.

Hope this helps, if anyone reading this has questions, they are welcome to message me directly. I both teach an LSAT class and tutor, despite only scoring a 171 (more proof that teaching ability is as important as LSAT ability).

How many hours can I get a week teaching? Up to 40?

Very unlikely. 10 is probably a better estimate. Depends who you're with though. If you do tutoring and do a lot of outreach, you could probably get enough clients to get 40 hours, but that would be tough.

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

maybeman wrote:Cart --- Horse

Makes no sense

You're putting the cart before the horse.

In other words, you haven't even taken the LSAT and achieved your target score yet, so I don't think it advisable to be tutoring others. At least not just yet. However, give it some time, take your LSAT, and if you get your target score back, then maybe seriously consider doing it.

maybeman wrote:Cart --- Horse

Totally agreed. Also, as an insignifficant side note --- you said that you would not be happy with $60/hr for 10 hr/wk. But think it would be great to get $25/hr for 20 hrs/wk. Ummm, the first is $600/wk for half of the time that would get you $500/wk. Um....

You could get more than $10 or $20 if you're doing it on your own, but anyone testing over a certain figure is going to know you're full of shit very quickly, and you need to be ask yourself if you'd be comfortable profiting off of people who will most likely never get over a 150.

RareExports wrote:Very unlikely. 10 is probably a better estimate. Depends who you're with though. If you do tutoring and do a lot of outreach, you could probably get enough clients to get 40 hours, but that would be tough.

Even 20 is a stretch? That's insane.

Barack O'Drama wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

maybeman wrote:Cart --- Horse

Makes no sense

You're putting the cart before the horse.

In other words, you haven't even taken the LSAT and achieved your target score yet, so I don't think it advisable to be tutoring others. At least not just yet. However, give it some time, take your LSAT, and if you get your target score back, then maybe seriously consider doing it.

That's the plan

HonestAdvice wrote:You could get more than $10 or $20 if you're doing it on your own, but anyone testing over a certain figure is going to know you're full of shit very quickly, and you need to be ask yourself if you'd be comfortable profiting off of people who will most likely never get over a 150.

I don't understand this post. Why would I be uncomfortable receiving money for helping someone understand the LSAT? And full of shit about what? Don't be an idiot.

bmathers wrote:

maybeman wrote:Cart --- Horse

Totally agreed. Also, as an insignifficant side note --- you said that you would not be happy with $60/hr for 10 hr/wk. But think it would be great to get $25/hr for 20 hrs/wk. Ummm, the first is $600/wk for half of the time that would get you $400/wk. Um....

lol...this

TAD wrote:

bmathers wrote:

maybeman wrote:Cart --- Horse

Totally agreed. Also, as an insignifficant side note --- you said that you would not be happy with $60/hr for 10 hr/wk. But think it would be great to get $25/hr for 20 hrs/wk. Ummm, the first is $600/wk for half of the time that would get you $400/wk. Um....

lol...this

LMAO> How did I not notice that.

you'd be lucky to book 20 hrs/week worth of private sessions. 40 hrs a week is impossible for a number of reasons. 1) 40 billable tutoring hrs = 60+ hrs of actual work. 2) tutoring hours are about 10x as tiring as office-work hours. you'd die of exhaustion. 3) there's no way you'd be able to find enough clients to fill up 40 hrs in your gap year between applying and enrolling in law school. you'd need like 20-30 clients to get to 40 hrs a week.

tl;dr - this thread is dumb.

pancakes3 wrote:you'd be lucky to book 20 hrs/week worth of private sessions. 40 hrs a week is impossible for a number of reasons. 1) 40 billable tutoring hrs = 60+ hrs of actual work. 2) tutoring hours are about 10x as tiring as office-work hours. you'd die of exhaustion. 3) there's no way you'd be able to find enough clients to fill up 40 hrs in your gap year between applying and enrolling in law school. you'd need like 20-30 clients to get to 40 hrs a week.

tl;dr - this thread is dumb.

I said tutoring/teaching classes. Perhaps I can tutor you on Reading Comprehension when I finally start up.

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

pancakes3 wrote:you'd be lucky to book 20 hrs/week worth of private sessions. 40 hrs a week is impossible for a number of reasons. 1) 40 billable tutoring hrs = 60+ hrs of actual work. 2) tutoring hours are about 10x as tiring as office-work hours. you'd die of exhaustion. 3) there's no way you'd be able to find enough clients to fill up 40 hrs in your gap year between applying and enrolling in law school. you'd need like 20-30 clients to get to 40 hrs a week.

tl;dr - this thread is dumb.

I said tutoring/teaching classes. Perhaps I can tutor you on Reading Comprehension when I finally start up.

Actually, you didn't say the word "classes" once in your OP. Maybe it was implied, but it certainly wasn't said. So, yeah...

AntsInMyEyesJohnson wrote:

MyNameIsntJames wrote:

pancakes3 wrote:you'd be lucky to book 20 hrs/week worth of private sessions. 40 hrs a week is impossible for a number of reasons. 1) 40 billable tutoring hrs = 60+ hrs of actual work. 2) tutoring hours are about 10x as tiring as office-work hours. you'd die of exhaustion. 3) there's no way you'd be able to find enough clients to fill up 40 hrs in your gap year between applying and enrolling in law school. you'd need like 20-30 clients to get to 40 hrs a week.

tl;dr - this thread is dumb.

I said tutoring/teaching classes. Perhaps I can tutor you on Reading Comprehension when I finally start up.

Actually, you didn't say the word "classes" once in your OP. Maybe it was implied, but it certainly wasn't said. So, yeah...

Touché

pancakes3 wrote:you'd be lucky to book 20 hrs/week worth of private sessions. 40 hrs a week is impossible for a number of reasons. 1) 40 billable tutoring hrs = 60+ hrs of actual work. 2) tutoring hours are about 10x as tiring as office-work hours. you'd die of exhaustion. 3) there's no way you'd be able to find enough clients to fill up 40 hrs in your gap year between applying and enrolling in law school. you'd need like 20-30 clients to get to 40 hrs a week.

tl;dr - this thread is dumb.

I disagree with this post on a couple points --

First, while the actual work you are doing at first will take up much more of your time than your billable tutoring hours, this decreases over time. I'm at the point now where every hour I put into tutoring is a billable tutoring hour. You'll get to the point where you don't need to prep, and you can also cut down on unpaid hours by coordinating the locations of your tutoring or making clients come to you.

Second, tutoring hours are very tiring at first, but once you get the hang of it, it shouldn't be any more tiring than a normal office hour. I actually find it fairly relaxing and certainly not tiring.

It is true that it is difficult to find enough clients, especially because once you fill up the popular spots (weekday evenings), you're only at 15 or so hours, and it'll be much harder to find someone to fill daytime hours. And this is all assuming you line up the clients perfectly back-to-back. I have no trouble finding enough clients, but I do have trouble finding clients that will take the open time slots.

10 hours is easily doable, and if you're good enough I'm sure you could hit 20-25, but 40 would be really tough.