My experience as a VT Tutor, 2017-2024

I'm making my first post to join the community after lurking a long while. I hope that my participation will share helpful guidance, insight, or tips that might come from my experience as a successful tutor with Varsity Tutors. Here's my introduction.

I worked on contracts as a tutor with VT from January 2017 through September 2024. I decided to terminate my contract last month due to a dispute over payment that became the "last straw." In many ways, VT was a great experience. In other ways, it was not so good, especially after VT's mass layoffs of employees in 2023 and transition to heavy reliance on outsourcing and AI. I'm genuinely not here to vent about that, though it's a sad situation.

My decision to leave VT was made from a position of strength and ability to sustain my living. I have become a successful tutor independent of VT. In many ways the company was my training ground. At the very beginning as a newbie tutor, I wasn't the greatest by any means. Now I'm in the very top tier of my field. I appreciate the good, and I acknowledge the bad without wasting my time on resentment.

My rating slipped from 5 stars to 4.9 after one disgruntled student several years ago, and I maintained it at 4.9 for the rest of my time. I was advised by VT employees multiple times over the years that I was a "favorite" and highly respected tutor. I was able to negotiate for raises, and not long ago, VT gave me a raise I didn't even ask for (but it was only 50 cents, which made me laugh).

I was often assigned students who had a previous bad experience with VT. I was almost always able to save the company's relationship with its customer by delivering outstanding service. Through these experiences, I learned quite a bit.

Twice, I needed to take a medical leave of absence, and had to abruptly drop all of my students, which made everyone unhappy. Not the least, I was unhappy. Then later, both times, VT offered me opportunities again, and the pace picked up again. Most of the time I had around 10 to 20 students, and I was declining opportunities every day, to keep the load manageable for myself.

My assignments included courses (with anywhere from 2 to 600 students), instant chat and video tutoring, and mostly individual tutoring on video. I used both the VT Live Learning Program and Zoom. The age of my students varied from 6 to more than 60 years. Mostly, I worked with adults. I tutored a range of subjects in the social sciences and humanities. My specialty is preparation for exams.

Through tutoring, I have been able to deliver life-changing experiences that help people achieve their goals. It has been and continues to be an amazing, wonderful thing to do.