Questions to ask before you hire an SAT tutor

Good SAT tutors exist. So do expensive ones who mostly keep a student busy. From the outside the two can look identical: both are confident, both own a shelf of prep books, both will happily bill you for a year. These questions help you tell them apart before you sign anything.

"How will you decide what to work on?"

You want a specific answer. A good tutor starts with a real diagnostic, looks at which skills are actually costing points, and works from there. Be wary of "we'll go through the book" or "we cover everything." Covering everything is what a student does alone with a prep guide. You're paying a person to find the two or three things that matter most for your child and spend the time there.

"How will we know if it's working?"

Ask how progress gets measured, and how often. The honest version involves periodic full-length tests, scored the same way each time so the numbers are comparable, with gains showing up in the specific areas that were worked on. If the only evidence of progress is the tutor telling you it's going well, you don't actually have evidence.

"What happens in a typical session?"

Listen for whether the hour goes to the student's real weak spots or to whatever's next in a fixed curriculum. A session that's mostly the tutor working problems on a whiteboard while the student watches is a lecture. The student should be doing most of the work, out loud, with the tutor catching and correcting the thinking as it happens.

"How much of this is homework?"

Score gains come from the hours a student spends alone, not the one hour a week with a tutor. A good tutor assigns targeted work between sessions and actually checks it. If there's no homework, or it never gets reviewed, the paid hour is carrying weight it can't carry.

A few smaller ones worth asking

• "What's your read on my child's biggest weakness right now?" A specific answer means they've been paying attention.
• "What score gain is realistic, and over how long?" You want an honest range, not a promise. Anyone guaranteeing a specific jump is either guessing or selling.
• "What do you do when a student plateaus?" Plateaus happen to everyone. The answer shows whether they have a method or just more of the same.

None of this requires you to understand the test yourself. You're checking for one habit: whether the person measures what a student needs, or just assumes it. A tutor who measures will be glad you asked. If the questions make them defensive, that tells you plenty on its own.