Varsity Tutors - Washington DC -

Carolyn Albert

After using Varsity Tutors for two years, we were off to a slightly rocky start with the change to a subscription service. Not a fan of this model for students who have varying needs over the course of a year. The customer experience team jumped in to kickstart the process and get us over some set up hurdles. Overall, our student has gone from barely passing in her early freshman year to taking honors and AP courses in a tough school as a junior with a very respectable GPA!

Trinity Martin

Varsity Tutors is the best tutoring say you could possibly find! Varsity Tutors not only has a rigorous assessment process, and sharing that you get a tutor that is knowledgeable about the subject you want to learn, but Varsity Tutors also advanced and have a lot of tools that make your learning experience so much better. With varsity you are able to share your screen with your tutor, upload documents, even save and rewatch your sessions. Not only that, but there are a ton of tutors for different subjects that you can choose from, and the customer service team ensures that they find the right tutor for you.

Richard Fan

Working with Varsity Tutors has been a great experience. The staff are great people and genuinely care about the interactions between the client and the teacher. The staff are are a joy to communicate with. In addition, the hours are flexible and practical. I would definitely recommend Varsity Tutors as the go-to tutoring service.

Sandy Harlow

I've been with Varsity Tutors for about 3 months and there is much to like. I like working with one student at a time, so I can adjust the pace to the capability of the individual student. I like the fact that Varsity Tutors screens all the students, and comes to me only with potential students who seem like a good fit. It didn't take me long to get lined up with all the students I have time for. I also like the flexibility to schedule sessions at any time during the week and on weekends that works for the student and for me.

Donnie Green Jr.

Buyer Beware! We signed up for a 3 month membership to tutor our child in elementary school. We were assigned a tutor and scheduled for our first session. The tutor was a no show to the first session and we could not get in contact with Varsity Tutors. We called the next day and we received an excuse about what happened. Reluctantly, we allowed them to get us a new tutor. The next tutor seemed to be very professional and on top of this but was late to a couple of sessions and did not seem to have a complete plan for the sessions. We kept her for just over a month and then she resigned from the company unbeknownst to us. Varsity Tutors never notified us and after a week of having no tutor and receiving no follow up from them they finally let us out of our contract. To this day, they never called us, they never returned our phone call, and they never explained the situation to us. They also are unwilling to give us a refund for the unused hours we paid for. This is not a very good company. They are terrible communicators, and you don't have access to anyone above tier 1 support to really help you. If their level of support was as aggressive and communicative as their sales team they might actually be worth trying. If you think my experience is unique, I suggest you select the shortest membership and max out on sessions within the first 30 days when you can cancel. Otherwise they will offer you no refund "per their policy". Also, check Varsity Tutors Better Business Bureau customer complaints and you will see the issues expressed in the my review is consistent with other negative reviews and complaints.

Update: The Customer Experience Team contacted us because they saw my review. They really went above and beyond to make this right because they recognize the ball was dropped and stated this is not the way they operate. If this team (Alicia) were involved when we first experienced our issues I'm confident there would not have been an issue to begin with. Varsity Tutors should update their processes to get this team involved as soon as a customer escalates a problem because this team really understands customer service and believes in the value of Varsity Tutors services.

Patricia Jean

I've been working for Varsity Tutors as an ESL tutor for 3 months. So far I have had 4 students, though one was only short-term to prepare for college, which she is entering this month. I like how Varsity finds the students and sends them to me, and makes sure there is money already secured so all I have to do is bill Varsity. Varsity has been very accommodating and has sent me some good students. I count on the regular students to supplement my income. You get paid twice a week, which is awesome. As for quality issues, I am an experienced classroom teacher (8 years) and tutor (6 years), and feel like Varsity supports me. I have had to contact Varsity about some guidelines and expectations for a special situation regarding a student, and Varsity has been great helping me with it. I should mention that I joined Varsity in January, got one offer of an ESL student in March or April, didn't act on it right away, and the student was assigned to a tutor who responded faster. I didn't get another offer until May, and I responded immediately. Make sure you have signed up for text alerts for new assignments so you can respond right away. After that, I got three more students fairly quickly. Since then I have had one offer that I didn't respond to fast enough, and another that I accepted but who went off the radar. At the beginning, Varsity offered me a couple of native English speaker kids who needed help, but I turned those down to narrow my focus to just ESL speakers. Varsity asks you to respond about why you aren't interested and they adjust what they offer you. All in all, it has been a very positive experience, with a lot of autonomy to set the schedule and curriculum as you and the student want. There is no training, so if you don't have experience, this might be a challenge. I appreciate how they have sent me students that I would not have found on my own.

Jeremiah Oteh

I applied to be a Varsity Tutor in order to stay connected with students and content after a year removed from the classroom. Varsity tutors not only allows me to fulfill those desires above, they also foster a professional and inviting community of people and resources in which to do so. The clients are wonderful to work with, and they are invested in the academic growth process. Overall, it's the quintessential tutoring experience.

Michael Shirar

This is a really fun part-time job, and about as hassle free as you can get. You get a list of potential assignments (sometimes several a day, but at least a few every week) and then you choose which students you want to work with. You just show up, log your hours, and your check gets deposited at the end of the month. You never have to work to find clients or to make sure they pay you.

Very easy to fit in a few tutoring students a week even working full-time, and they have a wide variety of clients who look for help from Varsity. I've gotten to work with little 3rd graders on basic reading and math, tutored students in their 20s on the LSAT, and worked with every age range in between. SAT/ACT and, in DC, PSAT clients have made up the largest part of my clientele. I've recommended Varsity to several friends, and they have all enjoyed working for the company as well.

The directors/coordinators are also very friendly and very easy to work with, and are always supportive if there are any problems (which there rarely are, but nice to know they have your back).