Does tutoring even look that good?

[Leer]

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I thought tutoring would be a good EC for the coming school year, and it seems like something I will enjoy, but the gunner in me is saying research would be a better option as far as admissions go. Should I slap the gunner in me?

 

[unhappytnt]

Research would be better. Tutoring won't hurt though.

 

[SarahBellum1]

Can't do both? What kind of tutoring? (underprivileged kids, peer tutor...?)

Research may look more impressive to some schools...but overall, I think you should do what you would enjoy more...

 

[Leer]

Can't do both? What kind of tutoring? (underprivileged kids, peer tutor...?)

Research may look more impressive to some schools...but overall, I think you should do what you would enjoy more...

Yeah, peer tutoring. I figured if I did tutoring this year, and then research my final two years it would work pretty well. I feel like 2 vs. 3 years of research won't make a difference, especially since I'm not going for top 20's exclusively.

 

[TribalSeeds]

Does paid chemistry tutoring with my college count as an EC? I love doing it, but I've heard that it doesn't help much.

 

[getdown]

Tutoring for an extended period of time (years) makes you look better than research for a summer. Adcoms want to see commitment.

 

[gettheleadout]

Does paid chemistry tutoring with my college count as an EC? I love doing it, but I've heard that it doesn't help much.

Yes, it still counts. Teaching experiences such as tutoring are valid whether they're paid or volunteer. Provided you still have other volunteer experience, I see no reason why paid tutoring would be looked on any differently than uncompensated tutoring.

 

[Bmed]

If you enjoy tutoring, go ahead and do it. But it will do little or nothing for your med school apps.

 

[Isoprop]

crap, i have no research experience and a ton of teaching experience. good thing i already got into med school.

 

[BJJ]

If you enjoy tutoring, go ahead and do it. But it will do little or nothing for your med school apps.

I don't agree. I think it can help you with your non-clinical volunteer hours. Being able to portray abstract concepts to someone "simply" in order to help them understand it seems to be a critical skill that a physician would need to be able to do and I feel like adcoms would recognize that. Hopefully someone who has been part of an adcom can chime in on this.

I have over 100 hours volunteering in a hospital, so mow I'm now going to be tutoring adults to learn english for the next couple months for some non clinical volunteer experience. I am a chemistry tutor (paid) for my school and I enjoy it quite a bit, so I decided that I want to do some volunteer tutoring on the side.

Plenty of students get in without any research experience, so I would say some extra volunteering would be a bit more helpful. My $0.02

Also like you I'm planning on doing some research towards the end of my college years.

 

[RySerr21]

If you enjoy tutoring, go ahead and do it. But it will do little or nothing for your med school apps.

yea you are totally right. Having the ability to teach well to others has nothing to do with medical or patient education....... 👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎

 

[Narmerguy]

I feel like tutoring is one of those things that is so common that almost every applicant does it. And, simply doing it doesn't tell the adcom anything about your ability to do it well...I can tutor all I want, maybe I never help a single tutoree, no one would know.

It certainly won't make you stand out that much unless you've just been doing crazy amounts of it or something else unusual.

 

[TribalSeeds]

I feel like tutoring is one of those things that is so common that almost every applicant does it. And, simply doing it doesn't tell the adcom anything about your ability to do it well...I can tutor all I want, maybe I never help a single tutoree, no one would know.

It certainly won't make you stand out that much unless you've just been doing crazy amounts of it or something else unusual.

but then again anyone can sign up to volunteer at a hospital, but it doesn't mean you are good at it.

 

[Narmerguy]

but then again anyone can sign up to volunteer at a hospital, but it doesn't mean you are good at it.

That's true but no one cares if you're good at it because mostly they know that you're handling files, wheeling patients around, filling up their water, carrying food trays, etc. Volunteering is worthwhile in and of itself because they aren't looking for you to display skill or proficiency, they're looking to see that you had clinical exposure and are willing to commit yourself to service.

The argument for tutoring that I was addressing was that it supposedly shows you're good at teaching peers etc etc which translates well in a career that incorporates lots of peer to peer teaching and education. However, tutoring doesn't at all mean you're good at teaching your peers, just that you got good grades in a class and thus you are allowed and encouraged to tutor others.

 

[gettheleadout]

The argument for tutoring that I was addressing was that it supposedly shows you're good at teaching peers etc etc which translates well in a career that incorporates lots of peer to peer teaching and education. However, tutoring doesn't at all mean you're good at teaching your peers, just that you got good grades in a class and thus you are allowed and encouraged to tutor others.

At the same time, if you tutor formally as an employee of your campus education center or something you may have the opportunity to be evaluated by long-term pupils, which would give you some measure to reference as to your skill. The same thing would be true on a greater scale if one formally TA'd a class.

 

[osumc2014]

tutor << TAing a class. Definitely do research over that.

 

[BJJ]

That's true but no one cares if you're good at it because mostly they know that you're handling files, wheeling patients around, filling up their water, carrying food trays, etc. Volunteering is worthwhile in and of itself because they aren't looking for you to display skill or proficiency, they're looking to see that you had clinical exposure and are willing to commit yourself to service.

The argument for tutoring that I was addressing was that it supposedly shows you're good at teaching peers etc etc which translates well in a career that incorporates lots of peer to peer teaching and education. However, tutoring doesn't at all mean you're good at teaching your peers, just that you got good grades in a class and thus you are allowed and encouraged to tutor others.

I can see that argument for private tutoring where there is no one to make sure you are doing your job, but what if you are doing it under an organization? I would hope that would count for something. Being a tutor in the tutoring center where you have a boss that can fire you for not being an adequate tutor or a organization that tracks the progress of the people being tutored to make sure someone is actually learning. I feel like you can use that argument for anything say, I spend an entire summer doing research, but I just ended up washing dishes most of the time.

 

[ozzi22]

Research would be better. Tutoring won't hurt though.

+1👍

 

[Bmed]

I feel like tutoring is one of those things that is so common that almost every applicant does it. And, simply doing it doesn't tell the adcom anything about your ability to do it well...I can tutor all I want, maybe I never help a single tutoree, no one would know.

It certainly won't make you stand out that much unless you've just been doing crazy amounts of it or something else unusual.

exactly.

 

[steel88]

I'm just kinda happy anyone thinks it's worth anything. I've been tutoring math for the last year because it's an easy job and pays enough for some bills, but that it's worth anything to adcoms is just cake.

 

[TribalSeeds]

Is it even possible to TA a class as an undergraduate? Never heard or seen anyone do that at the two schools I've been at..

 

[BJJ]

Is it even possible to TA a class as an undergraduate? Never heard or seen anyone do that at the two schools I've been at..

Wouldn't it depend on the size of your college? Every single TA for all my science courses have been graduate students; I haven't seen a single undergrad TA (for science courses at least) and I go to a fairly large public school.

 

[URHere]

Is it even possible to TA a class as an undergraduate? Never heard or seen anyone do that at the two schools I've been at..

Wouldn't it depend on the size of your college? Every single TA for all my science courses have been graduate students; I haven't seen a single undergrad TA (for science courses at least) and I go to a fairly large public school.

I think that depends on how heavily your school relies on things like workshops and recitations. I can't imagine graduate students being able to run small group sessions for 300+ students in a class. My school was recitation-happy, so they hired many undergrad TAs (and paid them fairly decently).

Honestly though, if you school had undergrad TAs, you would have probably either seen them or heard about professors recruiting for them.

I have over 100 hours volunteering in a hospital, so mow I'm now going to be tutoring adults to learn english for the next couple months for some non clinical volunteer experience.

Did you say meow? Sorry for the non-sequitur Super Trooper's reference. My brain is fried from reading papers and I couldn't resist!

 

[Narmerguy]

At the same time, if you tutor formally as an employee of your campus education center or something you may have the opportunity to be evaluated by long-term pupils, which would give you some measure to reference as to your skill. The same thing would be true on a greater scale if one formally TA'd a class.

Whether or not this occurs, when would it ever make its way to an adcom? Short of you being removed, there's little way they will distinguish the tutoring/educating abilities of an applicant unless it becomes an explicit focus in their application. I do formally tutor for my campus education center and I'm evaluated by every pupil and etc but I honestly could do a crappy job and my tutoree won't really know the difference most of the times, they just want someone to help them.

I can see that argument for private tutoring where there is no one to make sure you are doing your job, but what if you are doing it under an organization? I would hope that would count for something. Being a tutor in the tutoring center where you have a boss that can fire you for not being an adequate tutor or a organization that tracks the progress of the people being tutored to make sure someone is actually learning. I feel like you can use that argument for anything say, I spend an entire summer doing research, but I just ended up washing dishes most of the time.

But that's a serious concern! Adcoms actually do try to figure out what your research experiences were, and they ask about them and often there are secondary questions related to them. Certainly if you work for an organization like Tutor.com or some other company, you may have been fired for being a poor tutor. But how many students have that kind of tutoring experience? Usually it's private or organized through the school and getting fired from either of those is both uncommon and not something that would make its way to the application (who would admit that some of their pupils rejected/fired them? They'll simply say they were a tutor from x period to y period).

I'm not saying there aren't ways to make a tutoring experience stand out...just like individuals have ways of making their research experience stand our or their volunteer experience stand out. However, the only difference is that these are much more scarce, difficult to extract meaningful conclusions from, and difficult to use as a means of comparison between different applicants.

In addition, being a TA is different than most applicants' tutoring experiences in a lot of important ways and I don't consider it similar to our discussion...I say this as someone that tutored for over 3 years including volunteer organizations, paid tutoring, and working for external tutoring organizations with lots of vetting.

 

[barcoderider]

While I agree that tutoring experiences may not be vetted for the most part, I think it's still a worthwhile EC. Yes, lots of people do it, but lots of people also volunteer at hospitals. Ideally the OP could tutor AND do research.

In my mind clinical experience > research > teaching/TA > tutoring > leadership > unique but unrelated EC's

Besides, tutoring is pretty fun, and if you realize that you really hate working with people...well...best to figure that out ASAP.

 

[gettheleadout]

Whether or not this occurs, when would it ever make its way to an adcom? Short of you being removed, there's little way they will distinguish the tutoring/educating abilities of an applicant unless it becomes an explicit focus in their application. I do formally tutor for my campus education center and I'm evaluated by every pupil and etc but I honestly could do a crappy job and my tutoree won't really know the difference most of the times, they just want someone to help them.

I was thinking mainly about something like this (something my institution does as well):

2) Supplemental Instruction (SI) Leader:

SI leaders serve as facilitators for group study sessions in classes that are traditionally difficult. Leaders must attend all class lectures, create original teaching materials, and lead at least two sessions per week; students who regularly attend my sessions complete the course with a course GPA 0.5-1.0 points higher than non-attendees despite lower standardized test scores. I also frequently meet with individuals outside of the scheduled sessions to answer more specific and individualized questions, a significant commitment beyond the stated responsibilities of the position. I am responsible for about 300 students in the fall and 100 in the spring.

In addition to performing these functions, I also strive to be a mentor to younger students, especially freshmen, who are often anxious about finally embarking on their collegiate experience. Whether it be offering advice on professors, courses to take, or the pre-med process in general - a popular topic - I try to make myself as useful as possible to those I interact with, especially with respect to topics other than chemistry

I envisioned an applicant conveying information like that to the adcom directly.

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

yea you are totally right. Having the ability to teach well to others has nothing to do with medical or patient education....... 👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎

Tutoring =/= being able to teach others well. I've known plenty of people who "tutored" in order to boost their CV, but can't actually teach to save their lives (anecdotes, I know...). Hell, the vast majority of PhDs/PIs that I know, who've had to TA classes, etc, can't teach well if their life depended on it.

And not tutoring or having an interest in tutoring =/= being a poor teacher.

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

While I agree that tutoring experiences may not be vetted for the most part, I think it's still a worthwhile EC. Yes, lots of people do it, but lots of people also volunteer at hospitals. Ideally the OP could tutor AND do research.

In my mind clinical experience > research > teaching/TA > tutoring > leadership > unique but unrelated EC's

Besides, tutoring is pretty fun, and if you realize that you really hate working with people...well...best to figure that out ASAP.

I would actually argue that if you're heavily involved in research (ie. you're not just running experiments for others), you're involved in a fair bit of teaching as well. I personally would put research above all the other things you listed since conducting independent research includes research (duh!), teaching, and leadership (since you'll likely be the go-to guy regarding that topic in the lab...at least, based on my experience), but I'm completely biased since I'm interested in an academic career. So take that with a grain of salt! 🙂

 

[ucsfstudents]

Tutoring is looked well upon. It also is looked at differently if you are tutoring at risk kids vs your own peers vs private tutoring, etc.