how to become a kaplan teacher?

[spinestudent]

I'd be interested in working for kaplan.....a course is always offered in my area. What are the main requirements? I'm a former Kaplan customer who also teaches high school science now. Not sure if that makes a difference or not. Do you need a really high score(36+) to be considered, or would they consider someone with a 11,11,10?

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[bokermmk]

I believe you need to be top 90%. So that is a 33 or so.

 

[juicebox]

spine--
all you need is a 10 on any section to "try out" for a subject. 10's on all three to be full time.

 

[deleted21595]

Originally posted by juicebox
spine--
all you need is a 10 on any section to "try out" for a subject. 10's on all three to be full time.

call your local kaplan center or 888-Kaplan2. you're wrong bud!

 

[Childe]

anyone have any experience teaching for princeton or kaplan? insight?

 

[Nutmeg]

Originally posted by Childe
anyone have any experience teaching for princeton or kaplan? insight?

TPR only required a 10 in the subject you plan to teach.

 

[HollyJ]

Childe, I'm a TPR teacher. PM me for more details, but at least in my office (Houston) you need more than a 10.

 

[evines]

It depends on the location. General rule is top 10%, but if they need teachers, they make exceptions.
And I think bokermmk meant top 10%, as top 90% is a little too inclusive.

 

[sgilani]

i'm a kaplan teacher. they require 90th percentile to teach. which would be around 33-34 but plenty of people with 31/32 are allowed to teach also. depends on how desperate your center is.

 

[PianoGirl04]

I was told Kaplan requires the 95th percentile or above. It only has to be that high in one section, and that's the section you'll teach. The application process isn't too difficult. It begins with a short online application. Then someone contacts you to schedule an "audition," where you give a 5-minute presentation in front of a group of prospective Kaplan teachers on a "how-to" topic. If you pass the audition, you go into training (20 hrs. and it's paid), and then you get to teach. My training is supposed to start some time soon, just in time for me to be able to teach in the spring.

 

[Gbemi24]

Originally posted by PianoGirl04
I was told Kaplan requires the 95th percentile or above. It only has to be that high in one section, and that's the section you'll teach. The application process isn't too difficult. It begins with a short online application. Then someone contacts you to schedule an "audition," where you give a 5-minute presentation in front of a group of prospective Kaplan teachers on a "how-to" topic. If you pass the audition, you go into training (20 hrs. and it's paid), and then you get to teach. My training is supposed to start some time soon, just in time for me to be able to teach in the spring.

How much are they paying an hour?

 

[Childe]

round here its about $20 an hour, suffice to say its good money

 

[Gbemi24]

Originally posted by Childe
round here its about $20 an hour, suffice to say its good money

WOW What is the maximum number of hours you can work a week?

 

[Childe]

Its a salary i think. My source said its about 250 per week. Take that with a grain of salt (NaCl lol).

 

[Gbemi24]

Originally posted by Childe
Its a salary i think. My source said its about 250 per week. Take that with a grain of salt (NaCl lol).

NaCl? The MCAT definitely got to you. I don't blame you. A great score makes things like NaCl sound cool.

As regards kaplan, I am assuming full-time means 12.5 hrs a week since they are paying $250 at $20/hr

 

[dan0909]

Well...so can someone be definitive about this? Someone that, preferably, WORKS for KAPLAN. What scores do you need to be eligible to teach there? There must be something that cut and dry about it.

 

[PianoGirl04]

I'll be getting $15/hour during teaching hours and $7/hour during prep time and office hours. Not $20, but not bad! It probably depends on where you work.

 

[Nutmeg]

Originally posted by Childe
round here its about $20 an hour, suffice to say its good money

TPR in Berkeley was talking $22/hour, but they said that the average instructor works 5-10 hours/week, ding 2 - 4 2.5 hour shifts. This lead me to conclude that they do not pay for prep time and the making of a lesson plan. Hence, if you already have the lesson plan you made last year, you really do get $22 /hour, but your first season works out closer to $7/hour if you care to make a halfway decent lesson plan. So I said F it.

 

[PianoGirl04]

Originally posted by Nutmeg
TPR in Berkeley was talking $22/hour, but they said that the average instructor works 5-10 hours/week, ding 2 - 4 2.5 hour shifts. This lead me to conclude that they do not pay for prep time and the making of a lesson plan. Hence, if you already have the lesson plan you made last year, you really do get $22 /hour, but your first season works out closer to $7/hour if you care to make a halfway decent lesson plan. So I said F it.

Yeah, the great thing about Kaplan is that they pay you for both training and prep time (as well as office hours). Of course, it's less than half the teaching rate, but it's better than nothing.

 

[sunlitdays]

i just started my kaplan training. you get $7 per hour of prep time...and for time doing training (and lessons for training). and then after that, it depends on your branch. it says new teachers will get a fee based on whatever in the teachers policies... i havent bothered to ask.

it is top 10% to teach although this may be flexible. simply fill out the online form and if you qualify, they contact you to do the audition which is like NOTHING. basically if you show up (in my own experience) you get to go through training...after training and your end evaluation, they decide whether to give you a class.

 

[ncalcate]

Whether you get hired depends a lot on supply and demand. I teach at Kaplan in a suburb right outside of Boston, and there are plenty of BU, Tufts, and Harvard Med students looking to teach. So they're pretty selective about who they hire. I scored a 36 and the Cambridge Kaplan office wouldn't even talk to me (damn Harvard Med students) so I had to be hired out of a different office a bit farther from Harvard.

But if you live in a college town with no med school, then you'll probably have a much better shot, and you probably don't need scores in the 90th percentile (which is their official policy).

The training if fairly time consuming. Don't sign up for it unless you can spend a decent amount of time prepping. I did it over the summer when I didn't have a full courseload.

 

[sgilani]

i think pay rate varies by region b/c here in nyc kaplan teachers start at $25/hr + $7 for every prep hour. i think that's why the score requirement here is also a little lower b/c they really need teachers

 

[tennis23]

Does Princeton Review pay for prep time? (in Michigan). They told me they paid $18/hr, but said I'd "learn at training" whether they pay for office hours and prep time. I thought that was pretty BS'y of them not to tell me. I'd assume they sort of have to, since Kaplan in the same city pays $18/hr, and $7/hr for prep time & office hours. I appreciate any insight! Thanks.

 

[king@queens]

how much do they pay in Canada?

 

[R_C_Hutchinson]

funny story, dont know if it belongs here, but im sick of homework, so here goes nothing...
I went into kaplan here yesterday to visit a good friend of mine who works at the front desk there (she's ridiculously beautiful, i'll admit it). I'm sitting there kinda looking around and i ask one of the front desk ladys if my friend is working at the time. Just then this a**hole looking guy walks up and says to the lady "you know, we pay you to work, not talk to your friends." That irked me a bit, especially because the reception area was pretty packed with people and he was obviously being an incredible jerk. So i said "she's trying to get me to be a tutor here, but i just dont know." The guy looks at me (I have on tattered cargo pants and my plain white sweatshirt, so i really look like i dont belong in kaplan) and goes "well what would you be tutoring?" i go "well, i just took the mcat in august, so i think i'd tutor that." he looks at me and smiles and says "well, we do have certain standards here at kaplan, not just anyone can be a tutor, you'd have to have done pretty well to have a shot." "I think i did ok, im happy with my score." "well, that's relative, we'd need to know the actual score." "43s." He stops for a second and I can tell he doenst believe me for a second, but everyone in the room is looking at him. "oh, congrats, i think i remember seeing you around here before now... you took the kaplan course i assume?" "Oh, no, not at all, i prepped on my own." Now the guy's getting really mad because people are hearing all of this. "well, you must have studied for years to do that well without a course." "naw, i just locked myself in my room for a month (which was, i'll admit, a lie, but this guy deserved it)." "that must have been some special room because most people need a formalized preparation, that's why our students do better than self-prep..."
finally i ask the guy for an application, he goes in the back, and, wouldn't you know, they're fresh out. Made my day to see a shady guy like that twist in the wind (not that all kaplan folk are bad, but this guy made the office space boss look humanitarian). my only regret was not getting to see my friend (she wasnt working that day for some reason)- i guess i'll have to drop by some other day and say hi...

 

[dan0909]

good

 

[Xega]

what kind of things do people present at those 5 minute how-tos

 

[PianoGirl04]

Anything you want...how to ski, how to draw, how to study language acquisition in children, how to improve your golf swing...it's completely open. You get a little more info on it when you sign up for an audition.

I finally found out the real policy on percentile scores: You must score in the 90th percentile (11) on the subject you will teach, but they prefer 95th. If you want to teach a subject in which you didn't make the score cutoff, you can take a practice test (you don't have to wait until April to take the MCAT again).

 

[deleted21595]

Originally posted by R_C_Hutchinson
funny story, dont know if it belongs here, but im sick of homework, so here goes nothing...
I went into kaplan here yesterday to visit a good friend of mine who works at the front desk there (she's ridiculously beautiful, i'll admit it). I'm sitting there kinda looking around and i ask one of the front desk ladys if my friend is working at the time. Just then this a**hole looking guy walks up and says to the lady "you know, we pay you to work, not talk to your friends." That irked me a bit, especially because the reception area was pretty packed with people and he was obviously being an incredible jerk. So i said "she's trying to get me to be a tutor here, but i just dont know." The guy looks at me (I have on tattered cargo pants and my plain white sweatshirt, so i really look like i dont belong in kaplan) and goes "well what would you be tutoring?" i go "well, i just took the mcat in august, so i think i'd tutor that." he looks at me and smiles and says "well, we do have certain standards here at kaplan, not just anyone can be a tutor, you'd have to have done pretty well to have a shot." "I think i did ok, im happy with my score." "well, that's relative, we'd need to know the actual score." "43s." He stops for a second and I can tell he doenst believe me for a second, but everyone in the room is looking at him. "oh, congrats, i think i remember seeing you around here before now... you took the kaplan course i assume?" "Oh, no, not at all, i prepped on my own." Now the guy's getting really mad because people are hearing all of this. "well, you must have studied for years to do that well without a course." "naw, i just locked myself in my room for a month (which was, i'll admit, a lie, but this guy deserved it)." "that must have been some special room because most people need a formalized preparation, that's why our students do better than self-prep..."
finally i ask the guy for an application, he goes in the back, and, wouldn't you know, they're fresh out. Made my day to see a shady guy like that twist in the wind (not that all kaplan folk are bad, but this guy made the office space boss look humanitarian). my only regret was not getting to see my friend (she wasnt working that day for some reason)- i guess i'll have to drop by some other day and say hi...

What a jerk.. can you PM me the name of the center and the guy?

I think we can at least give them a hard time for it

 

[bgreet]

Nice job hutch. That guy definantly deserved to twist in the wind for being such a jerk. I would have gone a step further and asked him what his credentials were. By the way how long did you actually study for the mcats?

 

[LauraMac]

Xega,

for my audition i taught everyone how to make a cootie-catcher. they are just looking for something where you are very interactive with the "students" and keep everyone very interested in your presentation.

-laura

 

[elias514]

I teach the MCAT at the Austin Kaplan Center (in Austin, TX). It's a great job, man. Excellent pay, flexible hours, and quite a bit of autonomy. If you get an 11 or better in any section, you're eligible to teach the MCAT. The hardest aspect of getting a job at Kaplan is getting a high score on the MCAT. Training is fairly easy, though it is fairly time consuming. One other thing: teaching is harder than it looks. Just because you thoroughly know a subject does NOT mean that you can effectively teach it, let alone keep a class of 20-30 pre-meds entertained for 3 hours.

 

[MeowMix]

Please, let's be honest. One does not have to have actually taken the real MCAT to teach for any of these prep companies. I taught for one while I was preparing for the MCAT. Yes, you have to have scored well - but it can be on any practice test.

 

[dan0909]

Originally posted by MeowMix
Please, let's be honest. One does not have to have actually taken the real MCAT to teach for any of these prep companies. I taught for one while I was preparing for the MCAT. Yes, you have to have scored well - but it can be on any practice test.

Hah...you say that as if this is on everyones' minds but no one is willing to fess' up to it...I had no idea this was the case...is this common knowledge?

 

[MeowMix]

I would think that anyone who has taught for a prep company knows that this is true. It was certainly obvious to me, and it is no secret. How else could you have the same person teaching LSAT, MCAT, GRE, DAT, OAT, and SAT verbal? Or MCAT, DAT, and OAT physics?

You can indeed be an excellent teacher without ever having taken the MCAT. However, to claim that all teachers have scored highly on the MCAT is misleading. The trick is in the wording; a practice test is considered to be equivalent to the real thing, for teacher qualification.

 

[dan0909]

actually...come to think of it...2 of my kap teachers had never taken the MCAT...the physics teacher was a professor and the bio teacher was some researcher...nonetheless, they both were just as good, if not better, as the MCAT-experienced ones...

 

[elias514]

It is true that individuals can teach standardized tests at prep companies without ever having actually taken the tests. For example, I teach the PCAT (Pharmacy), DAT (dentistry), OAT (optometry), MCAT, and SAT, even though I only took the MCAT. However, it is important to note that I don't feel 100% comfortable teaching exams other than the MCAT, because I have NOT taken them. Although the PCAT, DAT, and OAT are not as challenging as the MCAT from the standpoint of critical thinking and endurance, and therefore they don't pose as much of an intellectual challenge to teach, the fact remains that credibility is important as a teacher of standardized exams. Students, especially in the case of the MCAT, prefer teachers who have experienced the real thing, not just people who happen to know the concepts really well. They want more than just greater understanding of a particular concept (e.g., ideal gas laws), they want to know HOW CONCEPTS ARE ACTUALLY TESTED. The only way I as a teacher can know that is to actually take the exam.