Questions for people who have tutored for Kaplan, especially those who have done some online

[LongApple]

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1. Do you know of anyone who was able to qualify for being a tutor by just taking a Kaplan MCAT test instead of taking the official MCAT? I saw a post about this but am curious to find out more. If you were a former Kaplan student, and you do not get contacted by Kaplan to get recruited, then is it still possible to send them your Kaplan MCAT practice test score?

See Kaplan MCAT Teaching Opportunity?

"Kaplan does not know how you scored on your official MCAT unless you tell us, but we can look for former Kaplan students who scored well on full-length practice tests in our courses. Because we are confident that our practice tests predict test-day success, we are comfortable using 90th percentile Kaplan or AAMC practice test scores as qualifying. We will sometimes reach out to score-qualified Kaplan alumni in areas in which we have openings to let them know they meet that initial qualification. "


2. If you wanted to do just online tutoring eventually, would you consider any other companies aside from Kaplan? Which?

3. For those who transitioned to being able to do tutoring 100% online, what it did it take to convince your manager to let you do this?

Example situation where this would matter: if someone wanted to be able to teach MCAT online if they became crippled later and their medical career dreams were over

4. What else do you wish you knew about tutoring MCAT before doing it?

 

[Blueprint Med School]

What a great question, right up my alley! I used to teach/tutor for Kaplan.

1. I have never heard of anybody teaching for Kaplan without taking the official MCAT. Since Kaplan requires 90th percentile in each section, usually what happens is somebody will take the MCAT, kill it in each section except one, but justify that score with an AAMC or Kaplan exam score (i.e, somebody scores 85th percentile in C/P but consistently scored 95th percentile in practice tests). However, it will never hurt to apply. Also, I'm not too sure if Kaplan allows for people to directly apply to be a private tutor. Generally, they start as a course instructor and then become a private tutor.

3. My schedule got busier. Just ask. They won't force you to do anything you can't do.

4. A big part of private tutoring is just being somebody to help guide students through the process. A lot of time, you'll be giving advice and acting as a sort of coach, rather than just teaching MCAT science all day.

Kevin W, MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors

 

[JoaoMoutinho]

I tutored for Kaplan, but never online. They told me that you had to have consistently high student ratings for several classes before letting you teach online. I had my official MCAT score before I had even thought about teaching with them, though in contrast to what the other poster said my score was not above 90th percentile in every section.

I thought the job was decent for a side gig. Due to availability of classes I ended up teaching mostly DAT stuff which was fine because there was enough overlap in material. The pay was minimum wage for any prep and only paid well for actual time in class, and they asked me to record my time to the 1/100th of an hour. On top of this, the hours were super inconsistent because classes had 1-2 week breaks scheduled in the middle, and there's really not any work between classes. It was difficult to keep another job due to the class/prep schedule (though I did for a while, even on top of undergrad classes). At one point they had me teach a few sessions of a class that was an hour away for $35/hr, though that pay bump was in part to cover travel costs.

I met 2 other Kaplan employees in person during 18 or so months working for them, and I never met my direct report. I met one guy who verified some of my onboarding paperwork, and then I met my boss's boss when she came to do an info/sales thing at my undergrad campus. My manager was not super organized, which caused me a lot of unnecessary headaches. That was just my manager, though, and everyone else was quite professional.

2 final comments:
Great as a side job, decidedly not great as main source of income due to lack of consistency in hours. Good way to review stuff and even learn it a bit better, though my work experience didn't even make it onto my application. I also really enjoy teaching, which made it a good fit for me.

If you work for them try to get an address for Kaplan or for Graham holdings (parent company), because I never could find a solid one and have been asked for the information in every background check since then, and it's just an inconvenience that I am warning you about up front.



Ok, sorry for an edit that makes this even longer, but I'll answer your questions more precisely:

I didn't ask about private tutoring, though I did have students approach me independently, and I could have tutored them privately under the table if I had felt like breaching my contract.

A lot of people at my undergrad did stuff with Altius, but literally every person I met who worked for them was a massive d-bag, and they were extremely aggressive in their sales tactics. I didn't want to be like them, and I think Kaplan paid better anyway.

I thought about pushing to switch to online tutoring and probably could have swung it as I had excellent student ratings and few class options in the state, but I was sick of the complaints mentioned above and decided to go all-in on my research when I finished undergrad. I don't regret my decision, though research mattered much more for my app than for most students.