Lsat Tutors - how successful have you been? Forum

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Lsat Tutors - how successful have you been?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Dec 05, 2017 12:23 pm

I privately tutored some people this year during 3L just for side money. Pretty simple setup in which I just used Craigslist to advertise and linked to a personal website I created with more information about myself. Tutored in person and eventually some students were ok to transition through online video software (which I preferred way more) especially while I was traveling for my bar trip. I had just a few students (just 5) and made about 14k for about 200 hours, which wasn't bad between Jan and September. My prices ranged as I experimented but my average earnings were about $68/hour.

I really enjoyed tutoring. Anyone else want to chime in on their experience? How successful are you? How did you scale? I wouldn't mind restarting this side venture someday in the future if possible.

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Re: Lsat Tutors - how successful have you been?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Dec 05, 2017 12:29 pm

What LSAT score would you say qualifies a person to ethically advertise that they tutor (privately) for the LSAT? Most of the tutoring/prep companies have a cutoff, probably around 170, but I don't feel like googling it.

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Re: Lsat Tutors - how successful have you been?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:01 pm

OP here. I wouldn't want a tutor to have below a 170. That being said, I'm a bit skeptical of the other ads I saw on Craigslist in my market that did not list what school they went to, or had been out of school for 10+ years. I feel like a tutor that can post verifiable credentials that are proxies for Lsat score is the first thing one should look for.

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anon sequitur

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Re: Lsat Tutors - how successful have you been?

Post by anon sequitur » Thu Dec 07, 2017 3:02 am

I worked for TestMasters for a couple years before law school, and then I tutored privately some while in law school and a little bit afterwards during my first very low-paying law job. I gave up because it was mostly a waste of time, couldn’t land enough consistent students to make the effort worthwhile. I was in a pretty small market, but it was also probably due to me being a shitty salesperson. I got one great client for several months of four hours per week, but otherwise it was a lot of people with big plans but zero follow through. I just found it wasn’t worth the effort, even when I was charging 60 bucks an hour. Too bad, teaching reasonably bright and motivated students is the most enjoyable job I’ve ever had.

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deuceindc

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Re: Lsat Tutors - how successful have you been?

Post by deuceindc » Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:25 am

I've been thinking about getting into the tutoring game. OP, what was your rate schedule? E.g., $X for an all-inclusive package, $Y per hour, or somewhere between the two? Feel free to PM me if you don't want to publicize.

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Re: Lsat Tutors - how successful have you been?

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:06 pm

OP here.

My market is a lot bigger (think NYC, LA, major city) and even then it was quite hard landing students. Like other comments mentioned here, the biggest problem is finding students who actually have follow through and determination/discipline especially when they are paying $$$. Not uncommon to have a student start skipping sessions / not doing all the work assigned / drop off to the point that sessions they do have with you is a waste of money.

I thought I could get students committed by charging a discounted packaged amount, but I found that no one ever committed to the package. I was charging only $50 when I started but experimented with a few more price points until I settled on $80. There also looks like a lot of competition on Craigslist. You probably want to adjust your rate by how frequently the student wants to meet and how much free time you have . More frequent = lower price. I charged some students $175/hr that wanted to only meet once every two week for instance.

The only reason I made 14k was because I had two students who comitted and would meet multiple times a week with me through two test cycles. Quality beats quantity of students.

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