Varsity Tutors Live Tutoring

Varsity Tutors has a lot going for it. I've connected with some great students and navigated a clunky interface (which functions like Zoom but with more glitches) to help those students find greater success. However, I have little choice but to give Varsity Tutors a low star rating until they can rectify some fundamental issues with their policies. The most urgent is the present reality that, apparently, if a student unilaterally pushes back a session till later in the day, even if they gave less than an hour of notice, the tutor presently has no choice but to either (A) agree to the new session time, or (B) forfeit all pay that student that day. Payment for the originally scheduled time is forfeit regardless, without tutor consent. Today I had a session scheduled for which I did about 3 hours of prep work, due to the student having some special needs. With less than an hour's notice, the student pushed back the start time to when I have a preexisting conflict. Varsity Tutors said they would not pay me for the time the student and I had originally agreed to: "We are unable to process a late cancellation [sic] invoice[,] because the session was rescheduled within the same day. As a result, this update no longer qualifies for a cancellation fee." Such a policy is untenable for prospective tutors; it means we are essentially expected to treat the rest of the day as on-call hours, but aren't being paid to do so. I will change my rating if this policy is amended, which it urgently needs.

Varsity Tutors recently updated the live learning platform and in one of my sessions today we couldn’t figure out why the sound wasn’t working when we were playing our instruments. We adapted and turned it into a little science experiment to try and figure it out. Then after the session, I called their tech-support to explain the situation and see if they could help. Connor, who answered was rude about the whole situation. I explained to him the issue and how we tried to solve it. His only response was “why didn’t you use the in-session chat support?” I explained that we turned it into a science experiment and that I had data to share with him. He begrudgingly listened and several times asked that same question in a rude tone. In my next session my student’s parent showed me what the setting was that I had missed. Meaning my student’s father was more helpful than Connor, who’s supposed to know the program because he is the tech-support person. The student’s father was also kinder than Conner. This is not the first time that Connor has been rude to me when I’ve called in about something. Connor was also rude to me in May 2025 when I called about an invoicing error that needed to be fixed He told me that “nobody reads the invoices even when the “alert your director to any issues” button is clicked. I don’t know what’s going on in Connor’s life for him to act this way at his job at multiple points in the same year, but I do not appreciate it. I am wishing him well enough and I hope he has the day he deserves.

I have had two sessions with my tutor for my five-year-old. So far it has been fantastic. My tutor is Amanda. She is very patient with my daughter. She helps her with sounds and recognition of letters and numbers.. so far I give this app a five I don’t normally write apps, but I believe this is one that needed rated. I highly recommend this app for the age group that I am working at because I don’t know how the older apps work for the older children.. I am glad that I found this app. I actually googled to find a tutor and these guys came up and I thought why not give it a try and so far it has been fantastic. And the communication from the developers is fantastic. They always asked me how the session went and how things are going and give me reminders of when the time is coming up, which is great because we live in a super busy world and we sometimes forget things