I made $1,000 an hour as an SAT tutor. My students did better without me.
Melissa is a 17-year-old high school junior. She's bright, hard-working, and ambitious. Her parents, both extremely successful entrepreneurs, have enlisted me to help Melissa raise her SAT scores. Their only goal is to get her into her dream school: the University of Southern California. The problem, they say, is that Melissa is "a bad tester" — she might have a 4.0 GPA and a slew of extracurricular achievements, but when it comes to standardized tests, she's helpless.
The real problem: The whole idea of a "bad tester" is bullshit, but almost every parent I've encountered believes it.
I've spent a decade tutoring the SAT. In that time, I've developed a reputation forefficacy. My students routinely improve their scores by more than 400 points, and wealthy parents desperate for a solution to their test prep woes have no problem paying me what most would consider outrageous rates: up to $1,000 an hour. I work from home, I make my own hours, and I have a job that a friend of mine describes as "cushy beyond belief."
Commanding these rates for a profession as simple as tutoring should have been a dream come true. Yet as I accumulated experience working with hundreds of students around the country, the situation soured. I realized that as a nation, we've created a monster: a generation of disempowered, directionless, and overburdened students who work harder every year, yet continue to see their SAT scores decline. And I was becoming a key part of the problem.
The myth of the "bad tester"
Nearly every student who came my way was, apparently, a "bad tester."I made $1,000 an hour as an SAT tutor. My students did better without me. - Vox: