Tutor.com™, one of the nation’s largest online tutoring companies, has reached an impressive milestone: 20 million one-to-one tutoring sessions—and counting.
Nearly two million of those 20 million sessions were delivered in 2020—a year in which Tutor.com met record-breaking demand for its services. At peak times, Tutor.com was delivering 7,500 tutoring sessions a day. Overall, 2020 saw the highest single-year delivery of services in the company’s 21-year history—an increase of more than 50 percent above the 1.3 million tutoring sessions completed in 2019. Learners also made exceptional use of the platform’s drop-off review services, practice quizzes, video lessons, and test prep from The Princeton Review®.
“With unprecedented demand for our services, our full team at Tutor.com has risen to the challenge,” said Sandi White, Vice President and General Manager, Tutor.com. “We are mission-driven, and our dedicated tutors and staff work tirelessly to support learners, whenever they need help—24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” said White, adding that Tutor.com responded to outreach from more than 900 additional institutions and businesses seeking partnerships to serve their learning communities.
The extraordinary demand was primarily due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19–related school closures meant that the nation’s 55 million K–12 students as well as 14 million college students abruptly transitioned to remote, virtual, or hybrid learning last spring—and many have remained that way. As school-at-home and work-at-home became the new normal, the requests for Tutor.com services soared.
“Our partners are committed to increasing access and opportunity within their communities,” said White. “Their goals speak to the wide-ranging, compounding effects of the pandemic: schools combatting the COVID learning slide, colleges and universities helping their students persist and graduate, libraries serving students as well as jobseekers, and organizations relieving the burden on their employees-turned-homeschoolers.” The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), for example, expanded the eligibility for its Tutor.com/military program to support more DoD families during the pandemic. Since spring 2020, the DoD-funded program has been available at no cost to all U.S. military service members (Active Duty, National Guard, Reserve, and Service Academy Cadets), DoD civilian personnel, and all of their dependents.
With study after study showing that one-to-one tutoring is one of the most effective interventions for overcoming COVID learning loss, White noted that Tutor.com is poised to continue meeting the ever-growing need.
Some facts and stats about Tutor.com’s services in 2020:
- October was the month in which the company delivered the highest number of tutoring sessions: 223,012 (about 7,200 a day). November 15–21 was the week in which it delivered the highest number of sessions: 52,742 (about 7,500 a day).
- Tutor.com’s nearly two million delivered sessions in 2020 command another impressive stat: one minute. That’s the average time learners waited to connect with an expert tutor.
- Tutor.com added 26 new subjects in 2020. Many, including new Study Skills and Parent Coaching subjects, were designed to address needs of families contending with remote learning.
Learners using Tutor.com reported high levels of satisfaction with the company and with the tutors who assisted them. In post-session surveys, 96 percent reported Tutor.com had helped them complete their assignments; 97 percent indicated they would recommend Tutor.com to a friend; and 99 percent said they were glad that their institution or organization offered them access to Tutor.com.
Tutor.com reached its 20-million milestone at 9:26 pm EST on Sunday, January 24. The session—in biology—was initiated by a patron of the King County Library System in Washington state. Following the session, tutor Wendy Trzyna commented, “It is an honor to be part of each student’s learning journey, and to know that I’m helping someone learn important skills in a time of need. There’s nothing better than that.”
White echoed Trzyna’s sentiment: “It captures the pride and the promise of the words we happily posted on Tutor.com’s homepage: ’21 years, 20 million sessions. Uplifting results, one student at a time.'”
