Students Seek Help from Outside Tutors
In an effort to keep up with Exeter’s rigorous academics, many students privately turn to another source of guidance: outside tutors.
Though some students find the additional help necessary, others question whether this usage of outside help is fair, and if it suggests a shortcoming in Exeter’s current support services.
Students cited numerous reasons for seeking out non-Exeter affiliated tutors. The high standards at Exeter, for one, seem to pose an obstacle. “It helps that [my tutor is] not affiliated with Exeter,” senior Kerry* said. “I can ask questions and not seem dumb. If I ask my teachers, I worry that they think I’m slow because other students get [the material] and I don’t. [My outside tutor] has no idea about anybody in my class and no one will ever meet them.”
“It helps that [my tutor is] not affiliated with Exeter,” senior Kerry* said. “I can ask questions and not seem dumb. If I ask my teachers, I worry that they think I’m slow because other students get [the material] and I don’t. [My outside tutor] has no idea about anybody in my class and no one will ever meet them.”
Kerry calls her tutor once every week for 45 minutes. Her tutor helps her complete her math hand-ins, preview topics ahead of class, and creates practice quizzes for her.
Many students seek outside help on their own or with their parents’ help, but Exeter also connects students to private tutors, according to Learning Specialist and Coordinator of Academic Support Jonathan Nydick. “Mostly what we use is either emeriti or people that are maybe working part time and have some extra time to tutor—people that are already affiliated or have been affiliated with Exeter,” he said.
Emeriti work free of charge to provide students with extra assistance—”out of their own good will,” as Nydick described it—while other Exeter-endorsed tutors may charge extra fees. However, according to Nydick, the Academy only has a limited number of outside tutors because many teachers are not familiar with Exeter’s unique style of teaching in areas including Harkness mathematics.
Upper Marge’s* adviser connected her to one of these Exeter-specialized tutors. Her current tutor, an Exeter alum, ran the writing center at the Loomis Chaffee School for 12 years, but has now returned to Exeter to tutor Exonians. She had previously struggled with writing, but the first paper she turned in with help earned her an A.
Upper Daisy’s* math teacher recommended that she find a tutor to supplement her in-class learning. Her current math tutor offers services free of charge to Exeter students. “If I did not have [outside tutors] I would be failing. I needed more help than they could offer me at peer tutoring and I needed it more often and in a more individualized manner,” Daisy said.
Upper Parker* added that tutors are more straightforward with subject matter than a peer tutor may be. “[Having an outside tutor is like] having another peer editor except instead of driving you around in circles he tells you exactly what’s wrong. He says, ‘your thesis sucks, change it.’ Instead of teachers, who say, ‘I don’t know if your thesis sucks, why don’t you tell me?’ And then some teachers don’t even want to read your writing,” Parker said.
The dependence on such tutors could also be a cultural phenomenon. Lower and international student Sidnee* commented on the prevalence of outside tutor usage among international students. “If you walk into the library between 9 to 2 on a Sunday, you’ll just see a ton of [international] students with their tutors,” she said. “It’s very common where I’m from.”
Nydick admitted that tutors could be suitable for some students. “I see it as a better thing for students if they have a gap that they need to strengthen in their background. [...] Somebody might be missing some stuff in their past and the tutor could fill in the gaps they have in their knowledge so they can go back and fully participate in their classes,” he said.
Yet, despite the various ways in which students utilize tutors to enrich their learning, Nydick warned against the tutoring straying both “physically and intellectually from the school itself. [...] That’s when it gets trickier to monitor the content of what’s being taught. I think we try to keep a pretty close, tight circle of people so that we know what’s going on and there’s control over the quality and the type of person who’s going to work with our students,” Nydick said.
Math Instructor Aviva Halani also noted the importance of tutors adhering to Exeter’s curriculum. “If these outside tutors don’t know our material and they don’t know where our problems are going, I would think that it would be really hard to come in and help without giving the answer away,” Halani said. “I think that strips students of the learning and discovery process—math is about more than just formulas and answers.”
English Instructor Duncan Holcomb, however, believed that it was natural for students to seek tutoring help. “There are all sorts of ways people have great advantages over others. For example, it’s a big issue now with SAT prep because some people can afford to pay thousands of dollars for SAT prep while others can’t. [...] There is a bit of unfairness there but that’s built into the system and can’t exactly be remedied,” he said.
Halani noted that even on campus, students have access to different opportunities, pointing out that some dorms can have as many as three math teachers that serve duty while others have none.
Despite these claims, some hold that students should not need to seek academic help outside of Exeter. “We attend the best school in the country and our teachers are people that have gone through such a rigorous selection process to work at this school,” upper Madison Machado said. “With all the services that the school offers, most people shouldn’t really need outside tutors.”
Senior and Co-Head Peer Tutor Calvin Henaku concurred. “I don’t think [outside tutors] are necessary. There are definitely more sources of help within this school than we need. You can go to Mr. Nydick and he can refer you to all the sources of help you need, you have peer tutoring, teachers and the writing center. Everything that outside tutors do for students, these are all things that people within Exeter can help you with,” Henaku said.
At the same time, others maintain the belief that the school may not provide enough resources for extra help. Senior Jinpyo Hong noted that several of his friends only started working with tutors after failing to make significant progress with on-campus resources. “Sometimes I’m very disappointed by the quality of the writing center. Sometimes the teacher just reads the essay in 5 minutes and says ‘this is a decent essay, keep up the good work,’” Hong said.
For Parker, a non-native English speaker, having an English tutor was his only choice to level the playing field among his Exeter peers. “It’s actually unfair to me if I don’t have a tutor,” Parker said.
*Asterisks denote a name change to preserve anonymity.