The Test Prep Teaching Gig

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Has anyone here worked for Kaplan, Princeton Review, or other such companies.

I taught SAT at Kaplan for two years myself, during and right after college. I made $21/hr which seemed phenomenal at the time, but when you consider it's a 3 hour class twice a week, and I was driving half-an-hour to an hour each way, and the most hours I could possibly teach in a week would be 12-15, and that there were off periods in between blocks of classes, it wasn't so amazing.

Anyway, recently I took a practice LSAT and did surprisingly well, so I'm thinking about going back, but asking for a lot more money. Does anyone else out there do this?

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 04:09 (twenty years ago)

i passed all the auditions, now i get to head to training in seattle for a coupla weekends in january. we shall see.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 04:38 (twenty years ago)

Ha. That reminds me, the main trainer when I did it (not MY trainer, luckily) was actually the head of training for the region. He was this short but built dude with lots of gel and who, I kid you not, made a point of pushing your hand down (palm up) when he shook your hand to prove he was the alpha male. He used to tell you to say things like "Boom! Kaplan four-step method!" and "Now THAT'S the Kaplan advantage."

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 04:52 (twenty years ago)

good thing i'll be working for Princeton.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 05:00 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

Well, I'm doing it. I've qualified to teach LSATs and I start on Oct. 2. I'm also doing a PSAT class starting tomorrow.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 22 September 2005 03:48 (twenty years ago)

I have to say "Kaplan" and "Test Day" and "Score Points" a lot, but at least not "Boom!"

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 22 September 2005 03:52 (twenty years ago)

Haha! I'm doing this too. Teaching the verbal parts of GRE and GMAT classes, respectively. Fortunately my center director's pretty low-key about the buzzwords. Watching the training video made me feel kinda icky.

― pr00de, where's my car? (pr00de), Thursday, 22 September 2005 04:22 (twenty years ago)

Eew, thank god I didn't have to watch a "training video"

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 22 September 2005 04:23 (twenty years ago)

It's pretty silly, and fortunately I watched it at home so I could laugh and/or fast-forward as I liked. Some of the people they had teaching on there just sounded like car salesmen.

― pr00de, where's my car? (pr00de), Thursday, 22 September 2005 04:25 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

I go in for my second weekend of training tomorrow. hopefully, i'll do well enough on the "teach this shit back to us" segments to get certified, but the shit is stil at the nerve-wracking phase, so who knows...

― kingfish russian bigamist (kingfish 2.0), Friday, 13 January 2006 06:31 (twenty years ago)

Well, looks like I washed out today. Still, at least I tried something new.

― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Sunday, 15 January 2006 02:43 (twenty years ago)

i am doing a teachback tomorrow! today's didn't go so hot ...

― vahid (vahid), Sunday, 15 January 2006 06:56 (twenty years ago)

Good god, Kingfish, THAT's what you were training for? They (assuming it's PR) are desparate for new blood right now because the new regional head (the woman in Seattle) is hated by everyone (she is why my ex-roommate stopped working for them).

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 15 January 2006 07:51 (twenty years ago)

yup. Of the 7 folks who started the training, only 3 are left.

the trainer chick's methods were a bit...pushy and overly pedantic. like a nerdy personal trainer, even. Nice chick, but pushing/browbeating the whole "salesmanship"/"branding" into any students taking the class rubbed me the wrong way. one of the other folks in the class expressed similar reservations.

Still, in the middle of the day today, I was really starting to get pissed off at the style, and figured that I'd just complete the training, get certified, and then never actually teach a class. Hell, I got much farther than I ever expected, seeing as how I have no (formal?) teaching experience whatsoever.

― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Sunday, 15 January 2006 09:18 (twenty years ago)

from the cutting email:

...I do not have a teachback assignment for you, as I am not inviting you back to finish training tomorrow. Unfortunately, I just did not see the level of improvement I needed to see in your explanations and classroom presence in today's teachback...

― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Sunday, 15 January 2006 09:25 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, that's the classic complaint. I felt the same way first time around and just BARELY passed training, and only because I had a friend in the office who told them to let me through.

Second time I smartened up though. All you have to do is fake their bullshit for the training and then you can pretty much relax when you actually teach.

And to be honest, it's better to just NOT think of teaching an SAT class like teaching an English or Math class, because it's something totally different. You're teaching a bunch of very specific, defined skills and drilling them for one test. They're paying money for nothing but measurable improvement toward that test. And honestly a lot of those methods work. You don't have to say "Kaplan" (or "Princeton Reveiw" or whatever) every other word, but having done this a lot I've found that sticking to their corny curriculum is both the most effective way of teaching the stuff AND makes your job a lot easier.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 16 January 2006 02:46 (twenty years ago)

Oh that bit I know. It was all the more persnickety bits that I didn't like.

― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 16 January 2006 03:40 (twenty years ago)

Well in any case, best way to go is fake it for the training and put your resentment aside. But you're not missing out on much by not having the job.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 16 January 2006 04:05 (twenty years ago)

i know. i just would have liked the 2nd job. not that i had any burning to teach, but i figure it would have stabilize things financially, a little

― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 16 January 2006 05:45 (twenty years ago)

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