Archive for the ‘Graduate Tutor news’ Category

MBA Tutoring Plans & Challenges

Monday, January 4th, 2010
We have been in the MBA tutoring space for more than 2 years now. Our focus areas and the challenges we face are different as time goes on. To give you a glimpse of what our plans for the year are and the challenges we expect, I post highlights from our most recent annual letter below.
MBA tutoring plans and challenges from GraduateTutor.com’s annual letter

I want to first take this opportunity to wish you a happy New Year and great success in your professional and personal lives in 2010.  I have tried to briefly highlight below our focus areas and the challenges that we see for the year ahead as we continue to serve CFA, CPA & MBA students.
As I write our annual team letter, my strongest emotion is one of deep gratitude to each one of you who have been a part of GraduateTutor.com over the last few years.  While we have all played instrumental roles in GraduateTutor.com’s success till date, I want to especially thank our tutoring faculty for their commitment and time with us.  It is the strength of our tutoring faculty that distinguishes us from a host of other players in the market.
Plans for the year
  • We want to continue serving students to the best of our ability.  We believe that the best way to build our business is to build it one hour and one student at a time.  We want all our interactions and activities to reflect this belief.
  • Recruiting outstanding faculty to our pool of great tutors continues to be an area of focus.  We are very selective in who we recruit and so if you know potential candidates, please do let us know.
  • This year we also want to strengthen our existing university relationships and build new relationships. If you know faculty or administrators, do give us an introduction.  We do reward introductions that turn into business with commissions.
Challenges
  • This year, we have seen an increase in low priced and low quality competition.  We expect this to increase in the coming months but will hold fast to our aim to provide high quality tutoring services.  Our emphasis is on helping students learn. Our product is really knowledge and understanding which is far more valuable than solutions to questions.
  • We also see a lot of unethical competition in the form of tutoring services that just provide homework and exam solutions. Once again we want to hold fast to our core values and do not want to do exams or assignments for students.  We are well aware that with more universities going in for graded assignments and hybrid approaches to grading, this is a larger challenge and we count on you individually to take calls on what is right given our philosophy and our emphasis on knowledge and understanding.
  • As we have grown, we are increasingly seeing online fraud. We have enlisted appropriate help and are learning to cope with and counter online fraud.
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Do study sites make the Grade?

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

WSJ.com today has an article titled “Do study sites make the Grade?”. It mentions a few services that provides homework & exam solutions, past papers, etc. to students.

Running these services may be (not sure!) completely within the law. However, is aiding those who do not abide by the honor codes, morally right/legal?

At GraduateTutor, our policy is very clear. We will not help students cheat by doing their homework or writing exams or papers. We will tutor students on the concepts they need in order to do their homework and do well in their exams. We believe that we would be robbing or stealing students’ learning experience if we were to help them cheat.

Students try to work around our guidelines in a variety of ways. Our tutors have express instructions to refuse students trying to cheat. See a recent email exchange with a student.

Dear (Name withheld),

This looks like an exam! We are not a homework solutions provider and do not do exams for students. What we do is teach students the concepts so that they can do their homework themselves. Our rates are $50/hour.

In other words, we will be happy to teach you what you need to solve this problem but cannot mail you this problem. If it takes only 30 minutes, it will cost you only $25, if it takes an hour $50 and so on.

Do let us know if this is what you are looking for.

Best,

GT team

It is more diffcult as a business owner when it means you have to contend with lower profits and revenues. Fine arguments will not change facts. Each individual/company has to clarify what values they wish to live with.

We hope to counter the loss of revenue from assisting students cheat by working with universities directly to provide their students tutoring services.

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Graduate Tutor @ Emerson College

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Emerson College’s website states that it

“is the only comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to communication and the arts in a liberal arts context…..”

Thanks to the initiative on the part of a student in its undergraduate “Marketing and Social Media” class, GraduateTutor.com will be sharing its experiences and challenges in marketing and social media.  We welcome this opportunity and as educators salute the college and faculty for encouraging learning through application as well as through interaction with industry.

Feel free to add your thoughts to the discussions below or on Twitter @senith where we will be live during the class session.

Update:  Did not happen!  Maybe next week.  Will keep you posted.

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Colleges Face a Financial-Aid Crunch

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Time.com reports on this story. Not breaking news – we have been hearing a lot about this and not great news either!

We hope the new administration has heard the concerns of students and understand the importance of college/graduate education for the future of American competitiveness.  However, before we sit back and expect the government and others to do something about it let us ask the question “What can we do about this?  Are there any creative ways to overcome this? How can I take responsibility here”

Part time jobs?  Entrepreneurship on the side? Opencourses (MIT / Yale)? If you have any creative ideas do email us.

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“States disinvesting in higher education”

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

State colleges and universities are feeling the pinch just like many states themselves!  And they are responding just like the states and other organizations are by doing what they can to survive.  Unfortunately this means a lot of cuts.  Not good news for graduate education.

“The trend line is states disinvesting in higher education.”

So said Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, an organization that studies spending by colleges and universities in this NYT article.

While the mission of public universities and community and state colleges is providing local education, we hope the top universities and boards whose mission is to provide top quality and cutting edge education will not cut back on the investment in graduate education.  While undergraduate education is key for local economies today and in the near future, graduate education and research will be critical for long term growth and success.

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Cheating Goes Global as Essay Mills Multiply

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Thomas Bartlett has reported on how students are cheating with the assistance of online services in the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Great work Thomas!

We at GraduateTutor.com are often approached to do papers and want to once again reaffirm our commitment to adhere to our ethical standards.  GraduateTutor.com adheres to generally accepted University honor codes and expects all students it serves to do so.

Students truly suffer the most from this dishonest practice as they have lost the opportunity to learn what the assignment / task had intended for them to learn!  Read more about what GraduateTutor.com will not do and why here.

What these services do is give the tutoring industry a bad name!  There must be services such as ours that abide by honor codes and established ethical policies.  We hope that these articles will in some way cover or mention the ethical companies too.

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How to start a business: Business plans

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Graduatetutor.com assists b-school students with tutoring in a variety of subjects.  We are now thrilled to formally launch our business plan tutoring services.

There has been a spurt of new entrepreneurs and we want to do our bit to support them.   See this special report on entrepreneurship in The latest edition of The Economist.  According to this NYT article, more people are now forced to start a business.  It may be that people are tired of looking for work like the title of this article says or it may be that you have less to lose once you are laid off!  Whatever your reason for starting a business is, it always helps to plan well before you do so.
Starting your business is a risky venture.  Statistics show that only one in ten or more businesses succeed.  What can you do to increase your odds of success?

Answer:  Write a business plan before you start a business.

We believe putting down your ideas in a business plan before you start really helps in many ways.  See our business plan tutoring page to read more on how a business plan can help before you start a business and how GraduateTutor.com can assist you.
People get ideas all the time  but unfortunately ideas alone will not create a successful start up.  The idea needs to be implemented.  But even  implementation is not sufficient to create a successful business.  The idea must be implemented in a manner that it must produce more revenues /cash flow than it costs to bring the product or service to the market.

Writing a business plan before you start a business will help you evaluate if your business idea can produce more revenues /cash flow than it costs to bring the product or service to the market.  If the answer is a resounding yes, then it is a wise decision to move forward.  If not, pause and think of a new idea.
We believe that if more people had written business plans before they started their businesses, the statistic that  nine out of ten startups fail would have been so much better!  So take our advice and write a business plan before you start a business!

(full disclosure:  We offer business plan tutoring services! Please don’t feel obligated to work with us.  Just write a business plan before you start a business.)

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Good news! Student aid to stay….

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

More good news in a season of bad news!  This NYT article mentions that students can expect to get more aid instead of less aid this year.  This is based on a survey and is believable although it seems counter to what most would first expect in a time of shrinking budgets, donations and endowments.

We have also experienced that some colleges are also investing to retain their enrolled students by being more supportive.  Examples of support include providing them quality tutoring support.

We are always happy to help! If you know of colleges / MBA programs that are looking for high quality tutoring support, please do let us know.

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MBA is still a ticket to success in the crunch

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

The Association of MBAs’ survey on the state of 2,000 MBA holders’ careers in June 2008, provides strong evidence that even in these uncertain times, getting an MBA is one of the best things you can do to ensure that you and your skills are in demand.

As an organization catering to MBA candidates, we see many students who go to great lengths to get their MBAs.  We aways tell them that it will be worth it in the end. When these tough times end, and tough times always do,  companies will be looking for smart, efficient people and will be willing to pay them accordingly.

An MBA is an investment that gives great returns.  This is borne out by the above mentioned survey which reports that MBA graduates received an average salary rise of 46 per cent immediately after graduation.

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Tutoring in 2009 – ‘Make Learning Easier’

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

Below is our annual letter to students.  We thought many of you may find it interesting to know where we as an organization are and what we plan for 2009.

Email follows :

Happy New Year!

 

First, I am writing on behalf of all of us at GraduateTutor.com to wish you a great year ahead! May the hard work you put into your studies result in academic success and great personal and professional opportunities in 2009! 

 

Second, we are glad that you chose to get high quality online tutoring and that we had the opportunity to work with you in 2008.  We want to thank you for choosing to work with GraduateTutor.com. 

 

Finally, I want to give you a brief update on where we are as an organization and what we plan to work on this coming year. 

 

We are a year old and are very pleased with the feedback you have provided. While we grow, our continuing focus will remain on Making Learning Easier by providing high quality specialized tutoring services. 

 

The following are our immediate priorities. 

 

  • New subjects: We will be adding new subjects.  Advanced finance topics, data analysis tools, decision making, corporate finance case studies and CPA & CFA topics are high on our priority list. 
  • New faculty: We are looking to recruit and train additional faculty this year.  Most of our faculty are MBAs or CPAs and often teach at various universities/business programs.
  • MBA/Campus representatives: We want to expand the number of MBA/Campus representatives in various MBA programs and/or geographic territories. Our representatives are paid commissions and find this opportunity an excellent way to earn a little income on the side. If you are interested or know anyone who may be interested please do let us know.
  • Student Support Center: We are working on developing an offshore support center to eventually provide round the clock service.  We will begin a test initiative this year and expand after evaluating the results.

 

Do share your feedback with us.  We appreciate your thoughts and hope to make this a more valuable service.

 

Happy New Year again! We wish you plenty of success this coming year and look forward to working with you.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

www.GraduateTutor.com

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