This was Lukeprog’s suggestion in the linked post, but they seem to have rejected it based on the difficulty of picking up motivated clients that way. Jonah phrased it as “teenagers and young adults are often rebellious and don’t want to do what their parents tell them to”. I think that this is something of an exaggeration—kids take test prep seriously after all—but it’s true that the value of the service is more difficult for teenagers to see than something like exam tutoring.
Is it worth spending time mentoring kids that aren’t interested and so won’t get much out of the service, in order to get to the x% of students that will take it seriously? I would have thought so, but from this post it seems they’ve concluded that the answer is no, at least after you take into account the switch in focus (more personal advantage, less effective altruism) needed to get parents to pay for the service.
I’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to have a selective set of clients. A single screening interview makes sense here, and might even help appeal to parents who want to think that their child is being treated as special—which wouldn’t be a bad thing, if the child actually was special.
As an SAT tutor, I’ve tried to impart life lessons along with bubble-filling lessons (on how to look at tests in general, how to hack studying, etc.), but the scope of those has necessarily been limited, both by the demands of the SAT and by the types of students I work with (I do more 1100-to-1500 transitions than 2000-to-2300).
Still, I feel that the “life lessons + advice for incoming college students” part of my work is much more valuable than the basic subject tutoring. And parents don’t seem to object to my sharing their “turf” as far as lessons go. But this may be because I’m still young enough (20) to seem more like a high school student than a surrogate parent. And the life lessons were always a bonus in addition to SAT work; as a primary business, perhaps not so good.
Anyway, I’m sure the Cognito guys have considered all this—I just hope that someone gives you the chance to pick up the work again in the future (and maybe hire me to help). Thanks for the Quora work, and good luck with your future endeavors!
This was Lukeprog’s suggestion in the linked post, but they seem to have rejected it based on the difficulty of picking up motivated clients that way. Jonah phrased it as “teenagers and young adults are often rebellious and don’t want to do what their parents tell them to”. I think that this is something of an exaggeration—kids take test prep seriously after all—but it’s true that the value of the service is more difficult for teenagers to see than something like exam tutoring.
Is it worth spending time mentoring kids that aren’t interested and so won’t get much out of the service, in order to get to the x% of students that will take it seriously? I would have thought so, but from this post it seems they’ve concluded that the answer is no, at least after you take into account the switch in focus (more personal advantage, less effective altruism) needed to get parents to pay for the service.
I’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to have a selective set of clients. A single screening interview makes sense here, and might even help appeal to parents who want to think that their child is being treated as special—which wouldn’t be a bad thing, if the child actually was special.
As an SAT tutor, I’ve tried to impart life lessons along with bubble-filling lessons (on how to look at tests in general, how to hack studying, etc.), but the scope of those has necessarily been limited, both by the demands of the SAT and by the types of students I work with (I do more 1100-to-1500 transitions than 2000-to-2300).
Still, I feel that the “life lessons + advice for incoming college students” part of my work is much more valuable than the basic subject tutoring. And parents don’t seem to object to my sharing their “turf” as far as lessons go. But this may be because I’m still young enough (20) to seem more like a high school student than a surrogate parent. And the life lessons were always a bonus in addition to SAT work; as a primary business, perhaps not so good.
Anyway, I’m sure the Cognito guys have considered all this—I just hope that someone gives you the chance to pick up the work again in the future (and maybe hire me to help). Thanks for the Quora work, and good luck with your future endeavors!