The short answer
Hourly tutoring pays for time in a session, so the tutor's job effectively ends when the hour does. Nothing in that structure covers what your student does on the other six days, which is where a score actually moves. Sprint coaching is a flat fee against a target score, with a daily plan and messaging access between sessions. Taylan had a prep booklet and a tutor and was stuck at 24. He finished at 32.
Most families who’ve hired an hourly tutor describe the same thing: the sessions were good, the tutor was nice, and the score sat still.
That combination is common enough to be a pattern rather than bad luck.
The hour is the product
When you buy tutoring by the hour, the thing being delivered is the hour. A good tutor uses it well, explains clearly, and answers whatever the student brings.
But an ACT score is built between sessions. It moves through repetition on the specific question types a student keeps missing, done most days, tracked over weeks. An hourly arrangement has no natural mechanism for that. The tutor doesn’t set the other six days, doesn’t see the practice, and isn’t measured on the composite.
There’s also a quieter issue in the incentive. Hourly billing rewards more hours. Nobody is being dishonest, but a structure that pays for duration will not naturally optimize for finishing quickly.
A flat fee tied to a target score inverts that. Getting your student there faster is the point.
Taylan had both and was still stuck
Taylan came in at a 24 with a prep booklet and a tutor already in place. He wasn’t short on resources or effort.
What he was short on was a defined next step. His coach made sure no study session ever started with him deciding what to study, pointed the work at his actual weaknesses instead of spreading it evenly across the exam, and let him run it on his own schedule rather than against fixed session times.
He finished at a 32 and is now choosing between an Ivy and a full ride.
If you’re deciding whether to hire another tutor
Ask what happens between sessions, who sets it, and who’s accountable for the composite rather than the subject. If the answer is that your student is, that’s the gap, and it’s the one that costs most families a test cycle.
This question comes up most often when families are comparing us with Varsity Tutors. See the full side-by-side →
