GMAT Tutoring: In-person vs remote, online, Skype tutoring

To Skype or not to Skype, that is the question…

Depending on where you live, you may need to decide whether or not you want to meet with your GMAT/GRE tutors in person. So, what should you choose?

We have found that there isn’t any particular advantage to meeting your tutor in person.  In fact, it’s the opposite.

Here are the reasons why Skype tutoring is just as good as in-person tutoring, and even has benefits:

1. Travel time.  Look, you may or may not be paying us to go meet you, but if you travel, you’re still spending your time. Don’t; your time is too valuable. At a minimum, that time and energy would be better spent studying. If you actually clocked it, from the time you log out of your computer to the time you have logged back in, the number is probably 10-15 minutes more than Google will tell you for the entire round trip travel.
2. You’ve grown-up in a digital age.  There was a time that people didn’t know how to talk on the phone; long-distance calls were so expensive that they were rare, so people just didn’t know how to handle them.  But that age passed, and long-distance calls became routine. Same thing with digital conferencing: The world’s moved on and everybody’s just used to it now.
3. You’ve got a life.  Let’s be honest: meeting in person is hard, so you’ll wind-up needing to reschedule more often if you have to meet in person.
4. You’re going to want some last-minute help.  At TPU, we’re committed to doing what needs to be done – whether that’s staying a little late, giving you a break, adjusting schedules on the fly, etc.  That flexibility simply isn’t possible in the “real world”, which is why everybody loves digital conferencing.
5. In-person tutoring actually distracts you from studying. After all, you’re not trying to sell us anything, so why would you need to “read” us?  While there may be something lost when you’re communicating with someone via the Web, whatever that something is, it’s got nothing to do with studying.  (That is, while some salespeople and scholars swear that in-person meetings help close deals, you aren’t trying to close a deal with us– we’re already convinced you can make it, or we wouldn’t have taken you as a client.)

Now, you may be unique; there may be reasons you prefer to meet your tutors in-person, and we wouldn’t try to talk you out of that position if you’re already committed. Either way, we’ve got you covered.