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I started as an SAT tutor at a test preparation center, and I am now the Center Manager for the same company.

Yes, there is a Center Director above me. His job description differs from mine in that he deals with the financial end of things - budgeting and marketing, which is not completely in my realm. He is also the liaison to the region. Every center is part of a region. We are, for example, part of the Metro region.

Let me address this as a teacher and a tutor first. No matter how much you prepare, you can never be too sure of what is going to happen. You could know your lesson through-and-through, but there will always be a student who does not get it or asks something so off-the-wall that you would have never seen it coming. So what you really have to do is think on your feet. And even if you can't anticipate everything, what you can do is know the class and the test so well that regardless of anything a student asks, you can find an answer. So, that is the biggest challenge in teaching. The other challenge is of course, teaching students of various ability levels. Some of our students come in already scoring high and are shooting for top schools, and some of our students are trying to get into less competitive schools. As a tutor, you have to balance that and meet the needs of all types of students, especially when they happen to be in the same classroom. At the management level, you are involved with not just teaching and tutoring, but also hiring teachers, hiring our other part-time staff, payrolls, budget and scheduling classes.

Well, I guess we can start with how I got the position in the first place. I started as a part time teacher and tutor for a test-prep organization and really enjoyed it. I was in graduate school and looking to make a little money - a part time job kind of thing. And I applied. You needed to have very good test prep scores on at least one standardized test. You needed to have scored at least in the 90th percentile, which would place your score in the top ten percent. You also needed to be able to demonstrate confidence and ability in a room in a teaching kind of scenario. So I went through that, taught a couple of classes and slowly I realized that doing this was more enjoyable than what I was doing in graduate school. For me, that was work, and this was fun.

I approached my manager at that time, and said "You know, I am sort of in the market for a full time gig; what do you guys have available?" I assumed they were going to say "We're not really looking" or "We want someone in marketing." But they looked at my ratings from the students, and I had high ratings in all of the important areas, so my Manager offered me a full-time job. For just under two years, I worked in a full-time teaching and tutoring capacity working classes, tutoring students and training other teachers and tutors. When my manager was promoted, I was offered a management position, and have been actually running the Center here since then.

There is a lot of room for growth, which is one thing I love about the company. I could move up to Center Director or take up a position in what we call the Top 20 Centers, which happen to be the biggest and most influential. Alternatively, I could shift gears and go from being in "the field" to behind-the-scenes, where I would develop the curriculum and decide on course material and teaching processes. I could also go into marketing. But if I want to stay in the teaching field, I could rise to the regional level as an Academic Regional Director.

It depends on what is going on at any particular day. If I have an event or something going on in the evening, I might not come in until noon. On an average day, our center opens at 10:00 a.m. So, I'll work from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., or something like that. It's pretty much a 40-hour a week job, but because of our center hours, I work Monday through Thursday, plus one weekend day, and I have Friday off. One of the things I like most about this is that it allows me some flexibility. For instance, because I am the Manager, there have been days where I've come in from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., then went home and came back again from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Each day is always different. I could get a phone call and five minutes later, my entire day changes because there is some other priority that needs to be handled. As a Center Manager, you sort of have your hand in everything, so that means you have to know what's going on with everything. And in general, there is a lot of change because it is fast-paced. You need to be able to keep up with curriculum revisions, or advise a student who needs help.

Our part-time salaries are public information, but our full-time salaries are not. This is not like working at a mall, and we compensate our teachers very generously. Think about your everyday part-time job and multiply that by at least a couple of factors. As for full-time, even though I was out of graduate school only a couple of years, I earned a comfortable salary. I would say it's comparable to a first or second tier management position in your average office.

Part-time salaries are a hundred percent based on performance. So, if you do a good job, you will get a raise. We have a program for part-time teachers where consistent excellent ratings by your students earns you a status of 'elite instructor,' and that opens up more teaching possibilities. It immediately grants you a substantial per hour raise and also makes you eligible for teacher gifts. Teachers who do a good job are also invited to cross train for other tests, so if you come in as an SAT tutor, we might ask you to test on GRE so can you build more skills, teach more students. Although this varies from Center to Center, we have a Teacher of the Month Award for any teacher who has gone above and beyond the call of duty, for example, taking on a tutoring student when it wasn't completely convenient for them. We also give out perks or bonuses at the end of the month. In the full time position, my teachers' performance decides my bonus. I also have a budget to work with, and whether I meet or exceed the budget has an effect on my bonus as well. We also believe in promoting from within, so I will have priority in claiming an opening for my strongest skill sets.

There is incredible job retention and security. Our company, especially, believes in retaining you if you are doing a good job. There is no such thing as layoffs or just cutting jobs. There is always work to be done, and if there is an area that doesn't fit you, we'll find something else within the company that meets your needs better. It's funny, I was talking to a potential teacher the other day, and she asked me what would happen if she couldn't fit teaching a complete course into her schedule. And because we need both teachers and staff, we can always find something for you. One of the reasons there is so much stability is that we expect our teachers to have a knowledge base. I mean, no one can be a tutor without a certain test score, so that alone limits our employee pool. Then there is training and a lot of dedication involved, so it's hard to find that kind of combination again. So, we make 110% sure that those we employ are happy.

It's often a challenge to find a teacher that has all the qualities we seek, especially in our busiest season. They might have the passion and the skill sets, but maybe not the empathy. You always find 2 out of 3 of the things you are looking for, but that's not enough to offer them the position. Also, because you have your hand in everything, it can be frustrating sometimes; you might feel like you are a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. You can't just sit down and finish one thing, because there are six other things that need your attention. But, I can turn that around and make it into a positive, because it means that I am never doing just the same thing day in and day out. There is always something new to learn, to do and there is always a lot of change. And I know it sounds cliche, but it is satisfying to see a student just "get it." I mean, you see a student struggling to grasp a concept, but the moment they say, "Oh, I see this!" is when it feels most satisfying. Also, we really make a difference in people's lives, because with the scores that some of them come in, they would not have gotten into the school of their choice. For example, for medical schools, you have to reach a certain threshold to be even considered for admission. And we take the students who are struggling to get there and bring them to that point. Even if they don't get into the top medical schools, they at least have a chance of admission, whereas before, they did not.

Yes, it is definitely growing, even in the four years that I've been here. I think the reason for that is that these tests are becoming more and more esoteric and strange to students, as well as more competitive. So, there are more tests than there were years ago, there are more students taking them than there were years ago, and the students need higher scores than they did a couple of years ago. So, the field of test prep is growing and should continue to grow in the foreseeable future.

Ever since I've started working here, there has always been at least one major revision in the courses to reflect the changing tests. For example, 2005 was a huge year, because that was the year the SAT changed as it went from a scoring scale of 1600 to a scoring scale of 2400. And last year, the MCAT moved to a computer-based format, from its historical paper and pencil format. So, our prep course had to change. Our teachers had to be retrained and everything had to get out quickly, because we had to stay one step ahead of the test makers to properly prepare our students. And this involves modifying how we market the course, teach the course and run the course. So, we had to find new homes for some of our centers and reallocate things.

Like I said earlier, you need to generally score in the 90th percentile, but there are caveats to this. For example, for the advanced part of the LSAT, you need to have scored in the 99th percentile. So, depending on the test you might need to make a different requirement. Also, if you took a test five years ago, we might require you to take one of our practice exams to see that your skills are still applicable. This is especially important for an exam like the SAT, which drastically changed over the last few years. Your college GPA doesn't matter for teaching purposes, although test scores and GPA tend to go hand-in-hand. The only strict prerequisites, mainly for the age difference factor, are that you need to have graduated from high school, and we prefer that you have at least a year of college behind you, but we've had students come in as college freshmen and still do a great job.

Well, before you start you are invited into teacher training. All teachers spend several hours in a rigorous training process. Also, someone who is already an experienced teacher will guide you through this process and rate you on a number of different measures, such as: Are you knowledgeable? Do you have an expertise in a certain area? Are you good at presenting? Do you ask a lot of questions? They want to see that you are a good mentor and that you are interested in and committed to your students. They also want to make sure that you are a good representative of the company that you understand the company's vision and that any student who interacts with you would leave with a positive feeling about the company. Of course, not everybody makes it through, because you have to have the test scores, you have to pass the audition, you have to go through a job interview (just like at any other standard job interview) and you have to pass the training. It's not really for everyone because it really is a commitment and doesn't happen overnight, but for those who make it through, you will be given a very good background on how to be in front of a room, how to be a good teacher and how to control a classroom.

First of all, you have to have a passion for the material and for your students' success. I know it sounds kind of funny to say, "I have a passion for the SAT." It is one thing to ace the SAT and get a 2400, but you also have to turn around and try to make it easier for everyone else. So, you have that understanding of the exam and also the passion to help other people reach that understanding. I would also say flexibility is important, because classes run on very different schedules. It also comes in handy when you are trying to deal with completely disparate students, say one who is really motivated and wants to go to top schools, and another who is struggling to even make it to college. Also, it's not the same as high school teaching in that we have a smaller number of students for a lesser amount of time. And instead of coming up with your own curriculum, tutors are expected to help students apply the skills and strategies they learn over the period of the course. So, I would say creative and critical thinking are also necessary.

I would certainly say to think flexibly. I know when I first started out, I would use the teacher's edition as crutch, but if there is a question that's not answered in that, you have to train yourself to think on your feet. You should know the lesson well, but your student might have just taken an English test and is feeling bad about his performance in it. But you've prepared to teach a math lesson, so you've got to be ready for these types of unexpected punches. Also, you shouldn't worry about not knowing the answer to a question, because students are infinitely forgiving as long as you are honest with them. You should just say that "that's a great question and no one has asked me that before, so I'll get back to you with an answer in the next session." And lastly, be ready for discovering that even though you scored highly on a test, your students might not. Things that came intuitively to you may not come as easily to them. What took you two days to learn may take them two weeks, or even two months, depending on who you are tutoring.