I understand that this widely varies between teachers and schools, but I have heard that in more advanced classes, students heavily rely on external tutoring to get by. Given the small class size, reaching out to teachers for questions should be easy. In interviews, admissions officers say that students mostly rely on peer and after hours tutoring from teachers. Is this support sufficient, and effective? Do teachers follow the pace of a student, or rush to complete the program? Thank you for the help.
Our feederish HS is more day than boarding, but it is both and has advanced classes.
And at our HS, students do in fact get a lot of support from peers and teachers. There is a well-organized student tutoring program, including a writing center where you need to be placed and do well in a special English class first, and then designated student tutors for all the specific subjects. Peers also informally form study groups and such. I note as usual, I think even if you are more doing the tutoring than being tutored, that is actually an excellent way to really master the material yourself. Teachers then do make themselves available for additional consultation, although our experience has been the peer tutoring is much more a regular thing, particularly in the advanced classes where the kids know so-and-so is really good for Math, this other kid for Bio, and so on.
So overall, I know of very few students who have gone outside the school for tutoring, but pretty much all the kids we know are involved in some sort of peer tutoring in most of their classes, including ours.
In terms of pace, they do try to be careful about which kid gets into which classes, and the fastest-paced classes for the top students in that area do tend to be very fast by US secondary school standards. I think sometimes the teachers do have to adjust if the whole class is struggling, but I do not know if they will always adjust to an individual.
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At our school, use of outside tutors is both discouraged and rare. If you need help beyond what the learning center, peer tutoring, and consultations can provide, the school will help arrange it. My kid needed some extra help in an upper level chemistry class and they arranged for another chem teacher to help him.
At a day school near us, most students get private tutoring in most classes. I doubt that it’s because the teaching is bad. It is likely more something that has become the norm is that culture and is even perhaps parent driven.
This is to say tutoring varies by school.
As for speed of classes, the material is covered. It may be the prerequisite for another class or required for an outside exam (AP or IB). These classes are taught every year, so teachers have experience with the pace.
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Yeah, there are a couple top publics in our area where outside tutoring is the norm among parents I know with kids in those schools. Which is fine, but I do believe robust in-school tutoring is much more of a win-win due to the benefits for the tutors.
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