Xanthe

Tutoring Experience

Following my pro bono work, I joined a firm who handle tutoring and university admissions in the UK and US for international students. This work has included personal statement improvement, essay workshops and interview practice, and many went from timid and unsure, to confident students able to form arguments, while also being open to making mistakes and working through questions with an interviewer slowly and methodically.

I have also worked with a number of students on their Economics A Level or IB knowledge, fixing gaps from their core teaching as well as working on building their knowledge with essay competition or ew university level material I teach them. A success story from my pro bono work: Riana, who was predicted all A*s at A Level was the child of first generation immigrants and was a handworker despite the minimal help she received from her underperforming college. She wanted to apply for Economics at Cambridge and we connected through a platform where I became her mentor. I advised her on what sort of things to read to grow her knowledge, both for her personal statement and interview, and helped her improve her personal statement after she had completed her first draft. We then worked on her entrance exam skills, which she was very capable on, but needed someone to help her understand her mistakes, as mark schemes were not available.

I also offered her advice on other practice papers to use that were similar to her exam but were more challenging, in order to push her and have her find her exam easier on the day. Once she received her interview offer we did some practice interviews, in which she went from quiet and unable to argue points on the spot, to confident and capable to handle whatever ideas I threw at her. Her interview was a real success and she even enjoyed it - something you rarely here applicants say! She was made an offer by her first choice college, and went on to meet the conditions for that offer. She has finished 3rd in class during her first year at Cambridge out of 150 students.

Tutoring Approach

My key strengths when it comes to admissions tuition are developing tutees confidence in discussing known or unseen topics, improving their capacity to argue from both sides but also come to a confident conclusion.

I find an open dialogue between student and tutor is key, allowing a tailored approach to every student and a judgement free environment for them to make mistakes and learn from them ahead of time, before the real exam or interview.

I always ask students questions, avoiding lecturing to them for the whole lesson, both to test their knowledge and also to teach them how to apply ideas they have learnt in class to examples in the real world, beyond the models featured.