Eight questions to ask before you pay
- What have you done in finance outside of tutoring? Experience with real valuations or analysis shows in how a tutor explains why a method works.
- Will you work from my syllabus, slides, and problem sets? A tutor who only teaches a generic course will miss what your professor tests.
- What do you do with graded work? A good answer is that the tutor explains the method and never completes assignments or exams.
- What do you charge, and what does that include? Ask for the hourly price, how payment works, and whether there are packages or fees.
- What happens if I need to reschedule? Look for a clear notice period and a way to make up the time.
- How will I know it is working? You should be able to solve a fresh problem on your own by the end of a session.
- Do you know my calculator and exam rules? Courses differ on financial versus scientific calculators and formula sheets.
- What do I need for sessions? Most online tutors work over video with a computer, a calculator, and your course materials.
When a free option is the right call
Start with your professor's office hours, the teaching assistant, and your school's tutoring center. They are free, they know your exact course, and they are the right place for a quick question about one problem. A private tutor makes sense when an exam is close, when the stakes for your grade are high, when your schedule does not fit the free options, or when you need someone to go at your pace and find what is missing from your foundation.
Red flags
Be careful with anyone who guarantees a grade, offers to do your assignments, will not say what their price includes, or cannot explain how they would handle your course. A tutor who gives you the answers can leave you worse off on exam day, when nobody is there to give them to you.
How I work and what it costs
I am Chi Odogwu, a former PwC valuations consultant. I tutor corporate finance, personal finance, and AP Business one-on-one on Zoom, from high school through MBA. Private sessions are $250 an hour.
Before we meet, you send me what you are stuck on, such as a problem set, your slides, or your last midterm. In the session you work a problem out loud so I can hear where the reasoning goes wrong, and we fix that piece. At the end you solve a fresh problem with new numbers on your own. I ask for payment in advance, usually in two-week blocks, and sessions can be rescheduled with 24 hours' notice. I do not complete graded work.
Common mistakes when hiring a tutor
- Choosing on price alone. The cheapest option costs more if you need it again after the exam.
- Waiting until the night before. Finance builds on itself, and a week of focused work is worth more than one long session.
- Not bringing your own material. A tutor can only fix what they can see, so bring your last exam and your problem sets.
- Expecting a tutor to do the work. The goal is to solve the next problem yourself.
- Skipping the first-call test. Give the tutor one of your problems and watch how they teach it.