Four Eastern Colleges Face No Tutoring School Problem

The extent of tutoring in four Eastern colleges was estimated as varying between 5% and 30% in surveys recently conducted by the editors of papers at Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, and Williams.

Tutoring schools are "actually characteristic only of Harvard, Yale and Princeton, where students have enough distractions and enough money to make them a paying convenience," TIME stated in an article of December 12, 1936.

According to information received during the past week by the CRIMSON, tutoring establishments, without the College walls, are non-existent at Columbia and Williams. At Brown 5% of the undergraduates use the schools; and at Dartmouth it was estimated that 30% have called on a "cram bureau" at one time or another during their stay in Hanover.

College Departments Do Tutoring

As a substitute for tutoring schools, Williams students receive academic aid from private tutoring within the departments of the college. Such tutoring is done either by department concentrators or by instructors.

Williams tutees are offered this assistance in case of illness or absence, or because of lack of comprehension of course material. It was also pointed out by the Managing Editor of the Williams Record that the college consists of only 800, and "consequently is no market for tutoring schools."

Columbia students likewise have only college instructors and other undergraduates as tutors. However, the Columbia Spectator reports that "freelance operators have offered to write term papers for delinquents, but these paid assistants are by no means numerous."

According to David Landman, Editor of the Brown Daily Herald, "tutoring is a minor matter on the Brown campus. Although it may be a long established practice, it seems to be decreasing in importance."

There is only one school; tutoring is for 5% of the college; either for students who have fallen behind, or "dumb Freshmen, who are pretty well weeded out by Sophomore year. No one, as far as I know, ever took a course and purposely overent or loafed with the express idea of going to the tutoring bureau," Landman stated.

At Dartmouth, where 50% tutor or use notes, there is a single school, established in 1933, which offers prepared notes and oral reviews. Ten per cent of those who use the school attend reviews. According to the Managing Editor of the Dartmouth, practically all the tutoring is in the Freshman and Sophomore courses.