Varsity Tutors is the latest addition to M-A’s online study tools. The free tutoring service provides students access to live chats with “expert” tutors, instructor-led lessons, and writing feedback.
Varsity Tutors includes an Essay Review function that gives students feedback on their writing. The website claims students can expect feedback within two days of submitting their essays. The M-A Chronicle submitted 13 essays to test the feature’s efficiency and quality.
The essays submitted to Varsity Tutors were written by M-A students for past MCLV, AS English II, and AP English Language assignments. Upon submission, students can type in any specific areas for feedback that they want the tutor to focus on, and attach the original instructions for their assignment. The M-A Chronicle requested a review of each essay’s analysis and complexity to compare with prior feedback from English teachers.
We found that Varsity Tutors failed multiple times to satisfy its promise of a two-day turnaround. While 10 essays received feedback within two days, one essay took five days to be returned, and two remain without feedback after a month.
While Varsity Tutors more often than not met their two-day promise, occasional delays revealed that timely feedback is not guaranteed. For students relying on Varsity Tutors for essay review before submission, late feedback may be a major problem. There is also no way to contact your assigned tutor to follow up on missing feedback or to ask any other questions.
Even when on time, Varsity Tutors’ feedback lacked substance. Most comments fixed surface-level issues like spelling and grammar. Often, the same tutor would review four or five essays that the M-A Chronicle submitted within just a few hours. Yet all of the feedback would provide the same general comments.
Occasionally, tutors provided helpful feedback that addressed the essay’s depth. “The essay could benefit from a more nuanced discussion of migration’s complexities,” a tutor said. However, comments like this were uncommon and never provided by tutors who reviewed essays back-to-back.
Since Varsity Tutors’ experts have not necessarily read associated texts needed to answer the prompt, they may not fully grasp an essay’s subject matter.
“The main grammatical issue in this essay relates to comma usage,” one tutor commented without actually explaining how the writer used commas incorrectly.
“You can work on including more context,” another tutor suggested, though they did not explain how to include more context or what context to provide.
Another problem was Varsity Tutors’ inconvenient interface. Comments began disappearing after just one view. This could make it difficult for students to thoroughly reflect on their work and learn from comments.
The essay review section is not user-friendly, with comments disappearing and no option to contact a tutor. Feedback is provided in various formats—some tutors write paragraphs, while others annotate directly on the essay—creating confusion as to where to find all the comments.
Each tutor’s overall review also consisted of only a single short paragraph. AS English II and English II teacher Elizabeth Kaufman criticized the comments. “The feedback looks really generic, which is okay, depending on what level of writing you’re at,” Kaufman said. “But I wonder if the effort is worth it, considering that the range of feedback depends on who your expert is.”
MCLV teacher Erika Mungai emphasized that teachers and M-A’s Writing Center are reliable resources for feedback and preparation. “The Writing Center is a pretty under-utilized resource,” she said. She also pointed out that many students already have strong skills in grammar and writing conventions—skills that Varsity Tutors often comment on. Building from there requires more personalized feedback, which is where teachers are more properly suited.
“The teachers will probably be the most helpful, because what a lot of students are needing is that deeper analysis, getting to that complex level, and you need someone who knows the content and teaches it to get there,” Mungai said.
