Skooli.com 0/5

Skooli.com is a Canadian-based service that advertises online tutoring students in Canada and the U.S., as well as to English-speaking students elsewhere in the world. In keeping with our mission to assist students in finding academic help of all kinds, we have recently begun to review tutoring services. In putting together this evaluation we have looked at several features and factors – content on the Skooli website, testimonials the company provides, our own experience with hiring a tutor for some instant help, customer reviews we have found on the web, prices, general benefits, and more.

We hope this summary provides the information a student may need as they consider tutoring services to meet their needs.

Products and Services

As stated, Skooli serves English-speaking students with online tutoring services, from early childhood through college. While it’s focus seems to be primarily on math, it does offer tutoring in all subject areas. Students can get instant homework help or longer-term tutoring in specific subjects.

The process works like this: Students register on the site. They state their tutoring need, and are then take a look at tutors who have registered in those subject areas. They can then read their profiles, “interview” them, and make a selection.

Once a tutor has been chosen, the schedule is set up between the two of them. The tutoring occurs primarily via video conferencing, but can also happen by messaging and chat, usually for instant homework help.

Website Quality

The Skooli.com website is well-organized and has links to subjects, as well as for students, parents, schools, tutors, and pricing. The footer information at the bottom of each page provides additional pages, including a blog. While the pages are a bit slow to load, there is all of the basic information a potential customer may need.

Quality of Products and Services

As far as tutoring services go, there are no specific products to evaluate. Quality is pretty much determined by each student who receives tutoring. In order to judge quality, we looked at what customers had to say as well as purchased “instant” homework help for a difficult calculus problem. Here are the results:

• Customer feedback is mixed. When students and their tutors “fit,” the experience seems to be good. When they do not, however, the experience is not good, and students must go back and find another tutor. There is no help from the company in finding that tutor – the student or parent is on his own. And whatever tutoring services have already been paid for, are not refunded.

• We put in an order for instant help with a calculus problem, selected a tutor, and then set up a video conferencing session for the problem solution. We did get the video session, and we paid in advance for what we thought would be enough time. Unfortunately, it was not, because the tutor moved quite slowly in the problem solution and we had to continually ask for additional explanations. Overall, our experience was not great.

In terms of customer service, the company can be contacted via email. While a phone number is provided, we only got a message when we called on several occasions.

Prices and Discounts

Skooli.com prices are fixed - $0.82 per minute of tutoring. Students pay in advance for a set number of minutes. Once those are used up, the sessions stop and more money must be put on account for them to continue. We found no discounts on the site. However, there is something like a promo code if users take the time to read the blog posts – a $15 credit if another customer is recommended and signs up for the service. Do not look for any coupon codes or other special pricing – it doesn’t exist.

Extra Features

There really are none. The process is basic and simple – it is what it is.

Conclusion

We can certainly say that Skooli is not a fraud or scam. You do register, ay your money and choose a tutor. Quality varies and we could find not BBB membership.  As we look at pros & cons of this company, we are struck by the lack of corporate involvement in the process. It seems to operate more like a job board. Overall, our rating of Skooli is “Fair.”