Kaplan Audition

[garnier]

I'm going to be auditioning to teach at Kaplan soon, and was wondering if anyone had any advice. Do you know roughly what percentage of people who get invited to audition actually get the job? Any anecdotes? Thanks.

[jdw112]

You instantly become third tier toilet by affiliation. My advice, find a better company.

edit: lol, jk. Good luck

[Paperback Writer]

Auditioning for what?

[ElizaB]

They hired me so the standards can't be set very high.

Seriously though, where are you auditioning at?  And, if you are starting LS soon, why do you want to do this?  Are you going to work while in 1L at Harvard?

Personally, I don't think that the little bit that you would make from teaching one or two classes a week would be worth the time it took you away from your studies.  And even if you wouldn't be using that exact time to study, wouldn't you rather be doing something else with the little free time that you are going to have during 1L?

The above is just my opinion...Obviously you are a pretty bright person and know what you can and can't handle.   

[jenery]

i auditioned with 5 other people and 4 of them showed up at the training... the one who did not made a joke about being able to fit chinese people in your pocket because they're smaller than mexicans or something... guess that's not the 'kaplan method'.  i went through 4 rounds of training and then missed the last one, found out i would have to re-train if i wanted to teach there next year, so i just bailed.  the training was pretty easy though, but i secretly think the kaplan method is stupid, so.

[eurekarally]

I got an email to do this too, I was just wondering how much does it pay to teach a class for them?

[SLSdodgeball]

I think they pay $18 an hour for LSAT and $16.50 for SAT, plus $7.00 an hour for all prep work.  I'm working for them this summer because it's pretty nice money for very few hours - you can easily combine it with something else (or alternatively lots of TV watching).  They also pay for your training hours.  I'm certainly not planning to do it during 1L, though.

[ElizaB]

They pay you $7 an hour for all of your training and prep work...which is actually pretty time consuming.  You have to go through like 5, 3 hour sessions of training.  And you have to do presentations at each one of these things.  Then they pay you $15 an hour for your first class (to actually teach it) but still only $7 for the prep time.  After you complete your first class, your pay goes up to $18 an hour for teaching and pretty much stays there. 

Personally, I did not it because I thought it sounded like fun not because of the money (trust me, you will only do about one or two classes a week so your paychecks will not be very much at all).  For me personally it has been more trouble than it was worth for a variety of reasons.  While it might be a fun side job for someone in undergrad., I don't think it is worth it for someone in LS who works full-time at another job.  But every person is different.

[fireplace]

It's more hassle than it's worth for the first round of classes, but once you start reteaching things your prep time probably drops to 30 min per class. So for a half hour our of class and two hours in, you earn $42.  That's a pretty easy way to make money.  And it's not like real teaching where you really have to be interactive -- 90% of it is jus reading/following the book. Also, in my experience (2 LSAT classes plus some SAT, ACT, GRE - so not too much) the pre-course score range is probably 145-162 so if you scored in the mid 160s or better, you will probably be able to answer a lot of their questions on the fly.

[SLSdodgeball]

Wow, my training lasted even longer than that - 4 hours a week for 5 weeks.  For me, it was nice additional money during undergrad, but I think you'd be crazy to try it during law school.  I think you can also add private tutoring for Kaplan on the side, though I have no idea how much you'd make per hour.