FAQ

Troy Tutors receives dozens of support emails, messages, and calls daily. The majority of these customer support questions are answered here. Due to the very high tutoring demand at RPI and the number of daily support requests on Troy Tutors, please make sure to first check if your question is already answered below before contacting customer support, so we can support as many students and families as possible, as soon as possible.

Do you have a tutor available for [insert course]? What is the course rate, the tutoring availability, and how do I book a tutoring session?

You can see all of the courses we currently offer tutoring for, and you can schedule tutoring sessions, on the Schedule Tutoring tab. If there are multiple tutors for the same course, you will have a dropdown when booking, to pick a specific tutor, if you wish. You can learn more about all the tutors listed in more detail, at rpi.troytutors.com/team.

The course and tutors' live tutoring availabilities show up on the site when you book a session, where you will see a virtual calendar of all available days and times to book. The rate of your tutoring session depends on the course, and is also listed on the Schedule Tutoring tab, next to each course we offer tutoring in.

When/where do I pay for my tutoring sessions?

After your session, you will be sent an email invoice on the next business day, to the email address you booked your session with. We do this so you do not have to pay for your sessions until after they end. From here, you will be able to pay by card securely through Square. You are given seven days to pay for your session.

You can also set up automatic billing, so you do not have to manually pay for sessions in the future. When paying your invoice, if you select the option to "Save my card on file with Troy Tutors," all billing in the future will be processed automatically.

I booked a session and I do not know how to join it. How can I join my session?

After you book a session, you should immediately receive a confirmation email, with all the information needed to join your session.

If you never received an email confirmation, please try the following troubleshooting methods.

Check your email spam, during the date and time you booked your session.
If you have a Troy Tutors account, and booked your session while logged into it, click your profile on the top right of the page (on desktop), and select My Bookings. All information related to your upcoming bookings can be found there. We recommend you create a free Troy Tutors account, in case you run into this issue in the future, for this reason.
If you know the name of the tutor you booked with, you can often access the session, by visiting the URL troytutors.chat/[you tutor's first name][you tutor's last name initial].
If none of the above applies to you, please contact customer support, so we can pull up your booking information for you, and consider creating a free Troy Tutors account, so you can always see your bookings in the future, in case this ever happens again.

(Cancellation/No-show) I have a scheduled session. Can I cancel/reschedule it? If so, how?

As mentioned when booking a tutoring session, you are able to cancel or reschedule a tutoring booking, without being charged a fee, as long as you do so 30 hours before a scheduled session. Here is the cancellation/reschedule/no show policy:

If you cancel or reschedule 30 hours before a session, you will be charged 10% of the hourly rate of the booked session.
If you cancel or reschedule 24 hours before a session, you will be charged 50% of the hourly rate of the booked session.
If you cancel or reschedule 12 hours before a session, you will be charged 100% of the hourly rate of the booked session.
If you do not show up to the tutoring session, you will be charged 100% of the hourly rate of the booked session.

We have this policy for a handful of reasons:

If you were to cancel or reschedule, it could have been a session that could be utilized by a student, that could not find any other available session times that matched his or her schedule.
Our tutors prepare for upcoming tutoring sessions. Given the work and time that goes into preparing for tutoring sessions, we want to ensure, as a platform, that our tutors are compensated fairly.
We want to eliminate past situations, where a tutor wakes up very early for a scheduled session, to learn it was cancelled at 3 am by the student.
We want to prevent abuse of the ability to allow students to cancel and reschedule sessions. In the past, we have had students schedule as many slots as possible, so they would be available in case needed, when that day arrived, otherwise cancelling if not needed after all, preventing other students from booking sessions.

To cancel a Troy Tutors session, you will need to have created a free Troy Tutors account and have booked your session while logged into your account (you can create a free account by clicking Log In, in the top right of the site, on desktop). You will then be able to cancel your session, by clicking on your Profile, and selecting My Bookings. If you were not logged into an account when booking, please contact customer support and consider creating a free Troy Tutors account, in case this ever happens again.

What are my tutors' qualifications?

Currently, all tutors have either a degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or are working towards one. Our tutors will only assist with courses they are qualified to teach, unless requested otherwise by the customer. You can learn more about our tutors and their qualifications at rpi.troytutors.com/team.

Where are my sessions held?

After scheduling a session, you will be emailed a CollabLab link, where sessions are held. We hold sessions online for two reasons: (1) This allows students to work with alumni of the school they attend, who have moved out of the local area post-graduation, to work at companies around the world. These alumni have gone through the same courses students are taking, so you end up having the ability to work with highly-qualified, specialized tutors in ways that in-person tutoring cannot offer. (2) Most work and studying nowadays is done through the student's personal computer. When receiving in-person tutoring, this causes a challenge, as you end up having a tutor trying to look over the student's shoulders at the same screen, or the student and tutor end up passing a computer to each other, back and forth. Interactive tutoring through CollabLab, Troy Tutors’ proprietary collaboration and communication solution, shows immediate, real-time updates. The content being discussed is always in front of the tutor and student and is easy to work with and discuss.

The Troy Tutors team developed CollabLab for this exact reason. Students and tutors use it for video calling, screen sharing, real-time collaborative coding, real-time collaborative whiteboard doodling, and for live webinar events, such as lecture recitations and tech talk events.

Can I have a free call first, to see if this is right for me?

Yes! Contact customer support. A tutor will be happy to meet with you for free, if you have any questions or wish to confirm qualifications before your first session.

Do you provide tutoring support for courses not listed on Troy Tutors?

Absolutely. If you are looking for help in a course, that is not listed on Troy Tutors, you are likely in luck. It is very likely one of our tutors has experience with the course and can provide support. Otherwise, we are well connected to a variety of students and departments, and we have the connections to bring on new tutors when needed. Many of our most popular courses on Troy Tutors were added after requests made by students and parents. To request a new course, fill out the Troy Tutors Course Request Form.

Are you hiring tutors?

Yes! Learn more about joining our team at rpi.troytutors.com/careers.