Wyzant

What is Wyzant app?

Wyzant is a 1:1 tutoring app offering live lessons, which can be done in person or online. Wyzant offers live in-person and online tutoring across 275+ subjects, including every major academic subject, language learning, academic and professional test preparation, professional development subjects and hobbies. There are over 65,000 tutors to connect with on the platform.

Wyzant may be a new name to you, but you could well have encountered long-established educational products by IXL of which Wyzant is a division. Wyzant is a popular tutoring website caters to learners of all backgrounds and ages, casting a wide net when it comes to subject matter and learning hobbies.

Wyzant serves to bring students and tutors together and then facilitate learning in 1-to-1 sessions. Its matching service is available through its app and website, while its online tutoring sessions are accessible through a web browser and best used on a laptop or desktop computer.

The service provides the student/tutor matching tools, the software to facilitate remote sessions, and makes payments simple and secure.

The human touch provided by the tutors is this service's strength, but it makes any review of it very situational. There are hundreds of tutors across many subjects, so any sample will be limited relative to what is available. Judging the app on such a comparatively small sample could lead to an unfair review.

Therefore, the main focus of this review is on how effectively Wyzant facilitates the tutoring process. Do the app and service fulfil their promises, and are those spending money getting a good value?  

What we love about Wyzant

Finding a tutor

Wyzant streamlines the process of getting a suitable tutor for a student. Suitable tutors in the past meant them knowing the broad subject area and, hopefully, expertise in the desired level of the student.

Wyzant allows for a more personalised approach. It lets students choose from tutors with specific interests within subjects, by the ages they teach, by their fees, and after a discussion, by how well their personalities match. And, because the sessions can be online, physical locations do not matter.

Being tutored

Online tutoring sessions use Wyzant's custom software which works well for communication and includes tools created with education in mind. Its interactive whiteboard provides a helpful visual aid. Computing and mathematics students get tools to help with code entry and notation.

Paying

Costs to the student are clear before being incurred, which is not until after the tutoring session has finished. One of the ways that students can filter possible tutors is by their hourly rate. Wyzant protects the tutor and the student by handling the payments and guarantees that students will like their new tutor or not pay for the first session.

What skills does it improve?

Pretty much any academic subject you can think of has a tutor that covers it in Wyzant. In its efforts to match learners with the most suitable educators, Wyzant also breaks subjects into more focussed topics. Computer science students can look for tutors with expertise in specific software, languages, or technology, and language students can choose from a broad range of languages, for example.

There are specialists linked to age ranges such as college tests and elementary education.

It is also worth mentioning, as many people may not think to look for it, but Wyzant also has tutors whose expertise is in helping special-needs learners. Students on the autistic spectrum, those with ADHD and people with sensory difficulties will find tutors on Wyzant's service.

What age is it appropriate for?

Wyzant is flexible and offers support for students at any level and age. Kids of school age can have short-term tutoring to help with difficult topics, or Wyzant can be a longer-term solution for homeschooled kids who don't otherwise have access to subject specialists.

Is Wyzant easy to use?

The Wyzant website very clearly explains its service, and openness is one of its characteristics. The well-structured and detailed FAQ section will ensure that students and tutors fully understand the service, how they can use it, and how the financial transactions work. 

The process of finding a tutor is straightforward and just a case of answering a few relevant questions. After a short wait, responses from tutors begin to come through. Each tutor's details are relevant to students, including their rate, specialisms, hours of tuition provided, reviews from past students on the site, and experience.  

Students can chat with tutors using the app or website, and it works like other messaging services to be familiar. When students feel that a responding teacher meets their educational needs and budget, they can arrange a session convenient to them both.

Wyzant covers the first session with a guarantee that waives the fee if students are not satisfied with the tutor.

How will students benefit?

Having a tutor so well matched to your personality, educational level, and subject needs is something students could only dream of in the past. With Wyzant, they can choose tutors based on the details they deem relevant to them, the cost per hour, and, of course, their subject knowledge.

How will teachers benefit?

Teachers could offer their services as a tutor on Wyzant, which could be the start of a sideline or even a career change.  

Sometimes teachers have students with a talent or knowledge that they cannot help develop. The subject could be artistic, for example, a profound aptitude for music. Or, it might be language-based, for example, a student with a heritage linked to a language not spoken by the teacher. In both cases, recommending Wyzant to the student's parents might be enough to help support the child's development in these topics.

How will parents benefit?

The flexibility of Wyzant is a big plus for parents. They might not want or be able to sign up for multiple tutoring sessions for their kids. If parents feel that their kids need help that they cannot provide, Wyzant will have a tutor who can.

The online aspect of the sessions and the included software lets parents fit tutoring more easily into their lives as they won't have to travel with kids or prepare for home visits. It is also great for families who live in areas whose population does not include many tutors knowledgeable enough in the needed subjects.

What can Wyzant improve on?

Wyzant is most at home in the North American market. From the start, users need to input a zip code for time-zone purposes. This restriction is a pity as virtual tuition can cross borders. Opening up the geographical reach of the app alongside practical time-zone matching tools would make its service available to the world.

There are some excellent safety tips for those who want in-person tutoring sessions. It, of course, advises that kids do not have unsupervised sessions of this type.  

A similar set of guidelines for online tutoring that kids can print out and keep nearby would be a good safety addition. What information they should never disclose, what to do if anything seems wrong, and so on. Kids should know all of this, anyway, but a visible guide linked to the service would act as a good reminder.

How much does Wyzant cost?

Wyzant takes great care to make sure that students are satisfied with its service. You pay per session through the Wyzantz service but only after the session has taken place. Furthermore, the first session is risk-free—if the student does not feel like their tutor was a good match for their needs, it is free.

Is Wyzant safe to use?

Wyzant brings people together. There is a risk wherever there is social interaction between people who have just met, in real life or online. Parents must ensure that kids know how to stay safe online. Students old enough to consider in-person sessions should take all of the precautions recommended by Wyzant.

Tutors and students can record sessions using Wyzant's built-in tools, but both parties must opt into this. Should it be enabled, the resulting video can only be streamed from the Wyzant site and not downloaded. While Wyzant's terms and conditions prohibit the recording of lessons in any other way, in practice, this could happen.

Wyzant details its tutor vetting process on its website and offers students the option of paying for a background check on any tutor that does not already have one on file.

Overall rating of the app.

It is better to offer an opinion of Wyzant as a service than to discuss only the website and app because the service is what you will be purchasing. Wyzant brings tutoring into the 21st Century with its personal, convenient, and effective methods.  

Having access to the level of expertise provided by Wyzant's tutors can only benefit and comfort students. They can overcome difficulties and needn't fear getting stuck with nowhere to turn to for help. Admittedly, it could get expensive with continual use, but the time of experts who are also good educators is valuable.

Wyzant's app and website facilitate the whole tutoring experience very well indeed and round out an educationally valuable and well-implemented service worthy of five stars.