Guide

Your account

One account covers everything. You choose whether you're volunteering as a tutor or signing up for help when you first sign in.

1. Create your account

   Use an email address you actually read — every confirmation, pairing and acceptance notice goes there.

2. Verify your email

   Check spam if it hasn't arrived within a few minutes.

3. Fill in the form for your role

   Tutors complete a short application. Students register with a guardian's details and consent.

The dashboard

After signing in you land on Overview: your confirmed hours, your current award rank, and anything waiting on you.

• Students — the people you tutor, and where you confirm sessions.
• Homework Help — the public question board.
• Settings — your password and contact details.

Finding a student

FTC doesn't assign students to you. You pick, so you can choose a subject you're confident in and a time you can genuinely commit to.

1. Open Students, then “Find a Student”

   It opens the pairing list in a new tab.

2. Pick someone whose subject and availability match yours

   Availability is written in the student's own words, so read it rather than skimming it.

3. Reach out and agree a time

   Confirm the first meeting by email before it comes around.

Running a session

Sessions run over video — most tutors use Zoom or Google Meet. An hour is typical; shorter is fine if that's what the work needs.

• Ask what they're working on before the session so you can prepare.
• Keep the camera on. It's also what makes the session confirmable.
• End a few minutes early and take your screenshot while you're both still there.

Confirming a session

Hours count only once the session is confirmed. This is the step most tutors miss, and it's the usual reason an hour total looks lower than the work actually done.

1. Open Students and find the session

   Press Confirm on the session you just finished.

2. Write a one-line summary

   What you covered. An admin reads this, so “quadratics — factoring practice” beats “math”.

3. Attach a screenshot of the meeting

   It has to show both you and your student. This is the evidence behind your volunteer transcript, which is why it's required rather than optional. Images only, under 10 MB.

4. Enter the minutes

   Round to the nearest five. Your student is asked to corroborate, and the hours land once an admin approves.

Hours & awards

Confirmed hours move you up the ladder. Your rank and the gap to the next one are on your Overview.

1. Tutor starting rank
2. Merit 10 hours
3. Honor 25 hours
4. Distinction 50 hours
5. Elite 100 hours
6. Prestige 150 hours
7. Premier 250 hours

Answering questions on the homework board counts too, so you can keep building hours between sessions.

Your transcript

A printable record of every confirmed session, carrying FTC's EIN and address. It's what the President's Volunteer Service Award and most school service requirements ask for.

1. Open Students → View transcript

   It's generated live, so it always matches your confirmed hours.

2. Print it, or save it as a PDF

   Only confirmed sessions appear. Anything still pending is left off until it clears.

Requesting a session

Tutoring is free, and there's no limit on how many sessions you can ask for.

1. Open your dashboard and press “Request a session”
2. Say what you need help with

   Be specific — “AP Calculus, related rates” finds you a better match than “math”.

3. Say when you're free

   Write it however makes sense: “weekdays after 4pm PST” is perfect. Include your timezone.

Confirming your session

After a session your tutor logs it, and you'll get an email asking you to confirm it happened. Please do — your tutor's volunteer hours depend on it, and it takes one click.

Homework board

For a single question that doesn't need a whole session. Post it — with a photo of the problem if that's easier — and a tutor answers.

• Show your working. “I got 14 and the book says 12” gets a far better answer than the question alone.
• Tutors: answering counts toward your hours.

Something's wrong

• My hours look too low. Hours count only after a session is confirmed and approved. Check Students for anything still pending.
• My screenshot won't upload. Images only, under 10 MB. A PDF, or a HEIC straight off an iPhone, will be refused — export as JPEG.
• I never got an email. Check spam, then confirm the address on your account is the one you read.
• I can't sign in. Use “Forgot Password?” on the sign-in page.