As a result of the pandemic and its after-effects, students have increasingly have taken medical or personal leaves, have dropped out of school, have mightily struggled with their grades, or have encountered great adversity in ascending to the next level of their education. Our signature service is finding these what we term ‘lost souls’ and helping them find their way on their life path.

In J.D. Salinger’s canonical work, The Catcher in the Rye, protagonist Holden Caulfield comes to regard himself as rescuer of lost children, explained in the metaphor of catching children in a field of rye before they fall over a cliff. This metaphor best illustrates our mission, to catch those ‘comin’ through the rye,’ and set them back on their feet. If guided well, we can rescue teens and young adults from slipping off the precipitous cliffs that necessarily circumscribe youth, saving lives from those vast abysses they so frequently approach; that is indeed the metric of success for Alliance Tutoring, and as the numbers demonstrate, our record is unparalleled.

Our main objective is sometimes not to teach them about solving logarithmic equations or Hemingway’s use of the zero ending or the context of the war of 1812 (although we want them to learn those things, too!), but to teach them the power of their own inner resources, to ignite a fire in them that forgets the kindling. In most cases, it requires a few large doses of sincere, positive affirmation to steer away from the theoretical voids that surround them. The results are often magical, permanent, and poetic, unveiling the hidden truth: ‘these moments of crisis are actually prime opportunities for transformation.