Julia Adams is one of the most extraordinary young people I’ve met in my 30 years as an educator, and I’m so excited she has joined RTC’s team! I’ve known Julia for six years, and I started as her ACT tutor. I went to my local high school’s guidance office and asked for their hardest working students who could never afford tutoring, and Julia was one of four students I volunteered with that year. We were both of modest means: she actually lived down the street from me, she had practically raised herself as the child of a single mom; she was my brightest, hardest working student that year. Our relationship progressed from there, as Julia herself comments, “I first met Miss Claire as my tutor and then a mentor; now she is “Claire,” a coworker and good friend.”

After Julia mastered the ACT, she asked if she could do her senior service project at the nonprofit where I volunteered running an ACT program for low-income students. Her senior year of high school, she became my first classroom assistant, and I saw firsthand what a gifted, patient, responsive teacher she was. I wanted to hire Julia as a tutor before she finished high school! As Julia remarks, “I have always loved learning. I see teaching as a new opportunity to show students how rewarding learning can be.”

Julia’s ACT scores helped her receive sizable merit aid to Washington and Jefferson College, where she earned a degree in Psychology with minors in Mathematics and Education. During her time at W&J, she volunteered tutoring math at a teen center, where she guided students Socratically in everything from fractions to calculus. Julia believes, “The dialogue between a student and their teacher determines how well a student learns. The Socratic method focuses on positive feedback from the student to the teacher, so the better the communication, the better the learning.”

Julia is our first graduate student Admin, and this fall she has already been instrumental in supporting Erin and me in implementing RTC’s new management database, TutorCruncher, which we will use to coordinate onboarding families, assigning and scheduling tutors, and billing hours. Julia is also helming a few projects we’ll be excited to share in 2023.

More importantly, Julia is our first RTC alumna test prep tutor: she learned to beat the ACT with me, and she has been trained in RTC’s customized, student-centered SAT and ACT curricula. I have already watched her guiding students through the nuances of test design and strategy with humor and kindness; she’s such a natural, and she doesn’t even know it. Like all our RTC tutors, Julia is invested in our kiddos, maybe especially because she once was one. She is humbled by the company she shares. Julia remarks, “I am honored to be so welcomed onto a team of high achieving and inspirational tutors.”

Outside of RTC, Julia is passionate about art and ceramics; she also teaches pottery. Julia will take any opportunity to make something creative, from sculpting a giraffe in ceramics to latte art at Starbucks. Julia believes that creativity promotes positive thinking, and she loves using creativity as a form of mindfulness. We are thrilled to have her touching the lives of students at RTC for years to come.