Each grade at Odyssey reads an epic poem: Gilgamesh in sixth grade, Beowulf in seventh and the Odyssey in eighth. Our tutors are Stanford students who took many of the same courses not long ago, from pre-algebra to precalculus.
Tell us about your student, and we’ll match them with a Stanford tutor who fits.
We help Odyssey students with math, science, reading and writing, and eighth graders preparing for high school entrance tests. Sessions are one-on-one, at your home in San Mateo, Burlingame or Belmont, or online.
Meet our tutors
Keeping track of an epic
Epics are long, crowded with names and told out of order, and students lose the thread a few books in. Odyssey students also write an original short story in class every week, so reading and writing compete for time. A tutor builds a one-page map of the epic’s people and places with your student, which makes every later essay easier to start. Learn more about our English and writing tutoring.
Water testing in the field course
Odyssey’s weekly field course takes students onto local trails to test water in creeks and ponds. pH is the measurement that confuses them, because the scale works in powers of ten: water at pH 6 is ten times more acidic than water at pH 7. A tutor works through the scale with your student using their own field readings. Learn more about our science tutoring.
Our middle school tutors, in parents’ own words
All reviewsFind a coding tutor“I have been absolutely impressed by her lessons over the past few months. Lily also loves working with her. She has been making great progress with her programming and writing.”
“I find your tutor quality to be excellent and a perfect fit!”
Find a math tutor“Our tutor is truly amazing! He is so patient, explains things well, asks great questions, and checks for understanding. Owen really enjoyed working with him and they accomplished so much. This is really a game changer for us! I had high hopes and he exceeded them.”
Find a math tutor“Second, our tutor connected with my 8th grade son immediately. What we needed was a mentor and homework coach, to engage my son and keep him focused to ensure concepts were cemented in cranking out homework.”
Find a Tutor“Fantastic tutoring service. The tutor (who was a Stanford junior) really connected with my son and inspired him to learn. He had some great study tips and was able to help my son raise his grades by quite a bit.”
Find a math tutor“She found a perfect match for my son… He is stellar. My son has grown leaps and bounds in math. Our tutor is not only a subject matter expert but teaches very well, highly prompt, flexible when needed.”
Find a math tutor“My daughter went from a C in Algebra II to an A- in one semester. The tutor was great, she really related to my daughter and made learning fun for her.”
Find a Tutor“Very professional service with excellent teachers. My son loved his teacher, called him the best he ever had! I can very highly recommend it.”
Find a Tutor“I am usually not one to write a review, but I wanted to communicate how great Cardinal Tutors was for my child. They had a very flexible plan which helped accommodate my child's needs and I saw a tremendous return (grade-wise) from their services. Could not recommend more highly.”
Find a math tutor“The tutors themselves have been great: well-prepared, thoughtful and on-time. At each level of math needed, we found these Stanford students to be not just helpful tutors but great mentors as well.”
Find a math tutor“The subsequent long term tutor that we had for pre calc and for ACT tutoring was amazing. She was completely professional, organized, thorough and easy to work with.”
Find a math tutor“You have been a wonderful inspiration for Eli and we are very grateful for having you in the past half-year!”
Find a coding tutor“The program has been awesome for us. Theo loves working with our tutor and has learned so much.”
“Our tutor is just outstanding — great with Theo and very communicative with me. Super helpful!”
Find a Tutor“I reached out to Cardinal Tutors and was lucky enough to find the most amazing tutor. I wish I had found him earlier.”
Find a math tutor“We used Cardinal Tutoring again in the Spring 2018 for precalculus. Once again, she had a great tutor she really liked and who really helped her this year. My daughter is a senior so we won't need Cardinal Tutoring again, but I highly recommend them!”
Find a Tutor“We have had an excellent experience with Cardinal Tutors for the past two years. Neil was very responsive whenever we had any questions. We definitely strongly recommend them and plan on using them again in the near future.”
Find a math tutor“It was great to find a couple of really smart young women who helped not only with the subject matter, but became great role models.”
Find a Tutor“You connected Leo with a great tutor and made the process seamless.”
Find a math tutor“We used Cardinal Tutors and were happy with the level of professionalism and responsiveness we received. The math tutor selected for our son was a good match for him.”
Find a math tutor“Perfect fit to jumpstart my son's new habits and attitudes towards math.”
Find a math tutor“Nora enjoys her sessions with her tutor and it's already helping her confidence with math.”
Precalculus in middle school
Odyssey paces math to the student, not the calendar, and its Pre-Calculus course introduces differentiation. Middle schoolers who reach it are strong at computing, so the derivative rules come easily; explaining what a derivative means about a graph is where they stall. A tutor asks your student to describe, in words, what the graph is doing wherever the derivative is zero. Learn more about our math tutoring.
Tell us about your student, and we’ll match them with a Stanford tutor who fits.












