In this new Ratings article:
1. How do students rate a lesson?
2. Badges, compliments, and testimonials
4. How is my rating calculated?
5. Moving to percent positive rating
6. New talent
8. FAQs
How do students rate a lesson?
In order to help you understand student ratings, here is a behind the scenes look at what students experience after a lesson.
After a lesson:
In order for students to be prompted to rate a lesson, they must be subscribed to Cambly and spend more than one minute in the lesson with you. Once these conditions are met, the student will be prompted to either rate the lesson or schedule another one after the session ends.
Please note: there are exceptions where students will not be prompted to rate a lesson, regardless of time spent in the classroom. Please see the Excluded ratings section below to learn more.
Here's the process:
1. End of lesson prompt: After the lesson ends, students first see a screen confirming the lesson is finished. Clicking "Go to home" takes students to the next pages below.
2. Curriculum-related prompt: If the student used a curriculum during the lesson, they will be asked to confirm whether they completed today’s lesson. This helps the system determine which lesson to suggest for their next session.
3. Rating or Rescheduling: After the curriculum prompt (or if no curriculum was used), students will be prompted to either rate the lesson or schedule another one.
If a student skips this step and logs out, they'll see the same prompt when they log back into their account—as long as they return within 24 hours of the lesson. After 24 hours, the student is no longer able to rate the lesson. This helps ensure their feedback reflects an accurate recall of the session.
If a student chooses to schedule another lesson, they will be guided through the rescheduling process. After completing the reschedule, they will end up on a confirmation page and will have another opportunity to rate the initial lesson.
If a student chooses to rate the lesson, they will be guided through the rating process. After completing the process, they will end up on a confirmation page and will have another opportunity to schedule another lesson.
Rating the lesson
Once a student clicks “Rate lesson”, they receive a prompt that asks: “Overall, how was your lesson today?”
What influences student feedback?
When a student selects "Excellent," "Good," or "Average," when answering the above ratings question, they are prompted to provide feedback on three additional statements:
- My goals for today’s lesson were accomplished
- Today’s lesson had the right level of corrections for me
- Based on today’s lesson, I’m looking forward to my next lesson
While tutors are not currently able to access the feedback left in these three additional statements, we’re actively working on learning which statements best reflect what learners value most in a lesson and how to then bring this feedback to you. This will help you gain deeper insights into how students are responding to your lessons—and use that to better understand your ratings. Students' responses to these statements do not contribute to your overall rating.
Students are not required to answer the additional statements above. Their rating in the initial rating question still counts even if they opt to not complete these additional statements.
If a student gives a lower rating ("Poor" or "Bad"), they can pick from a list of reasons to explain why before moving on to the same three additional statements outlined above. Those reasons are:
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Technical problems
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Difficulty understanding tutor
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Not enough speaking time
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Unprofessional tutor
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Lesson did not start on time
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Rude or inappropriate behavior
Badges, compliments, and testimonials
When students rebook lessons with you, they have the opportunity to leave additional feedback. This feedback is how you earn compliments that contribute to your badges. Learn more about the compliment badge system.
After you’ve had three or more lessons with a student and received consistent "Excellent" reviews, the student is invited to leave a review about their lessons with you. These reviews turn into your testimonials. Learn more about testimonials.
Excluded ratings
We know that things like technical issues, challenging students, or Cambly piloting new programs, such as Cambly Group Lessons, can affect your lessons. That’s why we make sure to exclude certain ratings to give you the most accurate reflection of your tutoring.
In some cases, students are not prompted to rate at all. These cases are:
- The student is not a subscribed student.
- The tutor returns the lesson to the student. Learn more about returning student lessons.
- The tutor reports a problem with the lesson from inside the classroom, which ends the lesson early. Important note: Because reporting a student during a lesson automatically ends the class, please only report a student during a lesson in cases of extremely offensive behavior, such as profanity, nudity, or hate speech. Learn more about reporting and hiding from students.
In other cases, students are asked to rate, but those ratings don't count toward your overall rating. This helps us gather valuable feedback and identify what's working and where we can improve, without impacting your rating. These cases are:
- The student selects “Technical problems” as the reason for their low rating
- It’s a group lesson
- The lesson is on Cambly Kids
This helps us focus on ratings that best reflect your lesson.
Please note: While we recognize there are other scenarios where a rating may not accurately capture the student experience, we’re actively exploring how to improve this process, with the goal of making it an even better reflection of your lessons.
How is my rating calculated?
Your rating on the Tutor Dashboard is based on your most recent 200 qualifying ratings, excluding those mentioned above.
Each Wednesday, our system updates your rating using the most recent 200 qualifying ratings received up until the Monday prior. This means, ratings received on Tuesday won’t be included in that week’s Wednesday update but will be counted in the following week’s update.
We currently calculate ratings in two ways:
- Percent positive rating: This shows the percentage of “good” and “excellent” ratings you’ve received out of the total qualifying ratings.
- Average rating (5.0 scale): Each rating type (excellent, good, average, poor, and bad) corresponds to a value from 5 to 1. Your average is calculated using these values of all qualifying ratings.
Moving to percent positive rating
Your percent positive rating is the rating we use across Cambly. It is used for:
- Tutor profiles: This is what students see when viewing your tutor profile.
- Super Tutor status: Tutors with 98.0% positive ratings are eligible for the Super Tutor program. Learn more
- Priority Hours: Tutors with higher percent positive ratings receive earlier access to Priority Hours. Learn more
Percent positive ratings better represent student feedback, remove the reliance on assigning numerical values to ratings, and eliminate the outsized impact a single “Good” rating could have on your average. This helps students find the right tutor while creating a more balanced system for you.
How is my rating displayed to students?
You'll see your rating displayed to one decimal place (e.g., 95.3%, 96.7%) on your tutor dashboard, but students will see a rounded percentage of your positive ratings displayed on your profile.
You can view the way your profile is displayed to students on the “Profile” tab in your tutor account, and you can continue to keep track of your average rating on the History page.
Why move to percent positive rating?
Our old rating system used smiley faces, which converted into numbers from 1 to 5 to calculate averages. Most students chose either the happiest smiley (5) or the least happy (1). While simple, this system didn’t provide enough nuance for students to identify the right tutor for their needs.
To improve this, we switched to word-based ratings like “Excellent” and “Good,” which also converted into numerical values. This update aligned with industry standards and created a more balanced view of tutors. However, it led to a new pattern: more “Good” (4) ratings instead of “Excellent” (5), which lowered averages even though “Good” still reflects a successful lesson.
The percent positive metric counts all “Good” and “Excellent” ratings as positive, providing a clearer picture of your lessons. Cambly also found that showing the percentage of positive ratings helped students feel more confident in their choices, leading to an increase in overall student lessons—a win for everyone!
What rating do I need to get earlier access to Priority Hours?
Is the 5.0 average rating being removed
You’ll see in the coming days we are removing the 5.0 rating from your dashboard. Why? Because it no longer serves a purpose! It’s not used to determine your eligibility for any programs or features, so we’re keeping it simple. Percent Positive offers a clearer, fairer reflection of your lessons, helping us stay focused on what really matters.
Why has my percent positive rating decreased?
Your percent positive rating reflects the percentage of “Good” and “Excellent” ratings you’ve received out of your last 200 qualifying ratings. Ratings like “Average,” “Poor,” or “Bad” reduce your percentage because they aren’t considered positive. With the removal of the 5.0 average rating, there are no longer corresponding numerical values to your word ratings. Here’s an example:
Imagine your last 200 qualifying ratings include
- 50 "Good" ratings
- 148 "Excellent ratings"
- 2 "Average ratings
Your percent positive would be calculated as: 198 positive ratings ÷ 200 total ratings = 99.0% positive
If, by the following Wednesday, your updated ratings include:
- 47 "Good" ratings
- 148 "Excellent" ratings
- 3 "Average" ratings
- 2 "Poor" ratings
Your positive ratings drop to 195. The new calculation would be: 195 positive ratings ÷ 200 total ratings = 97.5%. For students' view on your profile, this rounds up to 98%:
New talent
If you're still fairly new to Cambly, you may notice that your profile is tagged as "New Talent" to students, as we found that the average rating is not representative until a tutor works beyond approximately 40 hours. We remove the "New Talent" tag after you have accumulated enough ratings to have a reliably accurate rating that we can show to students.
Rating secrets video
In the video below, Tutor Molly addresses the Cambly rating system, how it works, and how you can increase your own Cambly rating!
FAQs
Are students asked to rate in their language?
Yes! All post-lesson screens, including the ratings questions, are translated into the student’s selected language, ensuring they can provide feedback comfortably and accurately.
Can my regular students rate after every lesson?
Yes! Regular students can rate after every lesson. This means, if you’re meeting with the same student every day, they can leave a rating every day—unless one of the rating exceptions we mentioned above applies.
Why is my student reporting that they weren't asked to rate?
Students are shown a few screens before they reach the ratings question, as outlined and pictured in the section above titled "How do students rate a lesson?" This sequence might lead some students to think they weren’t asked to rate. However, if they continue through the initial screens, they will arrive at the ratings question.
If my student chooses to reschedule a lesson, can they still rate the lesson?
Yes! After a lesson, students see two options: Rate lesson or Schedule another lesson.
If the student chooses to schedule another lesson instead of rating immediately, they'll have the option to rate the lesson again on the booking confirmation page for the new lesson:
If a student logs out, they'll see the same prompt when they log back into their account—as long as they return within 24 hours of the lesson. After 24 hours, the student is no longer able to rate the lesson. This helps ensure their feedback reflects an accurate recall of the session.
Can I get feedback on why my rating increased or dropped?
Currently, tutors won't be able to see students' feedback. We understand that having student feedback could help even the most experienced tutors to improve. We are working to develop a system to provide student feedback back to tutors.
How does my rating impact my Cambly experience?
Tutors with higher ratings receive higher Priority Hour access (up to 3 weeks). In addition, students often choose their tutor based on the tutor's experience and overall ratings.
How can I improve my ratings?
The best way to improve your ratings is to try your best to impress your students. Some methods that have been successful for top tutors are: focusing the session on the student's specific needs, coming prepared with a library full of great content, giving many corrections, maintaining a friendly and encouraging atmosphere, etc. If your students believe that you are helping them, not only will they rate you highly, they will also request to chat with you again. Check the Tutor Guide for some Best Practice Videos from top tutors.