Does Tutoring Matching Service count as on-campus employment?

[Neurotic_Jay]

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Edited July 21, 2017 by Neurotic_Jay

[fuzzylogician]

You should absolutely NOT just ask strangers on the internet and take our word for it. Ask the International Students Office at your school to get a qualified answer you can trust.

[Neurotic_Jay]

1 minute ago, fuzzylogician said:

You should absolutely NOT just ask strangers on the internet and take our word for it. Ask the International Students Office at your school to get a qualified answer you can trust.

Thank you! I am aware of that. I have emailed them of course. Since this service is obviously being used by a lot of schools, I thought someone on this site may have the similar issues like this one.

[fuzzylogician]

Even if someone could tell you that at their school X or Y is the case, you don't want to take that as necessarily correct for your school as well. It'll eventually probably come down to who pays your salary, but I don't think we know it's the same across the board, and anyway you wouldn't want to count on my (or anyone's) guess. Seriously, this is not something to mess with. 

[TakeruK]

Definitely ask for your specific school. At my school, there is a high school tutoring program. Grads and undergrads are matched with 2 high school students and meet weekly for the school year. Grad students could potentially be paid (but they usually do not); most are volunteering. The set-up at my school was not employment if you were volunteering. This particular program was run by a non-profit that is related to my school, but it was not my school. The location was on campus. However, for international student status purposes, it was not on-campus employment because the employer was not the school. International students could not work for pay with this service unless they were going to use their OPT or AT periods.

Since you will have to get approval for this work thru your international student office no matter what (even if it's on-campus because then you have to ensure you don't exceed 20 hours per week and your TA- or RA-ships also take up hours), it makes more sense to wait until you hear back from the international student office so that you get the answer specific to your situation.