Tokyo, Japan · JST, UTC+9

SAT tutoring for students in Tokyo

One-to-one Digital SAT tuition for students in Tokyo and Yokohama, taught live in Japanese time by one native-English-speaking tutor who covers both halves of the test, for US and English-taught Japanese programmes.

Perfect 1600 SAT score · MEng, University of Cambridge · Tutoring full time since 2015

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“Lewis helped me get my score up from 1200 to 1400 in a month.”Liora, SAT student

A real lesson board, sped up

Your tutor

Lewis Watson

Lewis read Chemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge and has tutored full time since 2015. He teaches both halves of the Digital SAT himself — the Math with an engineer’s command of the quantitative section, Reading & Writing with the ear for language the verbal half rewards.

Much of the early work was residential, living with families in Dubai and Saudi Arabia and teaching through term time and exam season, before the practice moved mostly online. More about Lewis →

Why students in Tokyo come to one-to-one lessons

Tokyo's SAT students are a more varied group than the international-school list suggests. Alongside ASIJ, the British School in Tokyo, Nishimachi, Seisen, St. Mary's and K. International, there is a large cohort of returnees, kikokushijo who spent years abroad and are now at Japanese schools, and a growing number of Japanese students at ordinary high schools applying to the English-taught programmes at Waseda, Keio, Sophia and others, several of which use the SAT in admissions.

What those students share is that Tokyo has surprisingly little SAT preparation for a city its size, and what exists is either juku-style drilling or a group course on a fixed timetable. A returnee whose English is fluent but whose Math vocabulary is entirely Japanese, and a Japanese-school student whose Math is superb but who has never read a fast multiple-choice passage in English, need opposite things, and a course cannot give both.

One-to-one lessons are built around the student's actual profile, and scheduled in a Tokyo evening, after school or after club activities, rather than at whichever hour a centre has free.

Lesson times in Tokyo

Tokyo is on Japan Standard Time (UTC+9). These are the slots students here book most often, with the corresponding UK time in both halves of the year, so you can see the lesson falls inside a normal working day at the tutor's end, which is what keeps a weekly slot stable through a whole term.

Lesson time where you are	UK time, Apr–Oct	UK time, Oct–Mar
5.00pm	9am UK	8am UK
6.00pm	10am UK	9am UK
7.00pm	11am UK	10am UK
8.00pm	12pm UK	11am UK
9.00pm	1pm UK	12pm UK

The UK moves between GMT and British Summer Time in late March and late October; Japan does not change clocks, so the UK-side time shifts by an hour twice a year while your lesson time stays put.

What is specific to Tokyo

Japan is on Japan Standard Time (UTC+9), eight hours ahead of the UK in summer and nine in winter. A 7.00pm lesson in Tokyo is late morning in London, so evening slots after school and bukatsu are a reliable weekly fixture.
Returnees and Japanese-school students are taught differently. The first lessons establish whether the gap is the English of the Math section, the reading pace of the verbal section, or neither.
Reading & Writing taught by a native English speaker, and the Math by the same tutor, so a student never has the verbal half handed to somebody else.
Test centre seats in Tokyo are limited and popular sittings fill early. Register as soon as the date is settled: the test date table has every deadline.
Billed in pounds sterling by card link or bank transfer, after each lesson. Fees are on the fee sheet; the intro call and the trial lesson are free.

How the lessons themselves work

Live one-to-one on a shared whiteboard that both tutor and student write on, not a recorded course, and not a screen-share of somebody talking.
Homework set after every lesson and marked before the next, included in the rate.
Full-length timed mocks in Bluebook, set, marked and reviewed, so nothing on test day is unfamiliar.
A live topic tracker (one row per College Board domain) so every content area is covered, practised and signed off before the sitting. Parents can see it whenever they like.
Progress updates to parents after every mock, and a review call whenever you want one.

Where to read next

In the same time zone: SAT tutoring in Seoul; an hour behind, Taipei and Hong Kong. If the score has stopped moving in the 1400s, the 1400 to 1600 guide explains what changes at the top of the scale. Section by section: SAT Math tutoring and SAT Reading & Writing tutoring. For the test itself, the Digital SAT explained; for the tutor, about Lewis Watson; for comparing tutors, agencies and marketplaces, choosing a one-to-one SAT tutor; and for the wider picture of applying from abroad, SAT tutoring for international students.

Common questions from Tokyo

Can I find an online SAT tutor in Tokyo?

Yes. Altair Prep teaches one-to-one Digital SAT lessons online to students in Tokyo and Yokohama, live over a shared interactive whiteboard, at a fixed weekly time in Japan's own evening. Lewis Watson, a Cambridge-educated native English speaker with a perfect 1600, teaches every lesson himself and covers both the Math and the Reading and Writing halves, with homework marked between lessons.

What time are SAT lessons for students in Japan?

Japan is on UTC+9, eight hours ahead of the UK in summer and nine in winter, so a 7.00pm lesson in Tokyo is 11.00am or 10.00am in London. Altair Prep holds evening slots in Japanese time, after school or after club activities, as a standing weekly appointment through the term, and weekend lessons are available as well.

Do Japanese universities accept the SAT?

Some English-taught programmes do. Programmes at Waseda, Keio, Sophia and other universities accept the SAT as part of admissions to their international or English-medium degrees, and the required scores and accepted alternatives are set programme by programme and change from year to year, so check the specific one. Altair Prep plans around that programme's deadline and score range exactly as it would for a US application.

My child is a returnee whose English is fluent. Why is the Math score low?

Usually because the mathematics was learned in Japanese and the SAT asks about it in English. A kikokushijo student often knows the content well and loses marks to vocabulary and to word problems, not to the maths itself. Altair Prep's first lessons establish exactly that, and then teach the language of the Math section alongside timed practice rather than re-teaching content the student already has.

Preparing for the SAT in Tokyo?

Tell Lewis the target score, the sitting you are aiming at and which universities or programmes are on the list. The intro call and the trial lesson are both free, both in Japanese time, and there is nothing to pay before them.

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Prefer email? Write to lewis@altairprep.com.