CRLA Certification for Tutoring Programs: Levels, Hours and How to Apply

If you run a tutoring or learning center at a college, sooner or later a dean, an accreditation review or one of your tutors will ask whether your tutor training is CRLA certified. Getting to yes means meeting the same four requirements at each level and documenting them in one application.

Most of that documentation describes training you design once. The part that takes longest is the record of how many hours each tutor has spent with students, because that number differs from the hours they were paid for and it only exists if you have been collecting it.

Key takeaways

• CRLA certification is the College Reading and Learning Association’s certification of a college tutor training program, awarded at three levels.
• Each level adds at least 10 hours of training on 10 or more CRLA topics and at least 25 hours of direct tutoring per tutor, along with a hiring standard and regular evaluation.
• The application asks for samples of the logs you keep of each tutor’s training and tutoring hours, and CRLA states that timesheets alone are not enough.
• A first certification lasts two years, and each renewal lasts four.

What is CRLA certification?

CRLA certification usually means the International Tutor Training Program Certification (ITTPC), which the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA) awards to a tutor training program at a college or university. It certifies the program rather than the people in it. It works like the accreditation of a degree program, where an outside body reviews the program and the program then awards its own credentials.

CRLA has certified tutor training programs since 1989. It counts data for accreditation reviews and a credential tutors can put on a resume among the benefits to your institution and your tutors.

How tutors earn a CRLA certificate

The phrase CRLA tutor certification usually refers to the certificate a certified program gives its own tutors. Tutors cannot apply to CRLA themselves. They complete a certified program’s training and tutoring hours at Level 1, 2 or 3, and the program then issues their certificate from a template CRLA provides.

So when a tutor asks how to get certified, the answer is to tutor at a college whose program is certified. A tutor’s certificate never needs renewing, because it records training already completed. Your program, though, can only issue certificates within the dates its own certification covers. CRLA keeps no list of the tutors who completed certified training, so a tutor who loses a certificate has to come back to you for a copy.

ITTPC and IPTPC

ITTPC covers peer, embedded and volunteer tutors, and writing or speech consultants. Mentors, coaches and Supplemental Instruction leaders fall under a separate CRLA program with its own application, the International Peer Educator Training Program Certification (IPTPC). If your center runs Supplemental Instruction sessions for historically difficult courses, the training of the students who lead them is certified under IPTPC.

The four requirements every level shares

Every level checks how you select tutors, how you train them, how many hours they tutor and how you evaluate them. CRLA publishes the full rules and each level’s topic list on its ITTPC requirements page, along with the new and renewal application forms.

Tutor selection

Before training begins, you show that each tutor knows the subject. For every tutor, your program needs:

• a grade of A or B in the subject they will tutor, or equivalent experience you can justify
• a recommendation from someone who knows the subject, such as a former instructor or a department chair
• an interview in which you explain what the job involves.

Equivalent experience can be work experience, related coursework or a test result, as long as you explain how you judged it.

Training

Each level needs at least 10 hours of training, spread over at least 10 topics from CRLA’s list for that level, with 30 minutes or more on each. The topics come from five groups at every level (the basics of tutoring, communication, learning and study skills, ethics and equity, and electives), with a minimum number from each group. At Level 1, for example, the basics include the role of the tutor and conducting a successful session.

At least 5 of each level’s hours must be TIS (tutor-trainer led, interactive and synchronous), which means a trainer runs the session live and the tutors take part. Beyond that, the format is up to you, so workshops, a two-day retreat, a course or a series of meetings all qualify, in person or online. The remaining hours can be self-paced reading or video. Whatever the format, you record each tutor’s attendance and the time spent on each topic.

Tutoring experience

Each tutor needs at least 25 hours of direct tutoring at each level, and you track those hours tutor by tutor. Direct means time spent with students, so front-desk coverage, Supplemental Instruction sessions and planning time do not count. CRLA also states that timesheets alone are not enough to document these hours.

Evaluation

CRLA asks for an evaluation process, formal or informal, that runs regularly, is specific to each tutor and lets the tutor see the results. Each level needs at least one evaluation during its training period. CRLA recommends that the evaluation match your training goals and that a trainer or supervisor who knows those goals take part.

CRLA certification levels, hours and fees

The three levels are sequential, so each one adds at least 10 training hours, 10 topics and 25 tutoring hours to the level before it. Level 1 covers the basics, Level 2 adds metacognitive skills (how students think about their own learning) and psychosocial ones (the emotional and social side of learning), and Level 3 widens to learning center management and student development theory.

Level	Focus	Minimum training hours (total)	Minimum tutoring hours per tutor (total)	Application fee, CRLA member	Application fee, non-member
Level 1	Basics of tutoring	10	25	$450	$650
Levels 1 and 2	Metacognitive and psychosocial skills	20	50	$650	$850
Levels 1, 2 and 3	Learning center management and student development	30	75	$850	$1,050

These fees have applied to new and renewal applications since January 2024 and are current in 2026. Each additional program or campus on the same certificate adds $100 for members or $150 for non-members. You do not have to join CRLA to apply, but members pay $200 less at every level.

A member center that certifies Levels 1 and 2 for its main campus and one satellite campus pays $750, which is the $650 application plus $100 for the second campus. Without membership, the same application costs $1,000. Both campuses have to select, train, track and evaluate tutors the same way, and every tutor the center certifies at Level 2 has completed at least 20 hours of training and logged at least 50 hours of direct tutoring.

Review time, validity and renewal

CRLA reviews most applications within four to six months. A first certification is valid for two years, and it counts back up to one year before its approval date for tutors who had already met the approved requirements. A renewal with the same levels, programs and campuses is valid for four years, and you renew every four years after that.

Your renewal is due by the expiration date of your current certification. You can still renew up to 180 days after expiration for an extra $100 late fee, but a longer lapse means a new application.

What the application asks you to submit

The application asks for two kinds of material, documents that describe your training and records that show training and tutoring happened. CRLA posts the application questions and sample answers from a certified program on its requirements page, so you can see the format before you start.

Training documents

For each level, you submit:

• a syllabus, schedule or set of agendas showing which sessions cover which topics, for how long, and with what methods and materials
• materials from sample training sessions, two for Level 1 and one for each higher level
• for each sample session, its plan, the slides or handouts used, the learning outcomes it serves and how you assess them, and a short annotated bibliography of its sources
• the strategies you use to keep training materials within copyright law, such as fair use or permission from the copyright holder.

Hour logs

Your program keeps two logs for every tutor at each level. The training log records the hours and topics each tutor completed. The tutoring log records each tutor’s direct hours with students, and CRLA wants to see how you collect that data and how you count it.

For the tutoring log, the application asks for a sample. You attach a tracking log for at least one tutor covering at least two weeks within the last year, plus the report that adds that tutor’s hours up over time. You redact last names and ID numbers in every log.

Each level also needs at least one sample trainee evaluation, redacted the same way. Pick one that shows the evaluation was specific to the tutor and that the tutor saw the results, since CRLA requires both.

New or renewal application

Which form you use depends on what you are asking CRLA to certify. The application for new certification covers a first certification, a return after a lapse, and any added level, program or campus. The renewal application covers only a renewal with the same levels, programs and campuses as before.

A first application has no deadline. If you plan to add a level, CRLA suggests doing it when your renewal is due, using the new-certification form, because that costs least and keeps all your levels on one timeline. The certification that results counts as new and runs for two years.

Keeping the hour records CRLA asks for

The tutoring hours requirement depends most on how your center keeps records, because CRLA wants each tutor’s time with students counted apart from the rest of their paid hours. A payroll timesheet cannot separate the two, since it only shows when a tutor clocked in and out. Your tutoring log has to record sessions instead, meaning which student met which tutor and for how long, whether tutors keep it on paper, in a spreadsheet or in tutoring center software.

Decide how you count group sessions before you start, too. An hour with three students is one hour of the tutor’s time, even if your records show three visits.

Separate tutoring time from work time

Accudemia, the academic center management software we make, keeps tutoring time and work time in separate records. Each visit signed in through Accudemia produces a session log with its start and end times and the tutor the student met. A tutor’s own clock-in and clock-out is stored separately as a work-hour log.

You can filter the visit data by tutor, down to each session and the time spent, without exporting it. A report called Tutor Activity puts one tutor’s student activity beside that tutor’s work hours, though you run it one tutor at a time. That suits the one-tutor sample the application asks for. For the rest of your tutors, you work from the visit data filtered by tutor, and you still apply your group-session rule to it. Front-desk time is already out of that data, because it sits in the work-hour log, and Supplemental Instruction attendance is tracked in a separate module with its own reports.

Training attendance and gaps to watch

Tutors can register for training workshops in Accudemia. An event sign-in station (a kiosk set up for the workshop) then records who attended, while the time spent on each topic still comes from your training schedule. The reports only cover what was recorded, though. If you run online tutoring and let students join a session from the online waiting line on their own, those visits leave no session log unless staff add one. Your syllabus, session plans and evaluations stay documents your staff write.

How three colleges keep these records

Hardin-Simmons University, a private Texas university with just under 1,700 students, runs a CRLA certified tutoring program in its Academic Center for Enrichment. The center uses Accudemia data to show it meets its certification requirements, and the same records give its tutors the session history they need for their own certificates. Our account of how Hardin-Simmons runs its certified center includes the director explaining how the data documents tutor hours for CRLA.

Slippery Rock University’s tutoring program has also earned CRLA certification. In one of our user spotlight sessions, the coordinator of its tutorial center walks through the attendance and tutor hours reports the center uses for the direct-hours requirement.

Geneva College’s Academic Support Office shows the timesheet problem in practice. Before it logged sessions in Accudemia, its tutoring record came from the payroll system, which showed how long tutors worked but not which students they met or what they covered.

If you are preparing a first CRLA application or a renewal, request an Accudemia demo and see how session logs and tutor hours reports would document your tutors’ direct hours.

Where to start

CRLA certifies training that is already running, so you design and deliver your training before you apply. The hour logs take longest to build, because they only exist once tutoring has been recorded, so begin with them even if you plan to apply next year. These steps get a first application moving:

1. Start logging each tutor’s direct tutoring hours apart from their work hours this term, since the application needs at least two weeks of logs from the last year.
2. Choose the level that matches the training you already deliver. Level 1 is the base every higher level builds on.
3. Map your current training sessions to CRLA’s topic list for that level, and count the hours a trainer leads live.
4. Gather each tutor’s hiring evidence (grades, recommendations and interview notes) in one place.
5. Decide whether to join CRLA before you apply, since members pay a lower fee.