Science Tutors in Switzerland — Biology, Chemistry and Physics

CHF 95 per 60 minutes with Good Tutors Finder from age 11 upwards for biology, chemistry or physics, all-in — and that includes Higher Level, A Level, advanced Matura and university-entrance work. A learner aged 10 or under is CHF 85. Distinction, our most accomplished tutors, is CHF 130 an hour and you choose it on any work. Prepaid packages lower it: five hours are CHF 440, which is CHF 88 an hour; ten are CHF 810, which is CHF 81; and twenty are CHF 1,560, which is CHF 78. There is no enrolment fee, no travel surcharge and no difference in price between a lesson at your table and a lesson online. Elsewhere in this market published rates run from about CHF 24 an hour on a marketplace to CHF 160 face to face at a Geneva agency that also charges a CHF 100 enrolment fee — and a Swiss market survey puts at-home tutoring at CHF 60–95 per 45 minutes, which is CHF 80–127 an hour once you convert it.

Three things. The option topics were removed, so biology, chemistry and physics each have two written papers and no options paper. The individual internal assessment was replaced by the scientific investigation, an assessed independent research paper worth 20% of the grade at both levels, which can now be carried out collaboratively where the school allows it. And a collaborative sciences project, addressing a real-world problem across disciplines, sits where the old Group 4 Project did. Higher Level is now explicitly the Standard Level syllabus plus additional content — 240 teaching hours against 150. The practical consequence for families is blunt: revision material written before 2023 covers topics that will not appear and misses material that will.

It depends what you mean by harder, and the numbers are counterintuitive. In the May 2025 session, Physics at Higher Level had a mean grade of 4.9 from 17,970 candidates with about 19 per cent reaching a 7. Chemistry at Higher Level had a mean of 4.8 from 20,085 candidates with about 15 per cent at a 7. Biology at Higher Level had a mean of 4.4 from 33,079 candidates, with roughly 7 per cent at a 7. So biology has the lowest mean and by some distance the smallest share of top grades, despite being widely recommended as the gentler science. Those are global figures and they describe the cohort each subject attracts as much as the subject itself — but if your child is choosing biology because it looks like an easy 7, that is not what the data says.

Effectively, yes, on the IB. swissuniversities requires six subjects covering the first language, a second language, mathematics, a natural science, a humanities or social science and an elective — with at least three at Higher Level, one of which must be mathematics or a natural science. So a student can satisfy it with Higher Level mathematics and no Higher Level science, but that is a narrow path. ETH Zurich requires Higher Level mathematics plus a Higher Level science plus a Language A, at 38 of 42 points. EPFL requires Higher Level mathematics and Higher Level physics plus chemistry, biology or computer science, with grades of at least 6 out of 7 in mathematics and physics.

Not directly, and we would rather say so than take the booking. The EMS aptitude test, used by the Universities of Basel, Bern, Fribourg and Zurich, USI and ETH Zurich, is explicitly not a knowledge test: swissuniversities describes it as testing reasoning and memory, and logical and spatial understanding, across multiple-choice task groups and a concentration subtest. It does not ask chemistry, biology or physics questions. What the sciences decide is the Matura or IB grade that gets your child into the process at all. Pre-registration closes on 15 February and the test is sat in the first week of July. If someone is selling you science tutoring as EMS preparation, ask them to show you the science in the test.

It matters a lot, and mostly for what happens afterwards. Cambridge Co-ordinated Sciences 0654 teaches biology, chemistry and physics in one cross-referenced syllabus and produces two IGCSE grades. Combined Science 0653 is a single award producing one. Three separate sciences produce three, and cover considerably more content in each. A student arriving in DP1 Higher Level chemistry from a double award has a real, specific gap — not a talent problem, a coverage problem — and it is closeable in a summer if it is identified in the summer rather than in November.

Yes, within a line we publish rather than blur. We will teach the science and the statistics it rests on, explain the assessment criteria band by band, interrogate a research question your child has proposed — is it answerable, is there a measurable variable, can the data actually be collected — discuss method, control of variables, uncertainty and source evaluation, read a draft your child has written and give feedback on it, and rehearse the reasoning out loud. We will not write or edit any part of it, hand your child a ready-made research question, produce the data or the graphs, or run repeated rounds of edits. The IB defines academic misconduct as deliberate or inadvertent, so a tutor tidying a paragraph to be helpful has still done it — and it is your child who carries it.

No. The Zurich central entrance examination for both the Langgymnasium and the Kurzgymnasium is written, and it examines German and mathematics only — Sprachbetrachtung and Textverständnis, an essay, and a mathematics paper. There is no biology, chemistry, physics or general-science component of any kind. If your child is preparing for the Gymi, the science tutoring you want is none, and the maths and German tutoring you want is on the maths and German pages.

Biologie und Chemie is the laboratory-facing one — experiments, practical work and excursions, extending both Grundlagenfächer. Physik und Anwendungen der Mathematik, usually shortened to PAM, is the mathematics-facing one: it goes beyond the Grundlagenfach into relativity, matrices and complex numbers, with heavy computer use. In Canton Lucerne in 2023/24, roughly a fifth of gymnasium students took Biologie und Chemie and roughly a tenth took PAM, and PAM was chosen considerably more often by male students. Under the revised federal ordinance the Schwerpunktfach catalogue is set cantonally, so check what your child's school actually offers rather than assuming the national list.

At IGCSE, usually — Cambridge offers both a Practical Test and an Alternative to Practical paper, though availability depends on the examination centre. At AS and A Level, Cambridge states plainly that every entry option for the sciences includes a practical component and that there is no alternative to practical skills assessment. So a private A Level science candidate must find a centre that offers the practical, and that constraint should shape the plan from the beginning rather than being discovered in the spring.

No — both are Specialist at CHF 95 an hour. Higher Level is 240 teaching hours against 150, with harder papers and a top band that is genuinely hard to reach, and it is still CHF 95. So are the science Schwerpunktfächer, A Level sciences including the practicals, ETH, EPFL and medicine-track admissions work, the MYP, IGCSE and the Matura Grundlagenfächer. The only figure above CHF 95 is Distinction at CHF 130, and that is our most accomplished tutors rather than a harder level: you can ask for it on any science at any level, and we will never tell you the work requires Distinction; that is your call, not ours.

Typically 48 to 72 hours from your enquiry to a named tutor. Faster is sometimes possible and we will never guarantee it. There is no free trial, and the reason is not meanness: a free lesson signals that the hour is a sample rather than teaching, and it fills a diary with people who were never going to book. Instead the first hour is charged at the standard single-hour rate — CHF 95, or CHF 130 if you have chosen Distinction — and if you then buy a package that amount comes straight off it, so the hour you already had is re-priced at the package rate along with the rest. Ten Specialist hours cost CHF 810 whether you buy the package outright or take one hour first. And that first lesson carries both guarantees: your money back, or a different tutor with the hour credited. You choose which.

Tell us three things: the school, the year, and which science and which level is actually the problem — Higher Level chemistry, double-award IGCSE, the Grundlagenfach Physik, the scientific investigation. That is enough for us to come back with a named tutor who has taught it, typically within 48 to 72 hours, and enough for us to tell you honestly whether tutoring is the right answer at all. Sometimes it is not — a student on the wrong course does not need more hours, they need a conversation with the coordinator — and we would rather say so. Nothing is charged to enquire and nothing is charged to be assigned. Book a tutor, or send a WhatsApp message on +41 76 213 1843 and ask what we would do in your position.