<p>The SAT is designed so that practice will reach a point of diminishing returns fairly quickly. I’m not sure about your “4.3 GPA, 1800 SAT” comment, because I studied for about 4 hours with the Princeton Review prep book the day before the SAT and got a 2300. So it’s clearly possible to do well without a lot of prep. I don’t consider myself to be a genius by any means, but I do consider myself to be intelligent. I’ve noticed that a lot of, for lack of a better term, “overachievers” get great GPA’s but average SAT scores because the SAT tests reasoning, not memorization and suck up skills (grrrr… high school grading systems are evil). So, starting SAT prep in seventh grade won’t help that much because the SAT is designed so that a ton of prep won’t help that much. I would advise a worried parent to get their children to read a lot, because the vocabulary and grammar knowledge gained from reading respected literature will help someone a lot more on the SAT than memorizing hit lists will. Books also have benefits apart from high SAT scores that I’m sure you’re aware of.</p>