<p>Reddune: "Here is my advice on how to spend that $2899. Spend about $400 and buy every SAT1 prep books you can get your hand on, buy the Real SAT tests from previous years too. Spend $1000 on hiring the biggest, meanest, SOB you can find and tell him for this money, he must spend 4-6 hours a days, every day for the entire summer before your senior year, guarding you while you doing your practice tests thus preventing any distractions that might come your way. Give him permission to slap you silly if you fail to study during that time. Finally, spend the last $1499 on medical expenses and teeth replacement. I guarantee you that you'll get that 2400 or die trying (literally)."</p>
<p>No topic is complete without a contrarian view. Although anyone who has read quite a few posts on this board knows that Kaplan is not highly regarded, I would pay (assuming I had the money) $2899 for Xiggi to tutor me. He spent a lot of time figuring out patterns and shortcuts through self study and has given good advice on how to answer many different types of problems. I hope I'm able to figure out the patterns he has through this board and self study... but I sure would feel a lot more comfortable having him walk me through everything he has learned and filling in the gaps. A 200 point score increase can make the difference between getting into your dream school and some significant scholarship money (exceeding $2899). So, I believe having Xiggi as a tutor would allow me to get to a higher level than I could on my own. I'm also sure there are other tutors who take SOME people to a level they can't get to on their own.</p>