<p>Two of my friends have signed up for the Princeton Review SAT prep already and I have been considering it. Since it's a bit pricey, can anyone tell me if it's worth the money? Do people actually get the 200-point increase they promise, or will studying on your own do the same for you? Any feedback would be excellent!</p>
<p>One of my friends took it (the ACT one, not the SAT one) - all they basically do is read through the book, but she got a 30 on her second time taking it, then a 32 on her third time... i can't remember what her score was BEFORE she took the class...If you're good at studying, though, and your scores are allready pretty good, I personally wouldn't take it, but if your score could stand to go up, then yeah, take it. Prep classes are pretty helpful.</p>
<p>It really depends on the type of person you are. Can you motivate yourself to study without being told to? Are you able to learn well by yourself? Prep courses usually help people who have average scores. Also, it depends on how good your teacher will be in the prep class. Keep in mind that PR's guarentees a 200 pt increase, but if you dont improve that much, you only get to take a short refresher course.</p>
<p>It helped me with math. I had been overthinking the problems.
I took it the summer before taking the new SAT in March 05 (so I guess it was summer 04).
On the old SAT I got a 1450 (710 M, 740 V), but on the new ones I got a 2320 (790 M, 770 CR, 760 W).
I don't feel like their explanations for tackling the critical reading questions were good at all, but it's a good solid prep course that makes you work.</p>
<p>yeah, I also signed up for the class in april, don't know how well it is yet. but have a question. they reconmend me to take the SAT directly after the course, should i study somemore by myself after the course or take it right after? if I take it right after it will be april 1st, if taken later it would be in either may or june? help me choose please.</p>
<p>My daughter's score went down quite a bit after taking the Princeton Review course. She then had a private tutor from IvyWest and went up 150 points and then used Grammatix and went up another 100. My friend's daughter also did not get the 200 point guarantee.</p>
<p>my friends have taken it, and said they didn't learn anything</p>
<p>don't waste your money</p>
<p>? went down, how did that happen?</p>
<p>The course will be a help if you are also willing to work hard after the class. PR gives out a lot of materials, and if you want you can ask more (ex. more practice tests)
Don't get PR wrong that if you take a course you will have a higher score. You still need to work hard!!</p>
<p>Really, her score went DOWN?! wow..</p>
<p>My senior friend said that at PR you get about 20 diagnostic tests and so she felt really ready when it came time to take the SAT..</p>
<p>imo your scores should go up if you just hit the books. if you spend $50 on prep books and a solid 30 hours on prepping (i.e. focused/concentrated time), you should have no problem getting a 2250.</p>
<p>i completely agree with nvision</p>
<p>personally, i think PR is just for people that can't motivate themselves to study for standardized tests</p>
<p>for those people: don't even bother aiming for top 10 because those schools don't want kids that can't motivate themselves to work hard, and if you can't motivate yourself in hs, how will you in college? (sorry to seem harsh, but it's true)</p>
<p>if you really take the practice tests seriously and figure out what you did wrong, then your scores should easily improve...</p>
<p>^ That's false. I motivate myself fine for school, just not for the SAT. All other standardized tests are fine.</p>
<p>I definitly motivate myself too. my PR class didn't give out much homework at all. I did do lots of studying on my own from the blue book and the old real 10 sats.
I think PR's practice tests are inaccurate, especially the ones on the 11 practice test book. the question are not that good, some are not relevant. some math problems types never showed up in the blue book were on PR's book.
I have definitely put in more than 30 hours of studying, but still can't get pass a 2100 on the practice test. what should I do?
Especially on the reading section, the questions are so ambiguous sometimes. on other sections I just make mistakes because I'm not careful.</p>
<p>aznoverachiever brings up an interesting point. Now that I think about it, the SATs are basically all about how goal-oriented you are. </p>
<p>I've seen people pull themselves from 1000 to 1560 in less than a year (old SAT scale). Granted, they were very intelligent to begin with, just not very SAT-savvy. </p>
<p>If you're not a genius that can pull a 1600 cold turkey, it's just a test of how motivated you are towards a goal.</p>
<p>That said, if the PR class helps you stay motivated (the feeling of, "I paid for it, so I have to keep going."), then by all means take it. It's certainly not the only way out though.</p>
<p>quickflood,
Make sure you focus on what you missed. If you want a hope-doling story... My CR was stuck in the 600s for months, and then basically one day I woke up (metaphorically of course ;)), and just started scoring in the 750+ range.</p>
<p>a good thing about taking pr classes: they will grade your SA and you can ask your teacher to go through the essay with you word to word. I always send in essays to the office and ask them to grade them even after I finished my class. PR is kind of expensive but the good thing is you can always go back and ask for more resources if you are still preparing for the coming SAT after your class ends.</p>