<p>I got a 2190 on the SAT (Math:760, CR: 700, W: 730), but with no thanks to the Kaplan course. I took a live course with a teacher (called the College Prep Advantage) and it was 1000 bucks. I though Kaplan being a reasonably reputable company and this being one of their more expensive options, I would be pretty set.</p>
<p>When I first arrived at the class (held at a pretty nice jewish community center) he explained to us that we would take a practice test and, from those results, be split into three groups (lower, middle, and upper). This is what they consider catering to your testing needs. Well when the results came in out of my class of around 22 people, I was the only one in the 'upper' group, a few were in the middle, and the majority of people were in the lower group. Most of the time, I would be doing my work alone out of the textbook. We took numerous practice tests and my improvement was not even close to favorably proportional to the amount of time I invested in the class. The whole point of my post is that buying the book would be just as good, perhaps even less time consuming, than going to the class. The guy was a retired music teacher, literally reading word for word out of the book and, when answering questions on math problems, teaching people the long way of doing them. Sure he taught me some strategies, but they were straight out of the book. The only two circumstances under which I would recommend taking this is if you have a lower score starting point and really need basic review, or if you need to be forced to study and take practice tests by a class (as opposed to doing them independently). Otherwise save your money.</p>