This seems very idealistic. Is this legitimate?
You can get your money back if you don’t score this high, so it seems like a “no brainer”…
They require you to have a minimum qualifying score of 1160 to begin with, so your guaranteed improvement is no more than 240 - not much more than their regular guarantee, but the requirements you have to meet are more stringent. If you do meet those requirements, they refund your fees, and keep any interest they earned while holding your fees. An increase of 120 per section is not unreasonable given the amount of time you as the student are required to put into it. Note the increase of 240 points only applies to someone at exactly 1160, most are going to be closer to the 1400 already.
This sounds about right. There’s a very popular prep school called Elite Prep near my kid’s HS where the majority of kids who attend there increase around 200 points. However they do tell you that they only will get you to 1500, anything beyond that is up to the individual.
1400 is pretty easy–any kid can be trained to do grammar and math well, and you don’t have to be very good at reading to get a 1400. It’s a sign of weakness that they have an 1160 qualifying score, tbh.
I know you aren’t asking for this but… from my past experiences with prep school, you can improve by yourself much faster than having a tutor repeat useless things just to scam you for money… My advice is by lots of prep book with that money. I have the “The Complete Guide to” series by Erica, CB’s 8 tests, IVY Global’s 6 practice test, and the College Panda books. These were enough to get me a 1500+ on my SAT
I always find it amusing when people claim that anyone who puts in a little effort can score at the 95th+ percentile.
^^^ I know so many hard working, talented students who struggle to get 1400+.
I didn’t say anything about “a little effort.” For many students, it takes a lot of effort, and students with no fluency issues who work very hard and still can’t get 1400+ are doing something wrong or could use better instruction. Source: teaching SAT prep full-time since 2002.
They don’t guarantee a 1400. They guarantee your money back if you don’t hit 1400.
How else could they guarantee 1400? What’s the meaningful difference? Is there some other way guarantees work? Other than paying back your money, how else would they respond to failing to meet their guarantee–seppuku?
marvin100, my kid used a test prep company and the fine print of their “guarantee” was that if the student did not meet the guaranteed score they would give him/her as much free tutoring for as many sittings of the test til he/she got to the guaranteed benchmark.
Of course, I suppose at some point a kid would get discouraged and/or run out of time to take more SATs…
Marvin100 The title of this thread is How can Princeton Review guarantee a 1400+
That’s really not what they are guaranteeing is it? They are guaranteeing they will return your money if you follow their course and you don’t get a 1400+
Another way guarantees work, besides the illustration in the reply above, like for like replacement. Not applicable in this case, admittedly, but there are more than one type of guarantee.
@GnocchiB gave the only realistic alternative to a refund: credit. In this case, free tutoring. But he or she also identified the problem: students run out of time. The other problem, of course, is that if the tutoring isn’t good, why would anyone want more of it? (“The food was terrible, and the portions were too small!”).
@Jon234 - Am I overlooking something? What else is there? Like-for-like is obviously off the table, so what else? Most guarantees are money back guarantees (or credit, but that’s what @GnocchiB brought up and it should be clear now how that’s not relevant here).