That’s not always true. Back in 2006, Yale took 2 out of 3 2400 at our high schools. One was prepped., not hours but on the test prep site, it listed the candidate. The other went online and said he didn’t have much ECs either. I recognized his screen name because I had the school’s statistics so I knew that was him.
My kids took their first SAT with only sample tests as their prep. Both took a prep course before the second try. One improved an SAT CR Math total by over 300 points. The other got almost an identical score.
Where we live, test prep was definitely not done by the majority of kids.
The norm here was for my 3 kids to take the PSAT in 10th grade. PSAT is pushed by our schools in Michigan as something you take to get a feel for the ACT. 11th grade they all took the ACT cold with no prior studying or tutoring. There was no way I could have seen any of them studying for the ACT,
@ucbalumnus - Here’s some data that might be helpful. It only gives a crude estimate of how many kids do test prep for the SAT/ACT with the aid of a class or a tutor, but at least it’s not just anecdotal “our kid’s friends did this” type stuff.
Some kids just buy prep books while others take a class or do one-on-one tutoring. Only 1,200,000 kids in the US go to 4-year college immediately after graduation - let’s conservatively say they all spend an average of $75 on prep books. That means that $440 million of the $530 million is spent on formal prep classes.
From their website, Kaplan charges $750 for a class and higher for individual sessions. Let’s assume that the average family who sends their kid to a formal prep class spends about $900 total per kid. This gives 500,000 kids who take a formal SAT/ACT prep class sometime before graduation. That’s about 17% of all high school graduates.
I’d guess that most of these 500,000 end up going to 4-year colleges right after graduation. So they’d be about 40% of the kids who attend 4-year college right after graduation. That’s pretty high, but I guess I could believe it since I think many parents are reluctant to admit they sent their kid to a class.
But this doesn’t include kids who just use a study guide without taking a class. Not sure if you want to count this or not.
Just to see if this all seems right … Kaplan’s Test Prep division has annual revenues of $300 million and enrolled 410,000 students last year. They prep for SAT,ACT,LSAT,GMAT,GRE and other professional exams. And that’s just one company that has about a 10% market share, so 500,000 kids nationwide spending $440 million on SAT/ACT prep classes doesn’t seem that crazy.
My oldest took the SAT with no studying the first time. It was the first year the essay was part of it and his essay score was 100 points below his other stellar scores. There was a very discounted Kaplan course at his high school. I thought it might give him some essay practice, but they turned out to be more than useless in that regard. They actually gave him zeros for essay scores that were perfectly fine and I really think they lowballed the first practice test so everyone could look like they were improving. I was so disgusted second kid didn’t do any official prep. He did some question of the day.
Older son reviewed physic SAT subject test because he hadn’t had general physics since his freshman year and AP Physics C doesn’t have a lot of overlap. Youngest studied Math 2 the night before and didn’t score well. Looked through the book of sample tests and decided to replace it with Lit which he did quite well in without studying.
Both kids only read the practice pamphlet for the PSAT - oldest was a NMS, youngest was commended.
Some friends did more prep, some did less.
I know exactly 0 people who have been tutored. I also know exactly 0 people who have taken SAT subject tests. Doing those things just isnt common, probably due to price, or jut because we don’t care THAT much. I do, however, know a few people who have used SAT/AP prep books. They found them rather usedul from what I heard. Most people, including myself, use the online practice tests, prep apps and websites and the “official” AP practice test (and PSAT) given by the school
My took an SAT class but it was not very helpful. It was a good start though. Later she did practice test on her own over the summer after sophomore year and got significant improvement. She went through almost all the practice test books available in the market for SAT and ACT all from the public library. It took around 3-4 months basically the whole summer and then a few weekends after junior year started. With the scholarships she received at the end, that 3-4 months of effort really worth it.
I just read somewhere(wish I recalled where) that only 20% of students do any prep work for the standardized tests. In our area, very few take classes, and even fewer do prep work on their own.
I’m an Asian-American, but contrary to the stereotype that Asians spend years and years prepping for everything, I just took practice tests from the Blue Book, no classes/tutors, and did well on the SAT.
I think how much you prepare is related to how much you need to prepare. If you just naturally do well on standardized tests then you don’t need much preparation. But, if you are like my D, who has always struggled with standardized tests, then more preparation is needed. She did so poorly on the PSAT that we actually paid for a tutor to sit with her privately for several weeks to go over the areas where she was specifically having difficulty. Her SAT is now 400 points over where her PSAT was and I don’t think that would have happened without a tutor.
My personal philosophy is that some prep is good so they know the basic strategies and are familiar with the type of questions, but that intensely prepping the content may lead to a higher SAT score that is not representative of where the student is. It is not as important to get into the highest rated college, but rather one that you will fit in academically and have a chance to succeed.
My DD took a SAT prep class offered locally…for AP test I got her some study guides and they did practice in her classes.
I guess I’m lucky - our kids are like rosered’s… We live in IL, so state mandate to take ACT - although I hear that might change soon. All kid’s did well at the required test,without test prep, though D [picked up a couple crucial points by also taking SAT. We used to laugh at the mailers that promised to add points to scores - sorry Test Taking Industry!
My kids each did one practice test under normal sat conditions at their school. Other than that, they did less than an hour of test prep, ever. One took ACT also. I can’t remember if other ever took the ACT. (I feel like I should remember this stuff forever, but it’s fading fast).
@nugraddad Does IL’s mandated ACT test include writing now? I have heard some IL complained in the past that the state mandated test was a waste of time as it did not include writing which is required by many top schools. There are actually more than a handful of states have mandated ACT test. Michigan is switching to SAT next year though.
In response to the original question, the norm for test preparation varies significantly depending on what group you are looking at. The norm for CC posters does not at all resemble the norm for the general population. Similarly the norm for top prep/magnet school A is not the same as the norm for basic public school B. Across the full country, I expect the most typical system is zero preparation outside of what some HS teachers may choose to include in their classes. This was how I took the test, as did most others I knew in my HS.
Test prep books are the norm here for everything. Generally the kids in test prep classes are actually trying to go up from say 1600s to 1800s. ~2200 is usually the score ceiling here
My kid prepared for 5 days / one hour / day preceding the ACT exam. She prepared only math. That was her own customized plan. She said, that she did not see how she could improve other sections. She was a slower reader (I believe that she got faster later because of Grad. School). She could not improve her reading speed in few days, so it would be a waste of time, she got only 28 in Reading, which was predictable. English was very easy, it is the easiest section for most, got 35 without any prep. in English. Science section does not have any science questions, it is simply a slower reading, which D. could handle, again without prep., got 34. The only section that made sense for her to prepare was math, as math on ACT is primarily from the middle school and needed to be re-freshed. She was able to pull high enough score in math to compensate for very low Reading score and had enough (33) for her goal.
One does not need spend lots of time if she has a customized plan.
I must have gone to a very unusual high school back in the 1970s, because I knew a fair number of people who took SAT prep classes.
I walked into the PSAT totally cold, and did miserably. I had no idea what that test was – I didn’t even know it was connected to college admission, I thought it was just another standardized test for the school district. I prepped myself for the SAT, which I took twice, and raised my scores significantly.
We got a tutor for our kid because the math teachers in her school system were dismal and she needed to learn the math, not just learn the test tricks. Plenty of kids in her high school took SAT prep classes or got tutors, and this was not an elite or affluent high school. It was a school system which de-emphasized standardized testing, so most of the kids had no preparation for these tests.
I just saw an article about people paying $6000-$8000 for Princeton Review on-line tutoring. Wow. We had a private tutor and paid by the hour but I can assure you that we didn’t come close to that. It seems that most here say their kids just use the books and study on their own. So who are these people shelling out $8000? Will anyone here own up to it?
I also went to a high school (NYC suburb) where the wealthy kids took Stanley Kaplan for SAT prep and I could not afford to do that. Living in a similar area now, many kids do some sort of SAT prep, often with private tutors.
As to the OP’s question, it really depends on the kid and your/their goals. If you have a kid that does well on tests and you think they could be an NMF, it may be worth a few sessions with a tutor before the PSATs to boost the score enough to go for the merit money. If you have a kid with the GPA and ECs for a tippy top college, and you have the funds, it may be worth some test prep to get the scores as high as possible. But if you have a kid that does fine on standardized tests and gets a PSAT score that is at the higher end of the range of schools he or she is interested in, there may be no value in paying for test prep.
The other situation is that some kids will take the books and prep well on their own. Some, however, may not. While many will say that is the kid’s problem, if the parents are paying for college and higher scores often translate to merit money, it may be worth it to the parents to have someone else push their kid to prep in a way they would not on their own.