<p>Any opinions? Has any one taken this prep course and raised the score by 10 to 20%? Please input your opinions. Thanks</p>
<p>Princeton Review and Kaplan are not considered good investments. Go to Craigs list/education & see they are hiring all the time. Read through the SAT treads (Xiggi's suggestions) on CC and you will get unbelievable info then practice, practice, practice on you own.</p>
<p>Maybe right before the test take 1,2 or 3 private tutoring sessions w/ someone reputable.</p>
<p>If you want to pay the $1000+, go for it, but its not needed.
Just take ~$100-$200 and buy review books.
Buy books instead and review by yourself.
The only useful thing in those classes is that they administer/grade pratice tests for you but you can do it yourself also.</p>
<p>ur better off getting some private tutoring. there are good tutors working privately for about 50$ an hour but certain "name brand" companies charge 150$ hour. anyways, classes are a total waste of time. and if you do decide to get private tutoring, you also need to do the blue book on your own. and possibly the "10 real SAT's" book.</p>
<p>^ It's even better to do some self-studying and refer to private tutors mostly for advice/tricks you would not know otherwise.</p>
<p>Go take a timed practice test and give us your score. PR and Kaplan are almost never useful, but some people do prepare better with either a personalized class or a private tutor.</p>
<p>$1000 is too much to spend on SAT prep. $100, sure, but not $1000.</p>
<p>@ It's much more efficient and economical to self-study because you can diagnose your own mistakes. That said, however, sometimes a tutor can point things out to you that you would otherwise not know. Yet, princeton and kaplan are not good examples of these kinds of tutors.</p>
<p>No unless you score really poorly right now.</p>
<p>It depends on how self-disciplined you are. If you know you'll study on your own, then it's probably better to save some money and just buy books to help you study. That being said, I took a kaplan course and raised my score 220 points. I consider the class worth it because of the additional scholarship money I became eligible for.</p>
<p>Upper-class Asian neighborhood = 200-300 students paying $2000+ apiece for SAT prep.</p>
<p>That is me! :D</p>
<p>That's really sad. The prep companies capitalize on the fears of overachieving Asians and their pushy parents and offer nothing in return except for forced homework.</p>
<p>Haha~I feel less guilty about purchasing so many worthless SAT prep books now. ;p</p>
<p>I know this is a dated thread but I want to chime in.. D had unimpressive PSAT and had scored in the low 600's on timed BlueBook tests. Enrolled in Princeton Review classroom course. There were only 2 students, so it turned into a targeted tutorial. She is now hitting in the 700-750 range on timed tests. We will see if that turns into a 100-fold return-on-investment in scholarship money (other factors are there: GPA, ECs, awards, etc).</p>
<p>I did Kaplan but did the one-on-one tutoring in Math and only targetted my algebra sincec that was my weakest. My psat was in the 560 range and I got a 640 in math which I was satisfied with - so basically I increased my score by 80 points. I really liked my tutor and I met with him at Kaplan once a week for two months.</p>
<p>NO. I was much better off self-studying.</p>
<p>it's worth if you score lower than a 900 out of 2400.</p>
<p>NO! I went there in NY, don't you WILL WASTE MONEY, we are in a recession for God Sake get the book from a friend or buy and do the test by yourself then if you have a problem ask your teacher or family members. </p>
<p>I did not do the one-on-one program but I used the group tutoring.</p>
<p>I wanna teach the scam.. I mean "SAT" classes for money now. </p>
<p>Well... if you're a multi-millionaire, a thousand bucks is chump change. If not, then the SAT is manageable by yourself. </p>
<p>The thing is... to convince your parents that. I'm an Asian, and my parents were absolutely freaking out Senior year that I did nothing in summer except get up in the morning, play games, go out with friends, and eat. They heard horror stories of all their friend's kids spending all day on the SAT, getting tutoring, etc...</p>
<p>Well. Delusion builds delusion, and delusion build panic, so I can't blame them. (and my retake SAT score actually dropped 80 points... so they might have had a point) but the college admissions game turned out well for me and now my parent's friends secretly hate me. </p>
<p>My point is that there is no reason to spend money on doing SAT prep. Maybe the only good thing you can do with prep is that they force you to do what you could have done on your own. But if your parents paid you what they would have paid to tutoring, I bet you'd study.</p>
<p>Wow Congrats Gryffon! </p>
<p>I agree about the classes. My parents "bought" them for me for the PSAT - my score went up 3 points from Soph year (we test every year at my school). What a waste...luckily it was only $400 not the full meal deal that some of my friends paid for the SAT classes. I self studied and did MUCH better on the ACT! I liked the SAT format but my scores were higher on the ACT. Self study is the way to go.</p>