Hey everyone,
With junior year quickly approaching, my summer has been consisting of SAT classes and summer homework. My dilemma is, is the SAT place I signed up for really worth the money?
I signed up for this one place originally where it is more of a “boot camp” type of prep. It’s 4.5 hours long everyday in a classroom setting. Mondays they take tests, Tuesdays to Thursdays is class for 4.5 hours. The classroom size is about 20 kids per teacher. It’s $2000.
The place I ACTUALLY signed up for and just started is more like a private tutoring, with 2 hour sessions, for me, for Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The classroom size is about 2 students to a teacher. Wednesdays or Fridays are the days I take the full length practice SAT. It’s $3000.
I went to a session today and for the first hour and a half my teacher, who is also a college professor, albeit a bit disorganized, actually taught me a few tricks with grammar, but for the most part gave me the workbook the place has and let me review and do the problems on my own, and then talked and taught the other girl. After letting the other girl do work on her own, he came back to me, corrected my answers, and explained the ones I did wrong. For the last 30 minutes, he reviewed over my essay from the first practice test they had me take, and gave me tips on what to do to strengthen it.
The pricing is a bit steep considering how little hours there are, so I’m wondering, do you think it’s worth it?
Holy moly. What a rip off. Neither of my kids did a prep course. They did just fine.
I bought an SAT prep book for my kid. Cost about $20.
I don’t think it is worth it.
You are much better off self studying with books and taking lots of practice tests.
If you really want to take a prep course since you feel you aren’t motivated enough to take a lot of practice tests then check out some online courses like Prepexpert or Prepscholar or Reason Prep. Online course are cheaper with more hours.
I don’t think it’s worth it. I reviewed the format, did a few practice tests ($15 for a book), and missed only two questions on the entire SAT.
@sunshine232 Did you take the new one? What book did you use.
I have never been a fan of the test prep services. I think you are better off using a book and self studying.
My daughter took a practice ACT test at the local library. We later found out it was set up by one of the test prep places. She had been practicing and getting pretty consistent scores. When she took the test prep test, she supposedly scored 5 points less than what she had been on our practice tests. Had her freaked out about how she would do. She took the real ACT 2 weeks later and got a score consistent with our practice tests. No doubt the test prep company was trying to get her to sign up for a course knowing that she would do better when she took the real test. The test prep company could then take credit for her “improvement.”
Now that I think about it, @saillakeerie could be right. I personally scored very low on my first practice SAT, so I tried the ACT and got a minimally higher score. I kept retaking the test with the test prep company and didn’t improve much. When I took the actual test, I bumped up my practice 25 score to a 32 (one sitting). I was shocked. I do, however, must credit my ACT tutor for teaching me some valuable tricks for the exam that came of use. Not sure if it was worth the $$$ though.
@cerealguy3 I took the old SAT and used the Princeton review book.
@sunshine232 Oh ok. Congratulations dude!!! Thank you.
Have you looked into PR or Kaplan online prep? They are a few grand cheaper