<p>"Families can spend thousands of dollars on coaching to help college-bound students boost their SAT scores. But a new report finds that these test-preparation courses aren't as beneficial as consumers are led to believe.</p>
<p>The report, to be released Wednesday by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, criticizes common test-prep-industry marketing practices, including promises of big score gains with no hard data to back up such claims. The report also finds fault with the frequent use of mock SAT tests because they can be devised to inflate score gains when students take the actual SAT. The association represents 11,000 college admissions officers, high-school guidance counselors and private advisors.</p>
<p>My D. indicated that SAT prep class was useless waste of time. She did not get impressive score after it. She self-prep for ACT, got better score which was enough to get to few selective programs of her choice. Evaluate your strength / weakness and develop your own customized strategy to prepare the way it makes sense in your situation. Class was just way too general.</p>
<p>I read this article in WSJ today. . .It’s disappointing that some prep companies may possibly be scamming folks by making their practice tests harder, so the student scores lower on them. Then, when the kid takes the real test–Surprise, surprise–a big gain!! And parents feel $$ was well spent.</p>
<p>However, the article does say that using the $20 prep book to get familiar with the test is worthwhile. I used it (“blue book”) with my kids, and from the first practice test to real test score, they each gained 300+ points. Their actual scores matched up pretty well with their last/best scores from the practice book. Their increases were not by “tricks and tips” but by practice and familiarity with the types of questions asked, and being able to increase speed since they didn’t have to stop and read directions. No magic. (These kids were homeschoolers who did not take standardized tests every year, so getting familiar with the test may have resulted in bigger gains for them–blue book worked well for them; your mileage may vary). </p>
<p>I’m not sure how anyone can measure an “average increase of 30 points” that the article reports for kids who took prep courses. Who reported that they took prep courses? Also, a kid would have to take the real SAT more than once to measure a change in real scores. What about (most) kids who test only once? I doubt the accuracy of “30 points.”</p>
<p>There are many ways to prep for the SAT or ACT. Taking a class is just one of them. Personally, my daughter felt her SAT prep class was very useful. It was taught by Princeton Review at her high school. It cost $500. Both of us knew that she wouldn’t find time to prep on her own. If your student would do that, I guess a class is a waste of time and money. In my daughter’s case, we also prepped her for the PSAT. She has always been a good test-taker, and the PSAT “clinic” (four classes) helped her with the ins and outs of that particular test. She scored in the NMF range, and the scholarship money she eventually earned made the initial investment in the class well worth it. Different strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>I paid $800 each for a test prep course for two of my kids. The first one’s score increased only slightly. The second one’s score went down! I believe we were scammed. Obviously, third child will not be taking the course.</p>
<p>Prep company that came to my daughter’s boarding school was not allowed back the next year. They did the scam of making the initial practice test very hard and then the final practice test easy so the kids supposedly had a huge improvement from the class. Problem was that the actual SAT scores for almost every kid were less than the score on the final practice test, which was very disappointing for the kids.
Son did very little prep but did spend a few hours with a private tutor through Princeton Review. Who knows if it helped.</p>
<p>Bay: $800 per child is ridiculous. I felt bad for spending $150 for a practice course.</p>
<p>I think that practice courses can probably raise your score slightly by helping you brush up in certain areas your school may not have focused on, or that you just forget. I think that a lot of people have the false impression that a 5 or so week course can compensate for lack of mathematical/reading skills. But I think that the courses as a whole fulfill their purpose.</p>
<p>My daughter was so upset with her PSAT scores last fall that she asked for a SAT tutor. We were recommended to a tutor (my daughter works weekends and has dance at night so unfortunately a standard prep course like Princeton Review did not work with her schedule) by her school counselor to prepare for the March SAT. The results? Her score dropped in Math, her strongest prior score because they did not teach it to her. It barely moved on the reading and writing subjects. It was very upsetting to her for all the time she put into preparation and it was upsetting to me for having wasted her time and my money. Her college counselor had her meet with an SAT specialist for a “diagnostic” to see what the problems were. After less than 30 minutes she told me that my daughters only weakness was vocabulary and if studied the root words her score would go up much higher than any course. It made perfect sense. The SAT tutor spent so much time on strategy and time management and “tricks” that they did not notice thaat she was missing some of the fundamentals. Sorry for the rant, but this topic hits a raw nerve.</p>
<p>Kaplan’s diagnostic test was one of those harder than the actual test cases. They also gave my son 0’s and 1’s on every practice essay he wrote (with no comments for improvements!), despite the fact that he got scores that were much better than that both before and after the course. I didn’t bother using them a second time around. (And all I’d wanted was someone who could grade an essay for us.) His score went up all of 10 points after the course and not at all in writing.</p>
<p>I used to tutor for a major test-prep company. </p>
<p>BobbyCT, I hate to say it but the tutor was just doing what’s in the scope of the tutor’s mission and work. When I tutor for the SAT (both when I worked for a company and independently) I don’t teach fundamentals, if by fundamentals you mean what a word means, how to read for clue words, how to make an inference, etc. If students are missing those fundamentals, I advise them to pay attention in English class and read more often. In a 8-week class you don’t have time to focus on the fundamentals when you essentially have less than 3 classes to teach each section, and if a student does not have a grasp on the fundamentals a prep class won’t help them anyway.</p>
<p>If students have poor vocabulary I tell them to make flash cards or study Barron’s word list. We don’t teach vocab during the sessions; there’s no way we’d even have time to cover it all. I don’t teach ‘tricks,’ just strategies/methods that help people get through the questions. Like someone said earlier, if you have deficiencies in math, a 5-week course is not going to cover those up.</p>
<p>Also, I was always baffled when I had students who had a 650+ in the sections in which I was tutoring them. I think once you get to that point spending $2,000 for at-home tutoring is a waste of money - they already know all the strategies that I’m going to teach them (which is how they scored so high to begin with).</p>
<p>This is why I am so unhappy with all those colleges declaring that they will force students to disclose all their scores in spite of the availability of Score Choice. </p>
<p>Test prep companies like to market their diagnostic tests as a “no-risk” way to assess readiness for the exams. Frequently these tests are offered in high schools with the co-operation of the guidance office or parent association. Invariably, there is a hour-long marketing presentation by the test prep companies promoting their test prep, and again, offering subtle warnings about going to the real test without taking their courses.</p>
<p>In fact, it would be a far more accurate diagnostic test to simply register for and take the real SAT, especially on one of those dates when you have the option to get your test booklet back. My daughter did just that last year as a sophomore and it helped her decide not to waste her time and our money on test prep companies. </p>
<p>But if colleges are going to force disclosure of all tests taken, then enough students and parents will balk at getting a low score “on their record”, driving more people into the clutches of the test prep companies. </p>
<p>The irony is that the colleges claim their policies are intended to discourage test-prep!</p>
<p>juillet, maybe I made my point the wrong way. I was not expecting the SAT tutor to teach my daughter vocabulary, I understand that is out of their scope of their work. However, I would have hoped that they would have seen that my daughters weakness was with vocaulary and recommended that she improve this area by extra study at night, weekends, etc., on her own. She is working on that right now and hopefully will be better prepared for the June SAT.</p>
<p>This is actually great news. Obviously, as expensive test prep doesn’t work, Harvard will now stop discriminating against financially better off kids.</p>
<p>D took a prep class program that is run by a person who lives in our town (but has students from all over attend), the class has a guarantee of 100 point gain ( if student does everything he/she is supposed to), otherwise you get to repeat it free. D’s scores went up 120 points, so we were happy.</p>
<p>Great comment, I was thinking the same thing. Some people complain that the rich have an unfair advantage because they can afford expensive test prep. Now that argument goes out the window.</p>
<p>A third of Harvard’s student body is not receiving financial aid. About 96% of the country is eligible. Something tells me that the rich are being admitted just fine.</p>
<p>lockn, that 1/3 of Harvard does not need financial aid says nothing about whether the “rich” are or are not being “discriminated” against (by which I assume that Sorghum means that kids whose families are rich with the same test scores and grades have a lower probability of admission at Harvard than kids with the same test scores/grades from families with lower incomes).</p>
<p>I have no insight into what Harvard is doing in admissions, but most schools including Harvard say that they are placing a strong emphasis on diversity including income diversity and as such have consciously given credit to kids from less advantaged backgrounds. There was an interesting article in the Boston Globe which visited Tufts’ and Amherst’s admissions committees on days when they were looking specifically at a pool kids from disadvantaged backgrounds or with other issues (e.g., deaf) who did not meet the standard criteria (at least in Tufts’ case) to choose which to admit. By sorghum’s definition, they were picking those kids over other kids with higher grades/SATs/better ECs and hence were discriminating against other kids (some of them rich). To the extent that a school gives extra credit in admissions for income diversity, they are doing what Sorghum described. To me, that is a value judgment. At one level, it seemed like younger idealistic admissions staffers making their contribution to the social engineering of society. But, at the end of the day, Harvard, Tufts and Amherst are private institutions that want a certain kind of class for ideological, academic, and political reasons (they worry about being seen as too elitist and having their endowments and investments taxed) and I don’t see that as discrimination. And, sorghum, I don’t think it will stop as a result of the lack of efficacy of expensive test prep as the argument is really about politics for the institutions with a bit of ideological social engineering thrown in.</p>
<p>In the dark ages, I attended three of HYPMS and taught at one. In college, I observed that the private school graduates (Exeter, Deerfield, Choate/Rosemary Hall, Collegiate, Dalton…) were much better educated and socially polished but that the public HS graduates were on average significantly smarter. The top schools tilted toward more toward academic performance and started decreasing the disproportionate admits they gave to prep school kids. The schools had already started going more for the best and brightest in terms of measurable academic performance before I got there and the trend continued for a while after I got there. This shifted the income distribution from largely upper class and upper upper middle class and more toward upper and middle class. There were not a lot of lower middle class and lower class kids there nor were there many students of color. The schools have set out to change that. Are they rejecting some higher scoring kids from the higher-end of the economic spectrum to do so? Probably. But I think that is their prerogative.</p>
<p>Back to the original subject - my daughter’s SAT score report included information on how well, on average, students with her score did when retaking the test.</p>
<p>I can’t remember the details, but it indicated that some percentage did 30-ish points better, and some percentage did some points worse – it was certainly not a ringing endorsement to prep and take the test again.</p>