<p>Does anyone think that a summer of intense SAT prep is worth it to try to get a better tuition outcome? Is one on one SAT prep tutoring worth the money or is it just a waste and stress? Or, is it better to take a community college junior summer? Any ideas? Thanks so much.</p>
<p>If my kid had great grades and did poorly on both the ACT and the SAT, I might give an intense test prep class a try. </p>
<p>Has your student tried the ACT?</p>
<p>It really depends on the schools you’re considering. Some schools make it very obvious. One school on my D’s list gives $1000 more per year in merit aid for every ACT point over 26. I keep telling her that every point she goes up = $4000 and increases her liklehood of being able to go out of state.</p>
<p>My son does not have accomodations in place for the ACT. One of the experienced counselors at my son’s high school also said, in general, that scores on the ACT are similar to the SAT. I hope we are not making a mistake not to sign up for the ACT.</p>
<p>It kind of depends on your financial situation and what the kid’s GPA is like. I feel it is better to take both the ACT and the SAT around the middle of junior year, because you can submit the score that is higher, and take either test again in senior year if warranted. I feel that expensive test prep classes are not worth the money when you can just take practice tests out of books.</p>
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<p>If, in fact, you have a child who will actually sit down and take the practice tests out of books. We are paying for a bit of one on one tutoring that a more motivated, self-disciplined child wouldn’t need.</p>
<p>My example used the ACT just because that is what my D is prepping for right now.</p>
<p>We used the Kaplan program with 2 students per instructor. My son raised his ACT by 2 points. (which I believe is their guarantee or you get a refund)</p>
<p>I notice that Kaplan offers on-line test prep for $99. Might be worth it.</p>
<p>mdcissp…not to dispute your experienced counselor, but my S had SAT score that made me wonder what the heck he did in high school. Then took ACT—vast improvement–and he’s been accepted at some great U’s. There was absolutely no correlation between two exams and scores at all for him. ACT just fit his style of learning better…and frankly, the SAT was torture for my ADD kid…
I’d work on getting accomodations in place for ACT and give it a try…and take test in June. If he’s junior, there is still time…
As to intense SAT prep for better tuition outcome–not convinced it’s worth it. But a better SAT (or ACT) score at least opens the door to more school options…especially if there’s a good GPA…</p>
<p>One of the experienced counselors at my son’s high school also said, in general, that scores on the ACT are similar to the SAT.</p>
<p>I don’t know if that’s true, but I know that my older son did much better on the ACT. </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if in general kids don’t do better on one or the other, it only matters if your child will do better. :)</p>
<p>My D has a one on one turor after taking aCT- she made a 26 in Oct then a 32 in Feb-so I’d say it’s worth it- I had friends wanting the tutors name and the tutor said " Now tell them I usually only can get them 2-3 more points- tell them D got the other 3 herself"</p>
<p>Maybe you have already done these things, but if not, where I would start would be with buying the OFFICIAL prep books for each of the tests. The “Real ACT” book and the College Board’s own SAT prep book. </p>
<p>Have your son familiarize himself with the ACT format and try an ACT practice test at home under quiet conditions. You can get a sense of whether the question types and test format suit him or not. (I think the tests in the Real ACT book are very representative of the real thing. My daughter took two practice tests from the book and scored the same on both of them, and then wound up with that exact score on the real thing.)</p>
<p>Have him do the same with the SAT book. He may like one better than the other. My daughter said that the work she did to prepare for the ACT math, reading, and English sections carried over to the SAT sections, so it’s not like his time working on the ACT would be a complete waste even if he decided not to take it. </p>
<p>FWIW, my daughter did not care for working online on prep materials. There is an online practice test on the College Board site but she felt like reading it on the screen, clicking on an answer, etc, was so different from the paper-based administration conditions that it threw her off. We wound up printing out the practice questions from the ACT site so she could take them on paper.</p>
<p>I think SAT prep helps and no doubt it helped me get a $5,000/yr scholarship to my state uni. With SAT prep my score improved almost 200 points in one section - it was focused prep on just one section, and no doubt my score would not have improved as much had it been just a general class.</p>
<p>However, this depends on what school you are applying to (is it very numbers driven?) and how close your S or D is already to getting a scholarship to target school (ex., all grades, recs, essays, ECs higher than avg, but the SAT is just “average” and needs a boost? If so then it might help, but if other parts of the app are lacking then it probably wouldn’t).</p>
<p>I do believe that simply reading through the books is equally useful. Even having a tutor requires motivation to the do the assigned homework and the ability to listen to the “tips and tricks” without feeling “above” them (I admit I felt “above” many of their tricks, and really wanted to learn the “real” way to do the problem, but the tricks work!). I suggest taking real practice tests from College Board books, marking which problems were wrong, and then reading tips/strategies in a Princeton Review book that correlate. For a lot of kids (including myself) who do poorly on the test, it’s not a matter of not understanding the material, but just a matter of getting familiar with the “type” of stock questions that appear and having a strategy handy to solve it.</p>
<p>If you havethe money, take the SAT prep course. I don’t know if it will pay off with a higher scholarship, but the odds are very strong that your child will improve his score and that will open up some additional dooers.</p>
<p>agree with glido and everyone else who said your child should take both.</p>