<p>do you believe it's worth the $500-$1000 for ACT/SAT prep courses?</p>
<p>share your experiences</p>
<p>I took one sat class that was 650 for 4 weeks. I started with a 1600 and ended with a 2200. </p>
<p>Honestly it depends on which class you choose, princteon review and major ones aren’t the best as many assume. They waste time with trivial basics and dont provide well for people aiming at the 2100-2300 range. My class was instructed by different teachers who specialized in each field and they didn’t go so intune with the prep books and shared quick and fast ways to the problems. </p>
<p>My math score went from a 620 to a 770-800 by utlizing these methods. If you are going for these classes dont go with the princeton review and stuff, go with the smaller more individualized classes. </p>
<p>In my opinion, I got lucky and found a very useful program. Just study by your self with motivation. All these classes do is force you to do the work, something that is taken lightly when studying by your self. Just put some effort in your studying and you should not need a class.</p>
<p>thanks xFocus. what company did you use if i may ask?</p>
<p>xFocus is definitely right. I was scoring in the 2000’s and my princeton review course helped me get into the 2200’s. Their manual and vocab prep is very helpful. I preferred it to Kaplan.</p>
<p>It depends on what type of learner you are. If you cannot bring yourself to study on your own time then an SAT class may help you. On the other hand, if you find it hard to pay attention in such classes then it may not benefit you. A friend of mine took a Kaplan class and it only boosted his score slightly.</p>
<p>I didn’t like the idea of spending thousands of dollars on a private tutor like my friends did, and I ended up taking a cheapy little $349, 8-week class. I figured if it helped me, great, if not, I didn’t just blow a ton of money. I went from a 193 PSAT to 2080 on the last day of class, and ended up getting a 2140 on the actual test a month later. Honestly, I don’t credit the class itself with helping me. The only thing that did it was the fact that the class “forced” me to sit down and do a practice test once a week for homework, after which I would go over my wrong answers in the back of the book. I could have done that on my own, the class just gave me a bigger motivation to do it. In class we went over really vague concepts (“don’t forget to underline the CR!” or “read each question three times!”) and mostly just worked out of the Barrons book, which, again, I could have done on my own. </p>
<p>Maybe it’s because it was a cheap class, haha, but I didn’t think it was much of a help. It probably would have been better for somebody who was scoring very low and needed a big boost, but it definitely wasn’t catered for people looking for 2100+.</p>
<p>I took a Kaplan course through my HS (it was discounted because of that to around 600 dollars). It definitely helped me; it raised my scores by about 300 points total. But the success was very uneven, it was more like it helped unlock the SAT tricks and for subjects I was already good in (reading/writing) it boosted my already decent grades even hirer but only moderately helped my math scores.</p>
<p>I know I didn’t have the time or discipline to self-study so this forced me to prepare although I still managed to slack off. If I hadn’t I would have done much better on the math. </p>
<p>If you go the private tutoring route, I recommend that you are very motivated. I tried it, I knew the tutor beforehand (I had worked with her at a day camp) and I feel like that made me less serious about the work. It ultimately did no good. But perhaps if I had used a different person, it would have…</p>
<p>I took a super cheap $100 prep course. The main way it helped was learning the tricks, and doing practice tests. Becoming familar with the test is key, especially with Reading and Writing.</p>
<p>I think that classes help if you are unmotivated/unwilling to study yourself. If you are motivated enough, you probably could get something just as good or better from reading prep books/doing practice tests on your own. There are a ton of free resources on the Internet, and there are some reasonably priced test prep books. One plus of going with the test prep book instead of classes is that you could sell your used books when you are done with them.</p>
<p>I took Princeton Review and my test score did go up, but I believe it wasn’t because of the class but because of my own effort. PR makes you purchase two books, the SAT Manual and their 8 Practice tests for the SAT & PSAT (probably a total of $50 at the most) and then you pay $900 for a teacher (may I say college student) to read to you what is in those books. That’s PR.</p>