I would like to hear your advice on SAT Prep class. My son went to do a SAT test (only English portion) at a SAT Prep center and got 710. The director at the center sells us a package of 100 hours for $7500. Each class is 2 hours and the center provides a book of practices for students to work on. My son’s goal is to get at least 780 on English. Is that something he can achieve by doing practice tests on his own? He just got a book - Barron’s SAT test preparation and planned to do practice 30 minutes a day. He is a sophomore so still have a bit of time. $7500 is not a small amount of money so just wanted to make sure it worths the investment. Thanks a lot for your input!
If he is disciplined about it, I don’t see why not. I personally would never pay that much for prep.
Where does he want to apply? Harvard and Yale have plenty of perfect standardized score applicants. UofC and Stanford really dont’t care about stanardized scores. Does he plan to apply to a college where he would need minimum scores for a scholarship?
There are several websites where kids can practice for free. Have him get on Reddit SAT. There’s lots of info about the free and inexpensive test prep materials in that forum.
In my personal opinion $7,500 is crazy to spend on a kid who is already scoring above 700. I’m all in favor of getting kids the help they need, but you don’t need to spend anything close to that amount. Have him start on his own and look to supplement with targeted help in the areas where he is weakest. My daughter got a 28 or 29 on the English practice ACT and we hired someone local to help in the areas she needed — raised her actual score to a 35. She did self study, but needed a bit of the personal touch as well. It didn’t cost anywhere near that amount.
He is only sophomore. He still have plenty of time to self study. My D used one of those SAT books, Princeton’s, Barron’s and practiced some on Khan Academy site (free). She did well. If you kid can be disciplined, he will donwell self study.
If you think he needs someone to help him, ask around or look up locally. $7,500 is crazy expensive.
Wow, that’s insane. Absolutely do not pay that kind of money. I am a test prep tutor and I can’t imagine anything that would be more counterproductive than forcing a kid to have 50 excruciatingly boring two hour test prep sessions. Save your money and invest in 12 hours, give or take, with a private tutor. And yoyr child needs the official SAT study guide. Or, at least the real tests, which are also available on the College Board website.
Has your son tried the ACT? Most students do better one one test or the other. My children found self studying for the ACT easy to do and both raised their test scores by about 4 points just by going through the official book by themselves.
Prep classes IMO serve kids with average scores - kids who come in already scoring in the 700s aren’t going to get much out of it except more hours doing practice tests than they’d do on their own.
I believe that test prep does help kids with high scores get really high scores. I don’t think he will improve simply by doing practice tests. That said, $7500 seems excessive. I think you should consider 10-20 hours with a private tutor which should not cost anywhere near $7500.
A student with scores that are already high will benefit from a private tutor who can work with him on the few things he needs to improve but there is no reason to spend so much money.
So for $7500 I will teach him and I know nothing about it 
We got my son a tutor and did like less then 10 sessions total over a period of time. They honed down on his specific weakness and increased his apparent strengths. It was like $60.00/hour with 1.5-2 hour sessions. He did take tests at home but reviewed them with the tutor. Our tutor also offered online teaching which was so much more convenient!!! We met in person first but something happened one day and we needed another solution due to major Chicago traffic… he does online through out the world for tutoring… Who knew? … My son liked it more. Skype and a computer. Welcome to 2018… Lol… My son’s scores went up and ended up with a 34 ACT with 35 in Math and science which were his targets.
So we spent less then $650 total and worked on the specific areas of need.
Plus start this a few months prior to him taking the test. If not taking as a junior relax. You don’t want these kids to get burnt out. Work on his weakness now just with his teachers. Do a full practice test like 4 months prior. Then hone down on what is needed. As they get closer one trick is to actually take the full practice tests every week, as the Same time as the actual test. Get up and take a shower, have breakfast, drive him around the same distance but to a library. Go to the study room and let him take an actual full test. This requires a lot of discipline to do but some swear by the results. My son didn’t do this but did work on his weaknesses weekly with practice sessions with test taking.
Also my kids were ACT kids by far even after having 2 test centers tell us the SAT was the better test for them… There was a major difference for my 2 kids between the ACT VS SAT
I agree with @mathmom about the classes for kids that already score pretty high. Like most people said a private tutor at a fraction of the cost should work.
Also agree that the test prep classes are geared toward kids that do not score 700 with no prep. But not sure if the center was offering a group class or tutoring. Even if this is a one on one tutoring, 100 hours seems excessive for a kid scoring that high. If you like the center and they are offering tutoring, you could ask for 10 or 20 hours prior to the PSAT next fall since he could elible to make the cutoff for national merit. Or, as others have said, ask around and find a local tutor. Even at $75 or $100 per hour (which some charge around here), your son would need far less than 100 hours, especially if he is willing to study on this own.
I had a tutor work for a few weeks with my son that scored very high without prep, just to give him test taking tips and to give him a refresher on a few topics. Maybe $500 for pre-PSAT and pre-SAT prep all together. The tutor also had him take a timed practice test with a group. It did boost his scores to over 2300 on the old (three-test) SAT. I don’t think more tutoring would have helped.
I need to move! LOL My husband tutors middle school and gets $85/hour! We did a community college course for our S17 at $500; private tutors get in the $150/hr range - still cheaper than $7500. 100 hours seems like a ridiculous amount! The course my son took was a few hours for 8 Sundays, ending the Sunday before the SAT. Max class size was 10 I think. He wasn’t a super high scorer, but his score did go up.
We spent $0.00 on test prep for our kids during high school. Our son was a natural and got very high scores on every exam he took during high school. Eventually he was a National Merit Semi-Finalist. His largest progression in scores occurred between middle school (when he took the SAT for the Northwestern pre-college program) and his junior year. He didn’t study for or prep for either the basic or advanced tests. But he had learned how the SAT worked after taking it a couple of times in real test conditions. Familiarity with tests, including content and pacing, can improve scores.
Our daughter didn’t need high scores, b/c she was planning to attend art school (BFA). She got respectable SAT and ACT scores in high school but the main focus of her application prep was on her art portfolio. On the other hand, after she had worked in the economy a few years she decided to go back to school to earn an MBA. For admission to one of the best programs she definitely needed high GMAT scores (above 700). She took a self-administered, on-line course by Princeton Review. And she took a math class at a local college, since she hadn’t had any math for 6-7 years. This worked: she got 720 on the GMAT, which was significantly higher than her SAT’s. Motivation matters. Familiarity with the test helps. A tutor may not be needed.