<p>I had heard that a lot of these companies manage to give you a lower score than you might really earn initially on their "intake exam", so that they can show improvement after their classes. Overall, did you find this to be true, or just fiction? If it is true, how do that they do that?</p>
<p>northeastmom--despite the fact that many on CC don't like test prep courses, we signed D up for one anyway. Prepping for the SAT can be done alone, but it is boring. D needed a set routine for something like this and the twice weekly class gave her that. Yes, she scored lower on her first test compared to her last. Interestingly enough her first test scores were IDENTICAL to her PSAT scores, which the prep company did not know. </p>
<p>We won't know until late May if the course helped her. She's taking the SAT tomorrow for the first time. Her practice test scores increased about 200-250points I think. Let me just add--darn those schools that don't use the writing portion of the test! It's her best section.</p>
<p>rrah, Best of luck to your daughter! My older son improved so much from his sophomore PSAT to his first SAT. He took the SATs twice, and he went up in 2 sections the second time, and down on one section. It is nice that all of his schools superscored. </p>
<p>My younger son is going to take the ACT. I found it interesting that at this test prep he went down in 3 out of 4 areas from the "PLAN" taken at his hs(practice ACT for sophomores). When I accounted for the differences in scoring, his composite score was far lower than his projected ACT score on the PLAN. I wonder if this testing was a legitimate score, or if this is done so that when he takes the real deal he will look like he improved greatly.</p>
<p>My daughter scored higher on the initial eval test she took than on the real PSAT she'd taken 6 months earlier. She did just complete a demanding English course, which might have had something to do with her increased score. We went for the evaluation with NO intention of signing up for the test prep. It helps motivate the kids to start thinking about studying on their own.</p>
<p>D used private tutor (recommended by friends w/ D at Horace Mann) rather than Kaplan, Princeton Review or similar company (though I know families that swear by Advantange -- the company that pioneered one-on-one SAT prep). We already had D's PSAT scores and tutor's diagnostic was right in line w/ the PSAT in terms of score and areas of weakness.</p>
<p>D's took the test only once (October of senior year). Her SAT scores improved considerably from the PSAT - - and were pretty much where tutor predicted they would be. We were very happy with the result.</p>
<p>Thanks foolishpleasure. Well to update everyone, my son had a couple of hours of tutoring. He felt that the tutor stuck to the book (literally reading it to him), but he found the strategies to be beneficial. I asked how he knew that he gained anything in just 2 hours of tutoring, and he let me know that he could sense that he was answering more questions correctly than before. This is all anecdotal for now, and when I see some objective results I will know more.</p>
<p>As another point of comparison -- my daughter took a free mock SAT offered by a test prep company in August, the PSAT in October, the SAT in January and the ACT in March.</p>
<p>She did some self study for the SAT and ACT.</p>
<p>With the exception of the mock writing (which went up 110 points for the real SAT), scores were similar.</p>
<p>fendrock, that is interesting. I really do feel that the test prep company gave legitimate test questions, but I think that they gave harder questions or something, because my son consistantly scored lower on 3 out of 4 sections. The one section where he scored higher than the PLAN taken at school was the science section, which is given last, and by then my son told me that he kind of gave up somewhere in the middle of that section at school. He just had enough and no longer put forth the effort. When we went to the test prep, I told him that I wanted him to try his hardest on all of the sections, so we would know his weaknesses and strenghs. I cannot see how my scored lower on their test on 3 out of 4 sections, and considerably lower. He was not sick, distracted, or tired. He was not nervous because he knew that this was only for our knowledge and nothing more. This really makes me wonder.</p>
<p>S didn't prep beyond a practice workbook for the PSAT but we hired a tutor for the SAT, using the PSAT results as the sample test. My son needed help in some areas but not others, so a tutor made a lot more sense for us than a one size fits all class. Even though the tutoring was costly, it was targeted and ended up being less expensive (and less time-consuming) than one of those insanely high priced classes. I think that the trick is to find a great tutor. We explained that my son had an LD so he needed a flexible tutor who would help him devise test-taking strategies that would work specifically for him. (For example, taking little notes on the reading comp passages wouldn't have worked for him, so they came up with a different approach.) The company sent us someone who had great rapport with my kid and also could get inside his head and see how he was approaching the test questions, so he could explain alternate approaches effectively.</p>
<p>Northeastmom -- It sounds as if your tutor is either very rigid or not super-experienced, and I wonder if the company that sent him might send you someone else to try out. I would have been seriously annoyed to have been paying vast sums to have someone read the book to my kid. </p>
<p>Finally, on the question of whether the companies' tests are representative of what you actually find on the real tests: One of my older kids found that the actual SAT had a lot more ambiguous questions than the sample tests and she found it a lot harder. She thought that the Peterson book had very similar questions to the real ACT, though, and her actual ACT was slightly higher than the sample test results. (Not so on the SAT)</p>
<p>northeastmom, the mock SAT my daughter took was an actual SAT test (as found only in some test prep books, don't know which ones off hand).</p>
<p>The fact that the biggest discrepancy was with the essay makes sense, as the test prep people probably can't score those as accurately as the multichoice sections.</p>
<p>fendrock, my son also took an actual ACT test. I even got pages of print outs regarding the type of questions he was answering correctly and incorrectly. They claim to individualize tutoring based on this testing. He was handed some books from the test prep company (this is canned material that the test prep company put together, plus a book that anyone may purchase at a bookstore). They opened up the books to specific sections and began working. If these sections were chosen based on my son's testing, or are just sections that the tutor was familiar with, I am not sure. I know that my son would not have worked this hard if I threw the books at him and left him to do this work on his own. He does need a tutor to force him to study. I am just not sure if a hs senior, or a college student couldn't have my son accomplish the same thing for a fraction of the cost. I feel this is a blind item. I really don't know if I should be annoyed that the teacher read out of the book. I really don't know what she should be doing. She was teaching mostly grammer, and stradegies. My son did comment that, "all she did was read out of the book". He went to say that it did teach him a lot of helpful information. That said, should I be angry, or should I be a satisfied customer? I really don't know. Just to add, if I wanted another teacher, I know that I could easily get one and still stay with this test prep company. I just really do not know if I should be happy with this tutor or not.</p>
<p>Here is my philosophy. </p>
<p>If my daughter were the analytical type who could appreciate sophisticated test taking strategies and be coached to see the big pattern of the types of questions asked, she wouldn't need tutoring in the first place.</p>
<p>The next best thing is to just spend some time going over the tests, getting familiar with them, and learning how to pace oneself (since they are timed).</p>
<p>I expected her to be able to do this on her own with the prep books.</p>
<p>Given the way you are describing your situation, I would say you could go with hs senior or college student and save yourself a boatload of money.</p>
<p>In fact, given the high price you most likely paid, if the tutor just read out of a book I would complain to the company and ask for my money back.</p>
<p>Using a hs senior or college student would save you a lot of money, but in my experience it has been worth the extra bucks for an adult who specializes in test prep. </p>
<p>First, most kids respond differently to an adult than to a student who is an age peer (give or take a year). D has never treated the work with a peer tutor as seriously as a session with an adult teacher or tutor. Second, and more importantly, specialized tutoring can really boost the score (in NYC there are tutors who offer generalized SAT prep and another group that focuses on kids w/ unresloved reading issues). </p>
<p>D's tutor had been doing this pretty much f/t for a number of years and had developed his own course materials to supplement the real SAT exams available on-line and in books. After assessing her strengths/weakneses, developed a strategy for her to identify types of questions w/ which she had difficulty and skip them (at least initially) so that she always completed all the questions that were "easy" for her. The spent a lot of time disecting and handicapping the exam based on D's skills. She had weekly homework which he "graded" before the session and reviewed w/ her during the session to tweak their "attack plan." </p>
<p>If, OTOH, what you feel you really need is a warm-body to make sure that S sits down and does the work (ie; policeman, or babysitter) then an age peer would be fine and D's tutor would be a monumental waste of money.</p>
<p>Your tutor, however, sounds awful and I agree w/ fendrock - - you should definitely ask for your money back.</p>
<p>Thanks for your honest opinions. I do not really want a warm body, and I willing to pay a tutor. What I am not sure about is really what they should be doing. I am not sure that she is awful, and that I should complain. I really don't know, and I was not there. I think that I should just discuss what the tutor did with him with the center management, and listen to what they have to say. I am sure that they will let me know how wonderful this tutor is, but at least if they will be aware that I am probing my kid as to what is going on, they will be on top of things too.</p>
<p>Sorry to be so harsh re: the former tutor (sent you a PM).</p>
<hr>
<p>FYI - I was present (but in a different room) duirng D's first couple of sessions and I occasionally popped in on later sessions just so that I could monitor and ask question about what I had overheard. Also, the tutor's first meeting was with DD,DH and myself to discuss his method, to give D a sense of how much time he expected her to devote to study/prep between sessions and for any of us to ask questions - -so that we werea all pretty much on the same page. </p>
<p>Tutoring is a big $ business in NYC and it attracts a lot of bright, enterprising young men and women. They learn early on that the best way to stay in the game is word of mouth recommendations (I don't believe D's tutor advertises at all; we got his name from a friend and recommended him to several other families and now he has quite a following at D2's school) - - so the tutors place a premium on customer satisfaction, as do the parents.</p>
<p>The tutors available in Western Mass where D attended boarding school were not nearly as on top of their respective games. We had to switch at least a couple of times (with refunds for "bad" sessions) until we found someone D thought was "good," but still weak in comparison to her former NYC tutor. Unlike the NYC tutors, the MA tutors uses tutoring to supplement their day or other jobs; this may be an issue with your tutoring company. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>My daughters test prep used the PSAT as a baseline and the practice tests were real SATs, I think, from the blue book. Her scores mostly trended up, but varied. Apparently math and writing are easy to learn techniques for better scores; reading much more difficult.</p>
<p>I think my child benefited from SAT class.</p>
<p>S2 took the SAT, with no prep, the week before he started a review course. He did a little worse on the baseline test they gave him than the real SAT but he attributed that to being tired. On the last day of class they told him that all of their practice tests were designed to be harder than the actual test. He found that to be encouraging and he went into the SAT feeling very good. He expects his math score to come up about 100 points from mid-600 to mid- to high-700. He doesn't expect to see any improvement in reading and he didn't make any effort there, saying it was just too hard to be worth trying. He thinks his writing improved but not sure by how much. </p>
<p>One of the comments he made about the course, which I liked, was, "Mom, I thought they were going to teach me a bunch of tricks for the test. All they are doing is just teaching us the material." I will be interested to see if he learned anything on the verbal side in spite of himself.</p>
<p>TheAnalyst, Thanks. The place that I have my son teaches some tricks, but teaches the material. I know this from my older son who went to this program, but had a different tutor. I will say that my older son improved a lot, but I don't know how much of it was maturity, what he learned in high school, and how much was because of tutoring. I do feel that my older son was more confident and relaxed because of his tutoring, and I am sure that also could help one to get a better score than someone who did not prepare too much and then regrets it walking in to the exam. </p>
<p>I could see my younger son feeling more confident after just 2 hours of tutoring. He claims that he started answering more questions correctly with just that little bit of studying with a tutor. Last night I asked him if he felt this tutor was worth this expense. He told me that he thinks so. What bothers me is that I really don't know if she is good or not. She is clearly doing this moonlighting, rather than as a full time occupation. I don't know if that makes her less skilled than someone else.</p>