<p>Colleges just try to compensate for it with their socio-economic disadvantage soft spots, I guess... :|</p>
<p>My parents are anti-prep classes. But I am anti-studying. So I still ended up going to a $1000+ program, which I don't think helped that much.</p>
<p>I was talking to two students yesterday (one just took her SAT test) and they came from very different backgrounds. One had parents that were well paid professionals and they had her tutored twice a week ALL year for the SAT. She was very confident. The other came from a lower income blue-collar home, average high school, but was an honor student involved in a lot of good activities. She was worried her home-studying and limited school prep from teachers wasn't going to cut it. I told not to worry, (easy for me) and mentioned the ACT test which she might find easier to take.
Although personal tutoring doesn't help everyone, my son's friend went from scores in the 1300's (2 tests) to high 1400's after 6 months of Sunday home tutoring. That was enough to get much more $$ and that can make a big difference for some. In my son's case, if he was personally tutored twice a week for a year as in that girls case (and lived through it) "maybe" our tuition bill would have been less, who knows? But you can only deal with what you have and make the best of it.</p>
<p>test prep isn't cheating. I think of an SAT or ACT like any other test: if you study, you do better; if you don't study, you do worse. The SAT does not test "natural intelligence" (nothing really can, i think, but that's another matter). The SAT rather asks a few specific types of questions designed to test your knowledge of a few things (algebra, geometry, grammar rules (which can be memorized with enough studying), vocabulary, and literature anaylsis, to name a few). </p>
<p>The more you study those things (and practice with loads of questions in SAT format testing SAT topics), the better you perform. That simple.</p>
<p>Test preparation (or "studying", as i call it) for the SAT is no different than studying for any other school test. </p>
<p>And don't believe that crap about "natural intelligence." I personally have taken 15-20 practice tests, and I have seen my scores blossom from 2000's to 2300's. As with any other test, the more you practice, the better you do.</p>
<p>and practice cannot be considered illegitimate</p>
<p>Debruns, your post brought up a very good point about scholarship money. For one school I was just accepted to, my scholarship will go up 1,600 dollars if I raise my CR/ M score ten points before or on the next May test. I if attend and graduate from that school, that's 6,400 I will save because of (possibly) one question. SAT tutoring may seem like a waste of money for a lot of people, but that money can easily repay itself. Already, after my score was raised following SAT tutoring, my scholarship to that school went up by $3,200 per year. That's less than my SAT tutoring. Every year, my tutoring investment will be well over paid back not by the entire scholarship amount, but just by the amount higher it is after my score went up from my tutoring.</p>
<p>Yes, it's a fact that some students will get full scholarships or at least 3/4 for scores that fit into their colleges specific range. At some colleges the difference in money from a 1200 to 1300 is minimal, maybe 2 or 3 thousand, but for others, especially if you get close to or over 1400 (old scores) you can get quite a bit, especially if you bring other things to the table.</p>