SAT Prep - Should I Sign Up?

Hi S.,
I was a student like your daughter who had almost all straight
A's with a few B's in the really hard math classes. I took the ACT and the SAT tests and did ok on them, but not great. If could have taken them in essay form then I would have done fine. I never really understood why I didn't do great like I thought I would have. I used the test prep books and everything. Now, as a high school teacher, I have come to realize that there are several types of questions that are asked, and the literal ones seem the most simple, but if you are an analytical thinker, (like me), then you can tend to miss a lot of them. I did not get into Harvard even though everything else was high enough, because I didn't do well enough on the SAT tests.

So, I would not recommend taking the study class for the PSAT unless you think she needs it, although, I know there a few scholarships that are given out if the scores are high enough. I would recommend the classes for the real SAT test for her senior year (if she takes it earlier she may forget what she learned from the previous year and fresher is better). The classes will explain how to figure out which answers they are looking for that are not obvious because they are so obvious. This is something that can not be explained in books, I know, I tried several times to understand them.

Good Luck to both of you!

If she is in running start will she need to take the PSAT? Isn't running start going to be giving her college credit for the courses she takes? When she proceeds to a 4 year school she would be a transfer student. If she is able to she can graduate from high school and get her AA degree from the community college she is enrolled in for running start. She wouldn't need to take the PSAT or SAT test.
As far as spending the all that money on a course to help her with the PSAT I would find someone to tutor her one on one. Take the test and she how she does. Then if her scores are low find someone to tutor her in the area where she needs to improve. There is a study booklet you can get. Thats all my daughter used and she did just fine. She had scores good enough to get into the school she wanted to attend.
You have to watch for scams . There are scams for scholarship monies too. Take this course and we will help you get scholarship money. Our high school guidance department was all we needed. We were able to recieve enough money to pay for two years of college.

Wow.....& you probably have Christmas/Holiday that mo.!!!
I think that if the school allowed this flyer it must be legit. I believe any grade/test help can't be wrong in this era of much pressure to excel,etc. I am sure someone of the school would help knowing or asking about what they think.
Anyway good luck. I think it sounds like you have a great family!!
jan

Just a couple years ago BCC offered a SAT prep course for about 150 (weekends, I think...so you had to pay...ordinarily HS students can take any M-F CC class for free). Their website has the WORST search option...so I googled to see if the class was still offered.

OMG....$###-###-#### (not at BCC, I suppose BC now, but in Seattle/Mercer Is/Bellevue) for a flippin' prep course? Are they INSANE???

Sorry. Had to get that out of my system.

I would check with BCC (BC, argh...that's going to take awhile, sorry) and see if they still offer it. Also, you can buy the SAT prep books at Barnes & Nobel. Before shelling out over 300 dollars, get some practice/tips/tricks in for 20 dollars.

Looking up the statistical data, it looks like there is an average of 15 points gained for people who took the prep course, and 40 points gained for people taking the test a second time.

I personally didn't even take the PSAT...which is supposed to be the "practice SAT". i DID use the practice books. Missed one in the Verbal (Ha! Would you believe it with my spelling/grammar?), and waaaaaaay worse in the math.

None of which answers your question. But I would check with BCC, check out the books, and then after the PSAT if your daughter's not comfy look into shelling out for the SAT prep. But that's me. 1530 on the SAT, but I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up...and didn't want to waste money figuring that out at 35k a year... so I went and blew stuff up for the USMC straight out of HS. So you might not want to listen to me.

I'd encourage you to wait on the prep class and see if your daughter actually needs prep help. Some kids get very high scores on their own. I agree with the previous posters that the SAT prep books can do the job for far less money, if your daughter is motivated to prepare on her own. (Good self study takes 24-60+ hours.) The official College Board books that have real SAT exams for practice are the most effective.

It's important to consider your daughter's college plans in making this decision. Will she be applying to public or private schools? Does she want to stay in state or go out of state? Is she hoping to get merit scholarships? Here in Oregon, a student with a 3.4 or higher GPA is automatically admitted to all state universities, and their SAT score is not considered. For honors programs and merit scholarships though, the SAT score counts. It looks like UW considers SAT scores, but does accept students with reading, math and writing scores that are below 500.

Both of my children were honor roll students and good test takers who took an SAT prep class and made a significant improvement in their scores. My son improved by 110 points on the old 1600 point SAT, and my daughter by 290 on the new 2400 point SAT. They both took the prep class in late summer before their senior year, after they had already taken the PSAT and a first try at the SAT. They attended different courses, but both were well documented to increase scores on average by 50 points per section.

My children wanted to attend private college. In order for us to a be able to afford the expense, they both needed to earn merit scholarships that brought the cost of attendance down to what a state university would cost. My daughter's college will cost just under $40,000 this year, but there are many schools that are well over $50,000/year. So, my kids took the SAT prep classes to improve their chances of earning good merit scholarships. It's worked out well for them and both received generous merit aid offers. But, the whole college admissions process is very time consuming, expensive, and stressful, so figure out in advance what your daughter's college goals are. Avoid any extra stress and expense that you can.

I have volunteered for the past 7 years in our high school college advising program. I've learned so much through this work about colleges, the admission process, financial aid and scholarships. There is a great website for college information that has a discussion board which covers almost any college related topic you can think of. The website is collegeconfidential.com Here is a link to the discussion board http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/

I'd be happy to share information with you, or anyone else who wants to private message me. Best of luck with the exciting college planning process.

Unless your daughter needs external motivation to study, I wouldn't pay for a course -- there are too many inexpensive study guides she can use on her own. Start by going to www.collegeboard.com and signing her up for the SAT question of the day.
Eastlake HS PTSA (in Sammamish) offers something called FEAR FREE SAT/ACT for $25 per test. You get to take a previous year's SAT and/or ACT under "real" timed/monitored test conditions, and the result is scored by the test company, but the results don't show in the student's permanent records. A couple weeks after the test, there's a session with someone from the test company that goes over the results and talks about what you can do to improve your scores (parents can attend). My daughter has a test phobia and taking this test really helped her realize that she could do well on the real thing and the post-test talk helped her esp. with deciding when to guess and what they look for on the essay section. To sign up, contact me separately (I found out I'm not supposed to advertise the link).

My husband and I are both English teachers, me at a junior high and him at a HS (teaching juniors). He says that students with test prep do tend to score somewhat higher on average, if for no other reason than they are familiar with the test and the types of questions they will be expected to answer. He said that some of the prep books are pretty good and come with CD's or online subscriptions that let students take practice tests (one of the most valuable aspects of any prep course). Of course studying Latin and Greek roots/prefixes/suffixes is always helpful too. The books would be WAY cheaper. SAT makes an official prep book you can find in most bookstores.

If your daughter normally takes tests easily, i'd say no. You can retake these tests, so if, for some reason, her results are poor, she could take the course for the next round or the SATs. But maybe she'll do great right out of the gate, and you'll save yourself money and your daughter time.

If your daughter is a nervous test taker it may be worth it to give her some confidence and relaxation.

When I took the SAT (granted, it was ten years ago), I did not use any preparation courses. All the courses did then was to show a person basic standardized test taking techniques, and most high school students are very familiar with those techniques thanks to NCLB. I was like your daughter, mostly As and Bs, enthusiastic about school, and I did well enough to make the National Merit Scholar program. I didn't think the test was half as difficult as everyone made it out to be. A lot of people make money off of other people's test anxiety.

A less expensive alternative, if your daughter feels like she'd like some preparation, is to buy a study guide. The Educational TEsting System (ETS) website sells them, and I think they run less than $100. With a study guide, your daughter can review the parts that make her feel nervous without sitting through all the stuff that she feels confident in. It's a better use of her time and of your money.

Wow. That's a chunk of change! My advice, have your daughter take a prep course. But, look around for something better priced.

I think it depends on whether your daughter generally tests well on those kinds of tests. I was an A student, tested well, and only went up 20 points on my SAT after doing a prep class (I think it was Kaplan). But I had another friend who was an A/B student (and a weak tester) and did the prep course, and raised her SAT score by well over 100 points (I think it was actually closer to 160!).

If you're not sure, or don't want to spend the full price, maybe you could just get a book with practice tests, and your daughter could read through it and take the tests.

S.,

I have been a HS English teacher for eight years now. I would agree with the poster that said it depends on your daughter and her testing abilities. Also, if she is self motivated, then you can just buy one of the many, many SAT books on the market and work through it with her. If she is not, then a class might be a better option. Many of the private tutors and/or classes basically just work through the same books that you can purchase for $15.00 at Barnes and Noble.

Also, you can log on to the college board website and sign up for the SAT question of the day. I often used these in the classroom as my starter each day to get the kids familiar with the style of questions.

Good luck!

If your daughter is getting mostly A's & B's and regularly does well on tests, then I would not waste my money on it. I would make sure she was ready for the test by giving her a good breakfast & making sure she had plenty of sleep the night before. That's a lot of money and if you feel she needs practice, go to the library and check out a practice test book.

YAY! A question I can answer :-) I used to be an Assistant Director of Education for a college test prep center. I think that learning the test-taking strategies and being familiar with the test is VERY important. You can either do this through one of these classes or a with a private tutor.

(We're almost the same age, so I'll give this example--and where I'm from the ACT was the test to take.) When I was in high school, on the ACT, everyone talked about the "magic 30"; if you made a 30 on the ACT, you could go to school ANYWHERE--Harvard, Yale, you name it. When I worked in college test prep after my first graduate degree, it was so competitive, students had to have perfect scores--a 36, community service projects, maybe a sport in which they excelleed--in short, the competition has gone CRAZY.

I now do private tutoring occasionally for college test prep. (I'm a professor and writer, and I don't really do it for the extra money--though that's nice, but I think it's an important service because of social class issues.) Wealthier parents are paying astronomical amounts of money to have their children tutored to get them into the school they have picked out for their children. I have been offered $200 an hour for private tutoring by desperate parents--this was a student who had been kicked out of school for assaulting another student and no one was supposed to offer him services--and I didn't.

Certain tutoring centers charge $60/hour for private tutoring and the tutors only make $14-$20 an hour, the rest is all profit. I meet with students at the public library for $20 an hour. If you do private tutoring, you might have to round up different subject area tutors. The SAT is divided into Math and Verbal; the ACT is Math, Science, Reading, and Social Science. I am NO GOOD at Math, so I would never advertise myself as being able to help with that... So, know if your tutor can do all sections or know that you're going to have a few tutors.

I think the Princeton Review test prep books are really good. When I tutored my best friend's daughter, we just used the book that was on reserve at the public library so my friend didn't even have to buy a book. My best friend is also a Math professor, so she could help her daughter with that section.

I happen to like Kaplan Test Prep (that wasn't who I worked for), but I love their history. After WWII, Ivy League schools thought they had too many Jewish students, so they raised standards requiring higher test scores for Jewish students to keep them out. Kaplan was developed to help Jewish students get the scores they needed to keep getting into the Ivy Leagues. YAY. A great story, huh? I've worked for Huntingon Learning Center, Sylvan Learning Center, and doing private tutoring, and there are good things about all of them. I don't know anyone who has done ACT/SAT with Kaplan, but I know people who've done LSAT (Law School Prep), GMAT (Med School Prep) and GRE (Grad School Prep) with them.

Feel free to private message me with any questions. I'm really excited for your daughter. I don't have kids, but I think pre-college is the most exciting time of anyone's life. It's probably why I became a professor :-)

One other thing, I don't know if they still do this, but when I was in high school, the way they figured the PSAT score was doubling the verbal score and adding it to the math score. If you were verbally strong, this made your score so high, it made you look like a genius. I got the highest PSAT score in the history of my high school, and it wasn't good for me because I didn't realize how important the math would be to me later on. I thought I had it made. If they still figure the score this way, PLEASE explain to your daughter that BOTH math and verbal are important.

EXCITING!
~S

Talk to the school about the SAT class. Find out what the curriculum is...

I suspect that nowadays it teaches you HOW TO TAKE the test as well as the information that will be on it.

While your child is mostly As and Bs, does she test well. There is a alot to know on the SAT and PSAT, but some of the clues given in a course like this on how to take the test may help her relax when the test time comes.

Do I suggest she take it now...At $319.00 not at all...The PSAT is mostly to let you know where she is and if she will do well on the SAT. Let her study on her own and take this test, then determine based on those scores if she needs the class next year. But if they do not cover how to test, I do not think it is worth the cost of the class, getting the books for her to study from the library and helping her yourself will be far more cost-effective..

Good Luck and especially to your daughter on her test!!! ;-)