Godot

noidea123,

You are simply proving my point that there will always be students who can score well on the SAT without much preparation. Your advice of learning how to take the test is an important piece of advice, of course, but what this involves and how much time it would take exactly vary a great deal with individual students. It is misleading to suggest that what worked for you will necessarily work just as well for all other students. In other words, "browsing" a few preparation books is unlikely to enable a student starting with an 1800 to score a 2290. If that were the case, we would have a lot more 2300+ scorers in the country! (By the way, the mere fact that a student is able to score, say, a 2350 with little preparation, and his friend "only" scored an 1850 after hours of preparation and tutoring does not, without knowing other information, actually demonstrate anything about the effectiveness of SAT preparation or tutoring. If the friend started with a 1550 on the first diagnostic test, I would argue that the preparation was quite effective. On the other hand, if 1950 was his starting score, the course was definitely not effective! The improvement number is the proper yardstick (one of a few, of course) with which to measure the quality and effectiveness of a course or a tutor, not the absolute final score.)

And students who take SAT preparation courses are definitely not all aiming for top-tier schools. Many of the students are actually quite average, and even with huge score improvements in their courses, they are still not looking to apply to, say, a top-20 school. (For example, a student can move her score up from a 1600 to a 2000, a very nice improvement, but still not have a high enough score for the top schools.)