| Godot, please try to understand where we disagree and where we agree.
This is not an issue between good self-preparation and good tutoring. It is an issue between bad and inefficient self-preparing and poor tutoring. Please remember that I posted my opinion about the resources that are available to families starting the process of applying to college. In front of them, they see a sea of options, ranging from shelves full of books to a good number of prep companies or independent tutors. There is also a good amount of unsolicited help since alsmost everyone has a good opinion to share.
I've tried to put myself in the shoes of many. How would I approach this process is my motto for this exercise. For the past two years, I have read and posted thousand of posts with the majority in the SAT forum. I have read many accounts of students who had poor experiences at the prep companies -the ones we agree are bad. I have read many accounts of students going in circles in their preparation. As I said earlier, many students spend much time desperately seeking for the Holy Grail, a superfast and magical solution that would propel them to a great score ... with little effort. Those are the students who look at the fat prep books and read a few pages before jumping into testing. or falling asleep. They may even take the entire 8 or 10 tests and improve very little. That does not amount to an adequate preparation. There has to be some method to the madness.
The largest part of my recommendation entails working through as many tests as possible while constantly seeking to improve the speed and accuracy of the answers. To accomplish this, I do recommend outside sources. I do recommend to seek them in as many books and guides as possible, and then use the strategies to match their own aptitude and personality. I am quite certain that this is the method used by ... most great tutors. It seems that the only difference we have is that you may believe that students are incapable of making the right decision on their own. You may be correct when it comes to students who do not consider the preparation important or necessary. However, when it comes to students who ARE intent to find the best way to improve, the story is different. If you had been around during the summer of 2003 and 2004, you might have seen the dynamic exchange of questions and responses on the SAT forum. Students were posting their questions, and others were providing answers ... and methods. The nicest part was that students who started asking questions soon offered answers to "newbies". I can assure you that no SAT question ever remained unanswered correctly. Finding the best sources for GOOD answers is a key part of an efficient self-preparation.
In my earlier post, I recognized that there are times when professional help is beneficial and warranted. I also recognized that there are many tutors -individual or from companies- who are wonderful. I believe that it should be obvious to everyone that the people I invited to post in this thread fall in the category of good tutors. In reaching this judgment, your word is sufficient to me. I trust that the improvement you mention are real and true.
In some way, I also expect you to take me at my word. If I say that I helped many people ... you should trust me. I could document it quite easily, but what would be the point?
Please judge me by the validity of the information I have posted, and try to understand that I have no reason to inflate the results I mentioned. Actually, I only discussed scores to address your conclusion about self-preparation. People who know my history on CC know that I never discuss students' scores or statistics publicly.
Scores do not not measure me, nor define me. I think that my words do it better. |