Godot

Xiggi and xitammarg,

First of all, let me say that I respect both of you and your views and opinions. Xiggi, I don't doubt your numbers, and I appreciate that you do not question mine. Again, the supposed differences in opinion that we have may not really be differences. We actually may agree on more than you think.

I will go as far as to say that the MAJORITY of tutors and test prep companies out there don't really know what they are doing and can't really help students prepare for the SAT adequately. Mike, I actually concur that the Kaplan method is not necessarily the best approach. This was not mentioned in my previous post, but even their best teachers cannot produce the best results with a flawed course and method. I looked at their course books recently -- and laughed. The methods are quite basic, and there is not enough depth in the material for the above-average students. So it is true that there are many bad Kaplan (and Princeton Review) teachers AND the techniques and course structure and materials are not necessarily the best.

While I don't necessarily agree with all of Mike's techniques and approaches, I think his philosophy and strategies, as outlined in the Grammatix guide, are probably light-years better than what most of the national test prep companies teach. And I actually don't think his techniques work ONLY for the average or slightly above-average students. Good techniques should work for everyone, even the most advanced students (I certainly give my most advanced students the same techniques as those that I give the lowest-scoring students), and Mike's probably work for most, if not all, students.

While one can always point to exceptions, my point about the value of outside professional help is simply that it CAN be beneficial and, in some instances, more beneficial than working alone. (There is no doubt, as I have mentioned many times previously, that there are a lot of incompetent "professionals" out there.) Even when students go to the bookstore and buy a bunch of test prep books, that is not entirely self-study. It's taking advice from others, albeit in written form. It would be a lot more difficult to work in a vacuum, SOLELY by working with the Official SAT Study Guide and consulting no other book and no one else. Even Mike concedes that, while a student CAN probably discover all the techniques and strategies by himself, it would most likely take a lot more time. And that's one benefit of tutoring: to make the process a lot more efficient. And that's why I endorse good tutoring when you can afford it. I can help a student crank out a 100-point improvement on a section in 2 to 4 hours, when it would probably take him a good month or two on his own to achieve the same. Moreover, Xiggi mentions students coming to CC to exchange ideas and seek advice from other students to improve their scores. That's called outside help. Maybe not face-to-face help. Maybe not paid outside help, but outside help nonetheless. And even in those cases, do you not think that the student would gain more from sitting down one-on-one with an expert who can diagnose his strengths and weaknesses precisely and fully within 20 minutes and assign him the proper amount of targeted work to improve? I've honed my teaching and tutoring techniques and strategies over years in order to design a program that can maximize a student's improvement; I do think it's more valuable and efficient than almost anything an ordinary student can dream up. I know of virtually no students who have improved more than 300 points combined on the new SAT on their own, yet my students routinely do so. I would love to hear stories of students who have through self-study (not necessarily from Xiggi, but from others). My conclusions, although they may be controversial, are drawn from years of real-world experience, not what something should be "in theory."

So I think we can all agree that outside, professional help can be beneficial, if for no other reason, because it's more efficient. But let's not forget that many students are not quite as motivated and diligent as the ones on CC. And that is another disconnect between theory and practice. In theory, perhaps, every student can improve significantly on his or her own. In practice, this is not true, or we would be seeing a lot more 2100s and 2200s and the SAT average would be MUCH higher. Many students can benefit from a little hand-holding, some structure, and some ass-kicking to get the work, and the right kind of work, done in order to improve or her score significantly. It may seem exorbitant to have a pay a professional $800 (or insert your own number here) just to kick a student's ass and give him the right motivation, but many of my former students have told me that they would NOT have studied or improved otherwise. Not every student will have the initiative, knowledge, and wisdom to design a good self-study course and keep up with it; a good prep course from a competent professional can help provide that structure, motivation, content and strategies, and expert guidance that might be very difficult to come up with on one's own. Granted, a good prep course can be very hard to find, and, as we have established here, MOST classroom and private tutoring courses are NOT very effective. Therefore, in a majority of cases, self-study might be an attractive option.

Another point is that CC is not necessarily the best place to look for students who HAVE benefited from a good prep (tutoring) course. Self-selection probably dictates that most students on this site would prefer self-study (or are ones who have been frustrated by the lack of success in a prep course), so you may not find many success stories here from those who have worked with a professional. My students certainly don't hang out on CC.

I have already said that the "Xiggi method" is great and I agree with most of it. That being said, working through exams alone does not define what I do with my students (although it can certainly be PART of what I do). There is much more to my course and method.

Scores do not define me, either, but they are a good yardstick with which to compare the relative merits of self-preparation and professional help here.

I agree with Mike's point that Tiger Woods would not need a coach to achieve "ordinary" success. But I never said I am helping my students achieve "ordinary" scores. Some of the students I have worked with were shooting for 1500s; others, 1600. In one instance, I worked with a girl who did both a Princeton Review (tutoring) course and self-study for about 8 months and was still stuck at a 1370-1400. And she was a *very* bright and motivated girl. I was able to help her achieve a 1530 after a few months.

The bottom line is that I would not do what I do and charge what I charge if I did not sincerely think I was genuinely helping my students and if I thought that they would all have achieved the same kinds of score improvements purely on their own. In a way, Xiggi, when you insist that EVERY student is able to achieve amazing improvements purely through self-study, I perceive that you are challenging the value of my services and demeaning what I do ("why should people pay Godot so much money when they can do what he does on their own??"), and that explains why I am perhaps a little defensive here. I am pretty sure that is not your intent, but that is my perception nonetheless.

By the way, I agree wholeheartedly with Mark's post as well.