Dave_Berry

"Families can spend thousands of dollars on coaching to help college-bound students boost their SAT scores. But a new report finds that these test-preparation courses aren't as beneficial as consumers are led to believe."

SAT Coaching Found to Boost Scores -- Barely - WSJ.com

juillet

My general experience after being a test-prep tutor for a major test-prep company for a year, and freelancing for two years after:

1. Everything that you're paying $1000 and up for, you can find in a $30 prep book. You are essentially paying for someone to regurgitate the material in the book to you.

2. My former company charges you $2,300 (OR MORE! The article cites a $4,000 fee) to be tutored by a college kid who's getting paid $14-20 an hour (depending on location) for 32 hours plus $0.38/mile for travel, two books that cost $30 each at your local bookstore, and online resources that are comparable to what you can find for free on the 'net.

You could find the same kid to tutor you the same stuff for the same amount of time ($640 - or hell - let's even say you're paying him $30 an hour, so that's $960) and buy those two books from the bookstore (~$60 plus tax) and save $1,300-1,600 or more. The college kid will be happy because you're paying him more than the company, and you'll be happy because you have college book money in your pocket.

3. Test prep tutors for my particular company have speculated for quite some time that the company downscales the scores on the practice tests for the GRE and the SAT - both the ones that come in the prep books and the ones that you can take at the facility. This downscaling ensures that you have a score increase -- essentially, they tell you you did worse than you really did, and when you do better, it looks like it's because of them. We have no proof, but many of my students (both when I taught for the company and when I freelanced) felt that the scores from company books scale you down.

3. The SAT is designed to be a reliable test of reasoning skill. Reliability, in educational psychology, is when a test consistently gives people around the same scores every time they take it. Is it possible to make huge jumps in scores? Yes, with a lot of studying. Is it common? Not really. Numerous SAT studies show that most students score slightly higher the second time they take it, and that there is no significant difference between the second time and any subsequent times.

At least Kaplan and Princeton Review try to keep some integrity in the process by not promising a specific score increase. Any company that cites you a specific number that you can increase should be handled with care. For one thing, when you are already scoring in the higher echelons, it is harder to score higher -- because there's nowhere to go and because the concepts that will tip you over into 800-land are harder to grasp.

mflevity

Bottom line: With college admissions as competitive as they are now, students (and parents) are scrambling for some semblance of control over their admissions outcomes. Many of those who can afford to pay, already stressed about whether their child's grades and extracurriculars will be enough to get them through, will grab at any opportunity they can to boost their chances, and test prep companies like Kaplan and Princeton Review have taken advantage of this market.

hudsonvalley51

My personal feeling is that self-study using something like the Xiggi method and the College Boards own test prep materials can produce the same results as a $1,000+ course. The big IF, however, is how much self-intiative and self-discipline the individual high school student will put into the process. With many 17-year olds it is hard enough to get them to complete their college apps and essays let alone expect them to take a proactive approach to studying for standardized tests. In the case of many kids there is probably a dollar value to just getting them into a room once a week for a month or two and having them take similated tests from the Blue Book, then reviewing areas of difficulty. A couple simulated full tests can also prepare them for the pace and shear physical demand of dealing with a four-hour plus exam. I don't claim to have any idea what that dollar value would be however. We didn't pay for test prep for D1, and she did fine with a little (perhaps too little) self-study. Time will tell, but I don't see us paying for test prep for D2 either.

I find it interesting to see the banner ad for Testmasters at the top of the page for this thread.

tokenadult

That has always been my suspicion. The way to know how you would do on an actual College Board test is to take a previous, genuine, released College Board test under actual test time limits and see how you do.

bluebayou

Dave:

You must be a half-full type of guy. The report clearly said:

All one has to do is peruse cc. This year for example, the magic number for Vandy was 32, as in ACT. Unhooked candidates with a 32 made the WL, those with a 31 did not.

bluebayou

Not our experience with the local PR. The PR pre-test was extremely close to a CB Blue Book score.

juillet

As a side note, hudsonvalley, I have great respect for Xiggi but even he will tell you that what's been dubbed as the "Xiggi method" on the fora is actually a collection of test prep and test-taking strategies that have been around since kids started taking the SAT, and have been endorsed in most test prep materials for years. Matter of fact, he called them "common sense"

There's no particular method that you have to follow -- that's falling into the same trap as the test companies. Rather, there are strategies that work and then there are a student's own ingenuity in devising their personal method that works for them.

Raindrip

I love your honesty. This post reminds me of my first summer job. It was notoriously difficult to find reasonably priced apartment rentals in the city in which I lived. I worked for a business that, for a fee, would give you a list of five available places for you to rent. The front of the store was populated by slick salemen getting people to sign up for the service. The back office was just another high school kid and me with the newspaper classifieds open to rentals. We would call the advertisers and tell them they didn't have to advertise anymore -- that we would find them renters! I became disgusted pretty fast with it all and quit.

People need to have more confidence in their own abilities.

frazzled2thecore

Does this mean that colleges will no longer assume that a student from an affluent district "bought" their high score via SAT prep?

poetgrl

For people who have significant test anxiety, test prep courses are good because they simulate the pressure of being judged in a way self-prep does not. So...in those cases I think it's very positive.

fireflyscout

In my opinion, test prep succeeds in one regard: getting the student familiar and comfortable with the test format - types of questions, timing, etc. Beyond that depends on the motivation of the student. Of course, I'd rather pay $30 for the Big Book to get that kind of prep than by paying thousands to a test prep company.

Squiddy

Yikes, now that's a can of worms. I know DD resents the occasional insinuation that her high SAT's were due to her (non-existent) SAT prep course, or tutors. Her SAT prep course was some workbooks checked out from the public library and some used practice tests from Amazon -- but no one wants to hear that - not those that sell courses, nor those who benefit from being assumed "victims" who couldn't afford SAT Prep courses.

I suspect most of us know that a prep course is only useful for forcing a student to focus on the test for some number of hours a week, and for the benefit of taking simulated tests, neither of which are the exclusive province of paid prep-course peddlers - a student (self-directed) can do just as well with some borrowed (or bought used) prep course materials.

Taking practice tests are useful for getting used to the way questions are asked, pace, etc, but I suspect taking a prep course doesn't decrease anxiety on test-day, in fact, it may increase it, as it piles new expectations on the result ("You mean I paid $4000 for *this*?!? A bad score would've been free!".) That's just me, others probably see it differently.

But as others have pointed out, in some cases, a 10- or 20-point increase in a section can be the difference between admission and waitlist, honors or not, or in the case of the PSAT, Commended or Semi-Finalist. And with what's riding on an SAT score (for some), I'm not going to criticize those who spend their money this way.

Caveat Emptor, of course.

thinker88

I've had this experience first-hand. When I took the SAT the first time (using a tutor) I only received a 1310 (out of 1600). The second time I took the test I studied from the College Board book and took its practice tests. I probably studied an hour a day for a month and my score improved to 1430. And all that just from reading a book, taking tests and studying SAT vocab. And for just $30 at that. Test prep companies are a sham.

nixnoxsox

I've known students who took the Princeton Review course and their scores actually went down. The Princeton Review course definitely does not help, as I've taken it myself and I found it to be a complete waste of money and time. The practice test books are better than anything.
In my opinion, however, the ACT is better than the SAT and you don't even need to study for it.