<p>Many students I know actually took the SAT in 6 th or 7th grade, then took the PSAT in 10th &11th, then the SAT & SAT subject as seniors.
If they didnt want to take the subject tests, they took the ACT.
They didn’t want to be tutored or even attend a study course, and didn’t need to, IMO.</p>
<p>If there was any time when tutoring would have paid off, I would say it would have been before the jr yr PSAT.</p>
<p>All I paid was the cost of the big Blue Book of real SAT tests. No tutors. Both girls self-studied using a version of the Xiggi Method and both raised their scores significantly - D1 by 70 points and D2 by 260 points!</p>
<p>However, had I needed to hire a tutor I probably would have looked for one possessing good math skills combined with experience in successfully teaching over someone who had no teaching experience and only a high score of his own to recommend him.</p>
<p>I think that the math section has the greatest room for immediate/short term improvement. The CR portion seems a bit trickier…gotta build lots of vocab, and that can take time/experience. We chose a short term comprehensive program even though our S only really needs to improve in the math section. We figure taking a full length SAT every week (part of the comprehensive program) for 6 weeks will help him feel more confident practicing some of the strategies he is learning without worry that it will affect his real score. So far, so good, but I can tell he is really ready for Mar 8. to get here already :). So are we. </p>
<p>The SAT is so damn long. Since they came up with the concept of “super scoring”, I have always thought it would be more efficient for the College Board to allow students to re-take just the section or sections in which they want to improve their scores. Why put them through that whole 3 1/2 hour test 2 or 3 times?</p>
<p>I suspect the students benefit from taking the whole thing again. The scores aren’t as reproducible as one might like, so a student could well score higher on the section they weren’t concerned about even without having studied for that part. Why not reroll all the dice if colleges are willing to ignore lower scores? I’m not really sure why they do so though. When you get to college, your profs aren’t going to look only at your highest grades and ignore the rest of your performance.</p>
<p>I have seen $150 to $200/hr but these are teachers with 20 years experience and this is what they do fulltime.
Personally we used books from Amazon at home. </p>
<p>There are no standards in terms of pricing and relative value of the services. My take is that someone such as Mathyone’s kid could be very good … and substantially better than your typical high school teacher who dabbles in SAT teaching. Simply stated, if those folks could not help during regular classes, why would anyone think they would magically turn into SAT gurus? They are typically your worst option and even worse than the PR et al group classes. The best bang for your bucks is self-help OR a very high priced tutor with LOTS of recs. and I mean really high priced! </p>
<p>For the OP rate, I think that a nice offer would be around 30 dollars per hour plus a bonus based on the raised score. All in all, a fee between 300 to 500 dollars per student should be competitive. </p>
<p>On a side note, the tutor should have access to a good stack of recent tests, including most officially released tests … ever. And, fwiw, the most effective tutoring is only 1/3 based on contents. The remaining 2/3 is all about understanding how the test works and how to navigate the sections with intelligence and strategy. </p>
<p>Some profs actually do drop the lowest score &/or give opportunity for make up work.</p>
<p>Tests used for admittance aren’t nearly as important as essays, course rigor, recommendations, and the little things that make a difference like if you play cello or are full pay.</p>
<p>Some schools even want to see a couple complete assignments, including grade & comments.</p>
<p>$250 of absolutely wasted money (according to my D.). She did better in ACT after self-prepare.
Overall the SAT / ACT are so easy and many do not realize that they simply need to go back to middle school material and refresh it. </p>
<p>The SAT/ACT are not easy for everyone. I have plenty of students who work and struggle for months to raise their scores. They just do not operate at that speed, even if they understand the content. If the tests are easy for your student, be glad that you are lucky. I was one of the lucky ones, too.</p>
<p>^^ Miami, what is easy is for the inexperienced and unaware to confuse the level of the contents and the true difficulty of the test. Acquiring REASONING skills is not easy for many. Hint? Look around you and you might understand why the SAT average remains at 500 and why so many find basic reasoning and logic way beyond their reach.</p>
<p>^They do it wrong. They have to understand material, way back middle school material, since vast majority of SAT /ACT is not from HS. They simply forgot it. Luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. You have to sit down with your kid and figure out why. You will be surprized.The kids are not damn, but everybody forget.</p>
<p>@xiggi, that was a very helpful post. I know that you are the SAT expert on this site and will try to persuade my kid to use your method when preparing. Only brought up Silverturtle since some posters questioned the ability of high schoolers to tutor SAT.</p>
<p>Well, my son got tutoring twice a week for an hour at a time@$60/hr and his score on his SAT went up from his PSAT 520 points. Well worth it, imo, and it was two hours a week with no distractions. He never, at that age, would have been dedicated enough to do the work necessary on his own. His tutor also worked with him on the ACT (he didn’t take PLAN so nothing to compare with) and he scored slightly better on that then the SAT, so that is what he submitted. </p>
<p>“Simply stated, if those folks could not help during regular classes, why would anyone think they would magically turn into SAT gurus? They are typically your worst option and even worse than the PR et al group classes.”</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who gets tutored by one of their own teachers and, in addition, high school English teachers do not work with their students in class on SAT/ACT strategy. That is not a part of the curriculum and it certainly isn’t anything I’d want my kid’s English teachers to be doing in class. </p>
<p>To me it seems like it would depend on the student and what their particular issues are. A student who mostly needs imposed discipline to study could probably benefit as much or more from a high school grad as a teacher with long experience. For the same money, you could get a lot more hours from the younger tutor. Is 1 hour with an experienced tutor worth 3-5 hours with a younger one? It might be for a kid with learning issues, but for the typical slightly lazy and unmotivated kid, I don’t think so.</p>
<p>Mathyone, if your son or daughter wants to try their hand at tutoring for the SAT they should go for it. I just don’t think there will be many takers. No one I know would even consider hiring a kid right out of high school. And from the answers of people in this thread, I think that sentiment is quite common. </p>
<p>It would require a certain investment of time and money to get started–gathering and reviewing test materials, etc. It’s not an investment that would be helpful to her in the future (and not even to her little sister, since all those test prep materials will be obsolete by the time she takes the SAT.) Doesn’t seem worth it if the vast majority of people wouldn’t even consider hiring her.</p>
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<p>How many times have we had a similar discussion? You tend to make a stack of assumptions that are all over the place and do intimate a very approximate understanding of the test. While some material is indeed middle school level, it hardly represents the “vast majority” for MOST students. Unless one has been in an advanced program or attenting a highly selective middle school, chances are that MOST material will be from the HS curriculum. While it does HELP to refresh one’s MS memory of basic concepts, it seems obvious that your comments show that you have had NO personal experience with the precise test and process, except through hearsay. </p>
<p>Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but you seem to confuse your own with facts. </p>
<p>Mathyone, there are plenty of students who end up tutoring before starting college. Next to the independent tutor, many prefer to join one of the big names outfit. A reasonably high score is ALL that is needed to get started. Of course, the experience will not always be great, as the canned group courses that junior tutors are given tend to have atrocious results. It is, however, easier to start than starting from scratch. </p>
<p>Although there have been opinions shared about not trusting HS students, I think that one can easily demonstrate his or her mastery by jumping in. Take a look at the SAT forum and you might notice that Silverturtle started sharing his advice waaaaay before starting college. I do not think that anyone would have regretted trusting his advice and suggestions. And, over the years, there have been quite a few young minds that offered sound advice after spending much time on their own preparation. </p>
<p>One suggestion? It might work better to pick a portion of the SAT and specialize in offering relevant help. There is a LOT more help available for the SAT than for the ACT, and a lot more help for the Math sections. Someone who can show a good grasp of the reading sections (without mindlessly recommending to study lists of words) would be worth a … small pot of gold! And to a lesser extent, the same applies to the writing component. </p>
<p>Miami…give it a break. They do NOT teach algebra in middle school to the level needed on the SAT. It’s all fine that your daughter did well enough studying middle school material (if that is what she did) but that is NOT going to,suffice for the vast majority of students.</p>