My son is a good tester, not a great one, and he has been preparing for a while, probably too long, but in a haphazard way for the April ACT. (He probably should have done something shorter and more concentrated.)
He sort of half does his homework for his test prep class, and I can’t tell what to do. I can’t tell if I should push him - he gets really mad when I do - or leave it to him with the “it’s his life” attitude. I’m wondering how much other parents push. I don’t want his last year at home to be miserable.
How many times has he taken it? If this is the third or fourth time, then I’d say he is done. If this is the first time, maybe he is underestimating the test and will need to see a score that is less than what he desires to motivate him. Maybe you are overestimating the amount of prep he needs.
At our house, we said we would only pay for test prep if the kid was willing to commit to it. Otherwise, we could use the money for ourselves. Did he do 100 percent of it? No. His course had a vocab lab that he skipped because he got plenty of vocab practice at school.
We also had looked at most of the schools that my son was interested in before he really started testing. He had a pretty good idea of the test scores required. He took a December SAT that he did not do as well as he liked. So he hit a lot more serious about prep and took it again in January. Took the ACT in February and then said he was done. I would have liked for him to take the ACT in April, but he was done and he was willing to “suffer” the consequences of maybe not getting into his reach program (honors program) which he did not get by the way. But he knew he was going to get in at his safeties and pretty confident on his matches.
My son had a bunch of AP tests to think about and a major push for a senior leadership position that required a lot of work in the Spring of Junior year. There was more going on than test prep. You have to look at the whole picture.
Is there a reason he will need the higher score? Back in the ice ages when I went to school I went to a non-selective school that provided a 25% tuition discount for an ACT score of 27 and a 50% discount for a score of 30. I had a 29. I had an opportunity to retake it, and I did, but I did very little prep work because no one pushed me to do it. My parents were paying for school, so there was no incentive for me. So to me it depends very much on what is driving your desire for him to get a higher score.
Preparing for the SAT and ACT is a long-term process of acquiring knowledge and skills as well as developing effective study and time management strategies that work for you during high school. Test prep classes help you hone/acquire overall test taking skills and learn strategies pertinent to a particular test, but do not compensate for missed opportunities to learn every day in the classroom during high school. So, if it is strategies your son needs to do his best on the ACT or SAT, let him take a test prep class, do what is expected, and even pick up some information he didn’t learn in school. For myself, and in memory of my mother, I would pay for one test-prep class. If he is indifferent to the class, then I would have him pay for subsequent test-prep classes. I would pay for one test, and the second also, if he figured out how to do better then second time. I can’t imagine paying for several test-prep classes and or multiple retake of tests on the chance that scores would increase significantly from one time to the next. Reliability measures the stability/accuracy of test scores. The ACT and SAT, as measures of high school preparation, are designed to minimize fluctuations in test scores. What do you and your son expect to or hope to gain for multiple test-prep classes and several retakes? Getting admitted to college is one thing, but earning good grades in college is on him. Your son needs to take ownership of his academic life. Relax, you are not in competition with other parents or need to figure out how well you compare to other parents on the elusive pushing my kid meter.