I’m shocked folks pay so much for SAT prep. Who knew $6,600 was a bargain price!
I just tossed my DD and DS a $20 SAT study guide…
That was my approach, too, @Gator88NE. I think he spent a total of about 10 minutes looking at it. 
I paid my son $200 to take four practice tests. 0$ for one, or two, or three, but $200 (total) for four.
That’s about minimum wage.
At the end, he was familiar with the test, the pace, the types of questions, and the effort required to do well.
He did fine, and it was money well spent.
Actually, it is a textbook example of the economic concept of price discrimination. (The word “discrimination” does not necessarily mean racial discrimination, even though lots of people use it that way.)
Of course, price discrimination is prominent in colleges, due to the practice of charging each student an individualized net price after scholarships and financial aid.
Yes, $6,000 to $8,400 seems to be an absurd amount to pay for SAT preparation.
Not surprising since these SAT prep companies figured out Asian families will pay whatever price to get their kids’ scores up enough to compete for Ivy admissions. Those kids will also start taking SATs as early as in middle school.
Fascinating use of technology for price discrimination. It looks like they are pricing their products higher in areas of higher demand which is Econ 101. However, this might run into problems with disparate impact rules if Asian Americans are considered a protected class.
I guess the price difference may be due to region and where “happens” to make larger Asian population. In my town, there is a fixed price for anyone to sign up, although they offer coupons to some students sometimes.
Elite is a popular SAT prep outfit around here with the Asian families. I don’t think they charge more that $3-4k though??
I was unaware of this too. Suburbs of NYC. We paid $999 for unlimited prep. He could take as many act and/or sat prep as he wanted! $6600? Never heard of such a class. But I don’t doubt they exist.
Last year went looking for SAT test prep for D. Found a place walking distance from her school, so decided to check it out since she could get there easily on her own. They wouldn’t give us prices until she took a practice test. Then they insisted both mom and dad bring her to review to practice test results and discuss the prep she’d need. The director went through each section highlighting all her deficiencies and made her feel stupid and embarrassed… and proceeded to tell us the prep to get her to an acceptable level would cost $6800!! No wonder they wanted both parents there.
Our mouths hit the floor. We had no idea these places existed. Needless to say we didn’t pay anything close to that at another place (who gave prices over the phone!)
But if it is more expensive, it must be better, right?
The article did mention the word “premium”. May be there are different level of services?
My older one did take the Princeton Review prep 3 years ago. I believed it “only” costed $600-$700.
She said it was totally useless. She was pretty lazy - would not have taken any practice tests without the paid class to push her along.
For the younger one, I did what the parent above stated - bought her a Barron’s guide ($20).
Took some cajoling during 4 weekends to have her take all 4 practice tests in the book (it was somewhat painful for me too - to time her and grade her). But that was it. :o)
You big spender, you! I only paid $15 for a study guide.
$150 - $200 one on one per hour is a common price in Asia
I forgot to mention the $15 book was all it took for DS to score in the top percentile.
People who are spending $100’s or $1000’s on test prep have more dollars than sense…
Article is kind of misleading. It suggests in the beginning that certain zip codes are targeted for highest price due to large Asian populations. However, it then clarifies that ALL of NYC is offered the highest price, whether a high income or low income zip code. The data may also suggest that very few families making $41K or so are paying over $8K for Princeton Review.
There’s a sucker born every minute, as P.T. Barnum well knew. Any entrepreneur offering services to maximize junior’s or Missy’s test scores to “Ivy League Level” will never go broke in America.
Quite a shock to me to learn that it can cost so much for SAT prep.
For people who can pay 60K+ for elite college, it’s not that expensive if it “work” is it? Just a one time investment. Then of course I don’t know anyone who ended up in super selective elite colleges actually needed that type of prep. Just get the paperbacks from Amazon and go at them. Unless someone has a real weakness for test taking? But wouldn’t ADHD diagnosis be more effective?