Parent of Junior - should we pay for SAT prep?
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Anonymous
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My daughter takes honors/IB and is an A/B student. Last year on the PSAT, she got 1110. She did well on the language portion (90+ percentile) and not as great on math (80+ percentile) - I think overall she was in the 86 percentile or something like that. She's not great at taking standardized/timed tests (runs out of time, especially in math).
As of now, it looks like she'll go to a state college in VA - probably liberal arts - with an undeclared major. She not shooting for UVA. I'd love for her to go to William & Mary (I think it would be a good fit), but I don't think she'll be competitive. Maybe Christopher Newport or JMU or Mary Washington? If these are the schools she's looking at, do you think I should send her to an SAT prep course? I just don't want to spend the money and her time if she's in the ballpark with her SAT scores and looks like a decent candidate for those schools. On the other hand, I will make the investment if her scores are considered low for those schools. Any advice? |
Anonymous
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Yes. Get her tutoring or a class.
She might surprise you, and frankly, those scores aren't as good as her grades. Better scors will get you more $ perhaps. FYI, my son had a score not far from there in 10th and ended up in the 1400s after test prep. He worked hard to make that happen, though |
Anonymous
| Definitley |
Anonymous
She needs to improve her SATs by 200 from the PSAT to get into W&M. |
Anonymous
| Yes I would do it to increase / improve all her options |
Anonymous
| The math portion is easier to raise than the verbal portion. Get her a tutor. It will really help. |
Anonymous
You can't have "we are going to lose, why bother playing the game" attitude. If she wants to try, let her try. Driven kids can improve 200 pts without much difficulties. |
Anonymous
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Consider trying an ACT practice test and an SAT practice test before committing her time and your money to an SAT prep course. My DD had around the same 10th grade PSAT score, did a Kaplan prep classes and never really got much better at taking the SAT (barely hit 1200). She got a 31 on the ACT her first try and didn't prep for it. She was a B+ student and that score was fine for her target schools.
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Anonymous
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"FYI, my son had a score not far from there in 10th and ended up in the 1400s after test prep. He worked hard to make that happen, though."
"You can't have "we are going to lose, why bother playing the game" attitude. If she wants to try, let her try. Driven kids can improve 200 pts without much difficulties. " Our DC is far from driven. That doesn't mean DC doesn't care just that self motivation for anything without an instructor is hard to come by. Since DC had taken several PSAT and ACT practice tests and never done better than 1110ish or the equivalent, we felt if the first SAT didn't result in a score equivalent to his grades we would end up in the "if you are going to lose, why bother playing the game?" pile. We also had more to gain in math than English. We did Kaplan, we got our 200 or so points from 11th PSAT using the 8 classes over 9 weeks plan with less than an hour of studying per week. I'm sure DC worked really hard DURING the 8 classes but that was about it. Now DC's grades and scores match on most Naviance plots and it feels a lot easier to figure if a school is a Reach, Match or Safety. Maybe more importantly, DC seems to feel more confident in being able to handle whatever college dishes out than when it seemed DC's test scores were lacking. |
Anonymous
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You can't have "we are going to lose, why bother playing the game" attitude. If she wants to try, let her try. Driven kids can improve 200 pts without much difficulties. OP here -- I should have mentioned that even though she is a good student and cares about her grades and wants to go to college - she seems to have no motivation to think about what college she might want to go to (other than that she wants to go to go away to college - not too far, but not too close) or what she wants to study. I honestly think she's just overwhelmed by it. College brochures go straight in the trash and she when we broach the topic, she shuts it down. If she were clamoring to do well on the SAT and had any motivation to do some prep - I would enroll her in a heartbeat. She will have no desire to attend a prep class. Thanks for all of the advice so far. I agree about getting her to try the ACT as well - I think she might do better on it. Is 1100 a bad/low score? Will she have trouble getting into some of the schools I listed? |
Anonymous
| Yes mine got into Princeton after taking a prep course...Princeton Review. Great. |
Anonymous
| Yes -I would suggest that your DC take the prep. In Northern VA the scores are so high these days. A super high score is not necessarily a deal breaker at the schools you mentioned, but a strong score gives you one less thing to worry about. |
Anonymous
| if MD, look at UMBC |
Anonymous
| Studies have proven that practice tests are what improve the scores. If you DD will practice on her own, her scores will likely go up without a test prep. If she's not self-motivated to do that, put her in test prep. |
Anonymous
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SAT has partnered with Khan Academy on free practice tests and prep.
Is done totally online. |