Is SAT Prep worth it? Honest opinion based on these particulars please...

[Anonymous]

DC took SAT cold - 1450. Doesn't want to go to Ivy League or top selective schools - in fact most schools on list are safeties/on target for GPA/SAT/APs. Is it worth the $$ and annoyance of SAT prep to possibly boost score just for the remote possibility of merit (not need-based) aid? Khan not an option because DC won't focus on prep without having an organized course.

[Anonymous]

No not worth it if they’re not willing to even put the tiny bit if effort khan academy requires I wouldn’t spend money on something else.

[Anonymous]

Has she taken PSAT? My kid ended up being a national merit scholar and got a full ride based off of just that. So it was worth it, but otherwise not really.

[Anonymous]

2 DCs both took the SAT cold last year and scored low 1400s, but both wanted 1500+. They each did a few full-length practice tests on Khan Academy over the course of 2-3 months (which apparently are scored instantly and are the official SAT practice tests released by College Board, at least that's what DC1 told me) and then took the SAT again, and both went up over 100 points. DC1 didn't want to do Khan Academy "prep" either, but went to check it out and found the practice tests and figured that was the best use of time... and when DC1 had such success, DC2 decided to follow in sib's footsteps a few months later. DC1 flew through practice exams and practice scores weren't as high as actual SAT score, DC2 was more diligent and actual score was consistent with increasing practice exam scores. But both said that by practice 3 or so, they were seeing similar questions, and understood how to do them. Of course, most of the learning was in reviewing the mistakes, but apparently Khan Academy makes it really easy to instantly review the actual questions/answers you got wrong. FWIW.

[Anonymous]

Is your DC a rising junior or senior? A lot of kids go up 50-100 points between junior and senior year. If your DC is willing to take the test again (many schools offer it free during the school day in October), I bet they will see some improvement without test prep.

[Anonymous]

Do any of the schools publish their merit aid standards? Some public schools do. It might incentivize your kid if there’s real money on the line. If DC decides to go for it, maybe a few hours of private tutoring? They don’t have a lot of content gaps at that high score. A few hours of working on errors and strategies may be all that’s needed. But it’s a great score as is if not applying to Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC took SAT cold - 1450. Doesn't want to go to Ivy League or top selective schools - in fact most schools on list are safeties/on target for GPA/SAT/APs. Is it worth the $$ and annoyance of SAT prep to possibly boost score just for the remote possibility of merit (not need-based) aid? Khan not an option because DC won't focus on prep without having an organized course.

if your kid starts with 1450 then the answer is probably no. Just do the free one on Khan Academy and more practices.

[Anonymous]

If DC is a junior/rising senior, then I’d say they probably have a decent idea where they want to apply to college, and if 1450 is in the 75th percentile for those colleges, then agree no need to prep and retake the SAT.

If DC is a soph/rising junior, then I’d say their ideas for where they want to go to college could change a lot over the next year, and why close off options when it would be easy to do a few weeks of prep and increase the score to over 1500 (which seems to be an unofficial baseline score for a lot of colleges). Also if the 1450 isn’t at the 75th percent mark for the colleges your dc is interested in, I’d suggest they do a small amount of prep and try to hit that threshhold.

[Anonymous]

I vote no. If your kid is over 700 in each section, it check the boxes pretty much everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I vote no. If your kid is over 700 in each section, it check the boxes pretty much everywhere.

In this case just misses 700 on the math - very high on the verbal. Isn't interested in engineering. Does that matter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I vote no. If your kid is over 700 in each section, it check the boxes pretty much everywhere.

In this case just misses 700 on the math - very high on the verbal. Isn't interested in engineering. Does that matter?

Depends on the schools this kid will apply to. Look up their (pre-test-optional) score ranges in the 2020-2021 Common Data Sets for the schools in question.

Note that some schools that may be low matches or safeties on the list might give scholarships for high scores, though for those cases, I don't know how key >700 math would be.

[Anonymous]

Nope not needed. My kid scored that didn’t aim for ivys. Got into many top 30 and is in their dream school.

[Anonymous]

All programs/tutoring require organized self study (a la Khan) so lack of motivation there says to me that your money would be wasted. And all programs around here are very pricey. However, if they are willing to do Khan for just a few weeks I would guess that that score would raise. Khan is pretty structured btw

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I vote no. If your kid is over 700 in each section, it check the boxes pretty much everywhere.

In this case just misses 700 on the math - very high on the verbal. Isn't interested in engineering. Does that matter?

For my Ivy, that wouldn’t meet the math score threshold for a stem major but your DC isn’t interested in stem (or an Ivy) so it won’t be a make or break it factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I vote no. If your kid is over 700 in each section, it check the boxes pretty much everywhere.

In this case just misses 700 on the math - very high on the verbal. Isn't interested in engineering. Does that matter?

So all he’d have to prep for is math - he could do 3 sessions with a private tutor with little to no work in between and likely pull his math up enough to brig him to 1500.