SAT tutoring--how to select a company

[Anonymous]

We're considering one-on-one SAT tutoring for our 11th grader. I'm trying to figure out how much intensive tutoring is worth it--for example, one place we are looking at recommends 20 hours of tutoring and 2-3 hours of additional SAT homework a week, and another recommends 10-12 hours of tutoring and 1 hour of homework a week. Is there a norm here, or a point at which kids kind of max out and the extra hours don't help that much? How far ahead of the SAT test should tutoring begin? For context DD scored 1340 on the PSAT, with the same scores in verbal and math. The tutoring can be so expensive and time-consuming, but we also want to give DD the best shot at a strong score. Thank you for any advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're considering one-on-one SAT tutoring for our 11th grader. I'm trying to figure out how much intensive tutoring is worth it--for example, one place we are looking at recommends 20 hours of tutoring and 2-3 hours of additional SAT homework a week, and another recommends 10-12 hours of tutoring and 1 hour of homework a week. Is there a norm here, or a point at which kids kind of max out and the extra hours don't help that much? How far ahead of the SAT test should tutoring begin? For context DD scored 1340 on the PSAT, with the same scores in verbal and math. The tutoring can be so expensive and time-consuming, but we also want to give DD the best shot at a strong score. Thank you for any advice.

DC never used any prep or tutoring. But this feels so strange, are you sure it's not the other way around? More practice, and tailored tutoring based on the results of the practice? What would make sense to me would be 2-3 hours of practice and one hour tutoring per week? Perhaps starting 10 weeks prior to the test date?

1340 is a great PSAT score so whatever you do I am pretty sure your DC will have a good outcome.

[Anonymous]

Having just gone through this, here is what I recommend/what worked for my 11th grade DD. She is naturally a strong test taker; scored a 1470 on October PSAT without much effort/practice. She then started preparing for the SAT and used the blue book practice tests (there are 7 of them I think) and the associated practice SAT question bank. On her first BB practice test she scored in the low 1400s - math was surprisingly low (for her - she prefers math/STEM). Turns out, for the new digital SAT you must familiarize yourself with and be able to use DESMOS (the built in calculator). Because it has made the math section so easy, the test makers have increased the complexity of the harder math problems - generally if you try to solve them by hand it takes too much time - you need to use DESMOS or you will run out of time on the math section. DD started watching YouTube videos for DESMOS tips and tricks; we also decided to get a tutor to teach the tricks. With a tutor I think it is helpful to find one that actually took the digital SAT since it is so different (with different test taking strategies than for the old SAT). I went on Wyzant and searched for a college aged tutor who had scored 1580 or so on the SAT. Bonus - your kid will relate to a college aged tutor and they will be cheap (I paid $30/hour). My DD met with two different tutors for about 5 hours total (she liked both but the first one couldn’t continue after two sessions). In the meantime she started acing the BB practice tests, taking 5 more and scoring between 1520-1580. All the while she also randomly would do some practice problems from SAT question bank - down time in class? Do a question or two (since they have laptops with them in class with bluebook software on it). Etc. DD just took November SAT and scored 1540. Total prep time about 6 weeks (1 hour of tutoring a week; maybe 5-7 hours a week crunching practice SAT questions). First thing to do would be a baseline practice test so you know what you are working with. Good luck!!

[Anonymous]

The best sort of companies will allow you to start off with 1 hour per week and increase/decrease depending on how it goes. My kid needed the one hour per week but also put in about 5 hours total weekly between the assigned homework and practice tests. Really we felt we were paying for the structured game plan more than the one hour of face time with the tutor. Weekly feedback was also really valuable.

This was for about 8 weeks during the summer, after which she was prepared to reach her goal score. I'm sure that if she put in more time on her own (not more costly lessons) she could have bumped up maybe 10-20 points.

Good luck, OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having just gone through this, here is what I recommend/what worked for my 11th grade DD. She is naturally a strong test taker; scored a 1470 on October PSAT without much effort/practice. She then started preparing for the SAT and used the blue book practice tests (there are 7 of them I think) and the associated practice SAT question bank. On her first BB practice test she scored in the low 1400s - math was surprisingly low (for her - she prefers math/STEM). Turns out, for the new digital SAT you must familiarize yourself with and be able to use DESMOS (the built in calculator). Because it has made the math section so easy, the test makers have increased the complexity of the harder math problems - generally if you try to solve them by hand it takes too much time - you need to use DESMOS or you will run out of time on the math section. DD started watching YouTube videos for DESMOS tips and tricks; we also decided to get a tutor to teach the tricks. With a tutor I think it is helpful to find one that actually took the digital SAT since it is so different (with different test taking strategies than for the old SAT). I went on Wyzant and searched for a college aged tutor who had scored 1580 or so on the SAT. Bonus - your kid will relate to a college aged tutor and they will be cheap (I paid $30/hour). My DD met with two different tutors for about 5 hours total (she liked both but the first one couldn’t continue after two sessions). In the meantime she started acing the BB practice tests, taking 5 more and scoring between 1520-1580. All the while she also randomly would do some practice problems from SAT question bank - down time in class? Do a question or two (since they have laptops with them in class with bluebook software on it). Etc. DD just took November SAT and scored 1540. Total prep time about 6 weeks (1 hour of tutoring a week; maybe 5-7 hours a week crunching practice SAT questions). First thing to do would be a baseline practice test so you know what you are working with. Good luck!!

+1. Almost identical approach and outcome for our DD. You can also ask the Wyzant tutor to spend a little of their time making a "practice plan" for the student in between sessions for a little accountability if your student needs that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're considering one-on-one SAT tutoring for our 11th grader. I'm trying to figure out how much intensive tutoring is worth it--for example, one place we are looking at recommends 20 hours of tutoring and 2-3 hours of additional SAT homework a week, and another recommends 10-12 hours of tutoring and 1 hour of homework a week. Is there a norm here, or a point at which kids kind of max out and the extra hours don't help that much? How far ahead of the SAT test should tutoring begin? For context DD scored 1340 on the PSAT, with the same scores in verbal and math. The tutoring can be so expensive and time-consuming, but we also want to give DD the best shot at a strong score. Thank you for any advice.

DC never used any prep or tutoring. But this feels so strange, are you sure it's not the other way around? More practice, and tailored tutoring based on the results of the practice? What would make sense to me would be 2-3 hours of practice and one hour tutoring per week? Perhaps starting 10 weeks prior to the test date?

1340 is a great PSAT score so whatever you do I am pretty sure your DC will have a good outcome.

OP back, thank you for the comments so far! Just to clarify on this question, because I realize I didn't phrase things so well--both companies recommend weekly tutoring of 1 or 1.5 hours each time. But one company recommends 10 total hours of tutoring and the other about 20. Separately, they recommend homework each week in addition to that (1 hour for one company, 2-3 hours for the other). So the total amount of studying is really different, and I'm trying to figure out what makes sense. Thank you again! It's very helpful hearing what worked for your kids.