Has everyone with a rising junior already started formal SAT prep?

[Anonymous]

It's slowly dawning on me that we may be the only family in the greater metro area that hasn't procured a a formal SAT prep program for our rising junior. If you have a rising junior please tell me what your SAT prep strategies are. It just seems ridiculously early to start but I may be way off base. Help!

[Anonymous]

Believe it or not, not all kids in the metro DC area attend a formal SAT prep course. Maybe at some schools, but not at my DC's in MoCo.

[Anonymous]

I am going to have him take it first and see if he needs a prep course.

[Anonymous]

My DS and several of his friends took the SAT only once and that was during Nov or Jan of their Junior year. If they play a fall/winter sport, there's not much time after school work and sports to prepare for SATs. So they took a prep course in August before Junior year. They were happy to have it "one and done" as they said.

[Anonymous]

You really don't need to start this early. Our sons all played a fall and spring sport, so we did SAT tutoring in January of junior year. This gave us a chance to see how their PSAT scores were and to target tutoring to those areas where they could improve their scores. They all scored above 2200 and were accepted at 1st-choice schools early.

[Anonymous]

What if they do really well when they take it and don't need tutoring. Why not let them take it first before tutoring and possibly save hundreds of dollars? How much is tutoring anyway?

[Anonymous]

OP here - DS took the practice PSAT last year and scored in the "not so great" range. He will definitely need prep of some sort. He's signed up for SAT PREP for one of his electives next year but we were just informed recently that the class is terrible. It consists of lots of worksheets and the kids are graded on whether they do the homework or not. I was hoping for intensive test taking strategy coaching and lots of short practice tests. The kids that took it in the past did not find it that helpful. If anyone else has a kid that took a class in school I'd love to hear about your experiences.

[Anonymous]

Tutoring can actually be more cost-effective than a class b/c you can target the areas where your kid needs to improve.

[Anonymous]

My rising junior will start tutoring in August/September. To me there are two reasons to do it now - get it out of the way without the pressures of school and sports, and/or to prep for the PSAT if you are on the bubble of NMSF. Mine is not on the bubble, and is away this summer, so will start in August. It also depends what test your DC plans to take. The test prep companies usually lay out the schedule to prep for each test date. We are probably aiming at January for the first test.

I don't think many kids at our school take the class at school - it's not that good and it looks bad on the transcript.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My rising junior will start tutoring in August/September. To me there are two reasons to do it now - get it out of the way without the pressures of school and sports, and/or to prep for the PSAT if you are on the bubble of NMSF. Mine is not on the bubble, and is away this summer, so will start in August. It also depends what test your DC plans to take. The test prep companies usually lay out the schedule to prep for each test date. We are probably aiming at January for the first test.

I don't think many kids at our school take the class at school - it's not that good and it looks bad on the transcript.

Thanks PP. I'm annoyed that my DC's counselor didn't try to discourage him from taking the class in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My rising junior will start tutoring in August/September. To me there are two reasons to do it now - get it out of the way without the pressures of school and sports, and/or to prep for the PSAT if you are on the bubble of NMSF. Mine is not on the bubble, and is away this summer, so will start in August. It also depends what test your DC plans to take. The test prep companies usually lay out the schedule to prep for each test date. We are probably aiming at January for the first test.

I don't think many kids at our school take the class at school - it's not that good and it looks bad on the transcript.

Thanks PP. I'm annoyed that my DC's counselor didn't try to discourage him from taking the class in school.

Maybe it depends on the school. Everyone does private classes/tutoring at our school but perhaps at some schools the counselors don't suggest that because of the expense?