SAT prep again--class first, or straight to tutor?

[Anonymous]

I was thinking of enrolling DC in a good review course this summer before junior year, have DC take the SAT in the fall, then work with a tutor during the school year if DC wants to improve score. Does this make sense? Most people on this forum seem to be recommending tutors, not classes, but I feel like a class would help DC get acclimated. Thoughts? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

That may be a more expensive approach since you will be paying for a class and tutoring, unless your DC decides after the fall test he doesn't need help. We went with the tutoring, starting in late August. PSAT in October and SAT in January and March. Now working on subject tests. It never ends.

[Anonymous]

Did he take the PSAT in 10th for practice, if so, if his score were skewed then a tutor might make more sense to spend time on what he needs, if balanced, then maybe a class first. We were amazed to see that just 5-6 sessions for our DD resulted in a 300 point jump in scores between 10th grade PSATs and January junior year SATS. If he did not take practice PSATs, then have him take a timed practice at Prep Matters (free) and see how he does and then decide

[Anonymous]

How do you find a good tutor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did he take the PSAT in 10th for practice, if so, if his score were skewed then a tutor might make more sense to spend time on what he needs, if balanced, then maybe a class first. We were amazed to see that just 5-6 sessions for our DD resulted in a 300 point jump in scores between 10th grade PSATs and January junior year SATS. If he did not take practice PSATs, then have him take a timed practice at Prep Matters (free) and see how he does and then decide

Mine went up 480 points between 10th grade PSATs and March SATs (although the 10th grade baseline may have been a little low, and some of that improvement she would have had just as a result of being a year older). It took more than 5-6 sessions but I do think there is a point of diminishing returns on tutoring, maybe after 10-12 sessions. We also used Prep Matters and were very pleased.

[Anonymous]

It depends on what you need. What do the PSAT scores tell you?

I used to tutor at a center and the ratio was 3:1, so we indidualized our sessions with each kid. That worked well for very low students and high ones. Average kids looking to raise their scores 100 pts or so would probably do fine in a class because getting test taking practice is the key there.

High and low students alike need personal attention to either help gain points on the few types of questions they're missing or review math and reading lessons they should have mastered in middle school.

If you find a good tutor who's willing to get to know your kid, I think your money is better spent. If you just want basic prep and don't want to interview tutors do a class like Kaplan or something.

[Anonymous]

My kid is taking the SAT prep class offered in the public high school by us 1st semester of junior year.

[Anonymous]

Young Scholars in Tysons. Their 12-year old clients score better than 95% of 11th graders.

[Anonymous]

Review course or tutor in the summer is a good idea but would Not take the sat's in the fall of junior year. Our tutor recommended March because havingmore of junior year under your belt helps.

[Anonymous]

I would think taking test more times helps.

[Anonymous]

Does your kid need to improve in a few areas of the test, or overall? Some test prep companies do "diagnostic" SAT tests that try to figure out where your kid is weak (geometry vs. algebra? grammar vs. vocabulary?). Then they focus on those particular areas, either in a small group setting or through one-on-one tutoring, with the price varying accordingly.

DC used a well-known company that promised to do this. While I like the concept, frankly, DC thought it was a bit of a scam because they focused on what the whole class needed anyway, even though the class was small. Your experience may vary with another company, of course. If money is an issue, the Princeton test prep folks have an on-line course that starts out with one of these "diagnostic" tests and then is mostly online with maybe a few mandatory in-person classes (as I recall, when we looked at it, there were 2-3 in-person classes at UMD the student needed to attend).

Another thing I've read is that some test prep companies have been accused of administering super-hard tests at the start of the class/tutoring, so that the results by the end are naturally 100s of points higher. (I don't think this was in the context of diagnostic tests, either.) If you have results from an actual SAT test, of course, you have a reliable baseline.

[Anonymous]

We have used Capital Educators twice and were very pleased with the results.
www.capitaleducators.com

[Anonymous]

I would disagree about waiting until March of junior year, if at all possible, getting SATs out of the way in January really helps decrease the incredible stress and time crunch of the spring of junior year, if your child has AP exams to take, likely SAT subject tests as well, and junior year grades are critical, so being able to put SATs behind the child is incredibly useful, in our experience with our two DDs in the last 4 years. Particularly if in any sort of accelerated math, he/she will have covered all the math that is on the SATs by the end of 9th or 10th grade or even earlier. I am sure verbal in terms of vocab and writing does improve with maturity to some degree, but really doubt January vs March will make a difference in that respect and getting it out of the way is so beneficial if possible. Plus everywhere seems to "superscore" so one lower score or even the entire test being not so great can be overcome if scores higher on the next sitting. One of our kids took SATs in 9th grade with no prep at all because needed to have for entry to a summer course she wanted to take at a college, she had never taken a long standardized test even, and she didn't do very well at all, didn't seem to be an issue when the next time she took the test junior year (plus PSATs) she was a NMSF and Presidential scholar nominee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would disagree about waiting until March of junior year, if at all possible, getting SATs out of the way in January really helps decrease the incredible stress and time crunch of the spring of junior year, if your child has AP exams to take, likely SAT subject tests as well, and junior year grades are critical, so being able to put SATs behind the child is incredibly useful, in our experience with our two DDs in the last 4 years. Particularly if in any sort of accelerated math, he/she will have covered all the math that is on the SATs by the end of 9th or 10th grade or even earlier. I am sure verbal in terms of vocab and writing does improve with maturity to some degree, but really doubt January vs March will make a difference in that respect and getting it out of the way is so beneficial if possible. Plus everywhere seems to "superscore" so one lower score or even the entire test being not so great can be overcome if scores higher on the next sitting. One of our kids took SATs in 9th grade with no prep at all because needed to have for entry to a summer course she wanted to take at a college, she had never taken a long standardized test even, and she didn't do very well at all, didn't seem to be an issue when the next time she took the test junior year (plus PSATs) she was a NMSF and Presidential scholar nominee.

We did sat's in march and it had very little effect on preparing for ap's and subject tests. Ap's are in May and we took one subject in 10th and 2 in 11th. We spaced out the two and dis one in may and one in June. There wasn't a lot if studying needed for subject tests since dc only took subject tests that they ere taking the AP in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would disagree about waiting until March of junior year, if at all possible, getting SATs out of the way in January really helps decrease the incredible stress and time crunch of the spring of junior year, if your child has AP exams to take, likely SAT subject tests as well, and junior year grades are critical, so being able to put SATs behind the child is incredibly useful, in our experience with our two DDs in the last 4 years. Particularly if in any sort of accelerated math, he/she will have covered all the math that is on the SATs by the end of 9th or 10th grade or even earlier. I am sure verbal in terms of vocab and writing does improve with maturity to some degree, but really doubt January vs March will make a difference in that respect and getting it out of the way is so beneficial if possible. Plus everywhere seems to "superscore" so one lower score or even the entire test being not so great can be overcome if scores higher on the next sitting. One of our kids took SATs in 9th grade with no prep at all because needed to have for entry to a summer course she wanted to take at a college, she had never taken a long standardized test even, and she didn't do very well at all, didn't seem to be an issue when the next time she took the test junior year (plus PSATs) she was a NMSF and Presidential scholar nominee.

I posted earlier that my DC took it in January and March and I agree. Most kids, at least at our school, are taking them at least twice. If you wait till March for the first one you have to use May or June for the second. My DC is using May/June for subject tests (not to mention APs stuck in the middle there).

The other benefit of starting in January (or even December - lots of kids at our school took the December test) is that if you are using spring break for college visits you have a sense of realistic fits based on scores and can schedule your visits accordingly.