SAT Tutoring
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Anonymous
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DS is a junior. He didn't study for the November SAT and got a 2120. Most of his friends are getting 2250+ and he found out that all of them (except for 2) are paying $1000+ for tutoring. I really can't afford that - is he at that much of a disadvantage in admissions?
I'm encouraging him to study for March but studying has never been his strong suit, school comes to easy for him and he's never found he's had to. |
Anonymous
| If your kid is doing that well taking the test cold, he should be able to do even better by taking a bunch of practice tests and checking where he makes mistakes. I don't think there's any magic to hiring an expert tutor. That said, we are in the process of doing so for our ADHD kid, who just will not get around to taking practice tests unless we pay someone to supervise her doing so. Could you pay your son by the practice test? |
Anonymous
| If your kid is doing that well taking the test cold, he should be able to do even better by taking a bunch of practice tests and checking where he makes mistakes. I don't think there's any magic to hiring an expert tutor. That said, we are in the process of doing so for our ADHD kid, who just will not get around to taking practice tests unless we pay someone to supervise her doing so. Could you pay your son by the practice test? |
Anonymous
| He clearly has the SAT part down. Are the scores about equal across the threes sections? I try to get my kids at the very least to get the answer sheet and questions and see what they got wrong. You just saved yourself $1000s. Congrats. |
Anonymous
His scores were low 700s (I think 730) Reading, high 700s (I think 760) Math, and 630 Writing, so no, they weren't even. Good idea about the answer sheets. I think if I can get him to just practice writing he'll be okay. |
Anonymous
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Those are very good scores. Writing is by the least important--lots of colleges don't even consider it. It's also easy to improve your score in it (at least my DD's score improved 150 points by just looking at some examples).
Also, with those scores, he'll probably be looking at colleges that require SAT II subject test. So there's that too. |
Anonymous
Yeah he took Math 2 (in Jan) but again he didn't study and claimed to have missed the last two questions (as in, didn't see them). Sigh. He got a 760. |
Anonymous
| I'm an SAT tutor and the Reading score is the easiest to improve. Get him an SAT vocab book (or print out a free list online) and have him memorize all of the vocab. It's the best and easiest way to raise the CR score. |
Anonymous
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Looking for an SAT tutor or excellent class. Suggestions?
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Anonymous
He actually didn't miss any vocab questions, so that won't help. |
Anonymous
| Then you have no problems. Next. |
Anonymous
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Get him the SAT Bluebook. It is better than any tutoring for a kid with scores that high. And "all his friends " getting 2250 is highly doubtful. Only about 14,000 kids nationwide score that high out of the 1,600,000 who take it.
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Anonymous
Tbh he doesn't have that many friends. He doesn't seem to have any trouble making them but he doesn't like a lot of people and culls it down to just a few people. He's very, very studious (except for actual studying, he hates that), and loves reading (and discussing) gigantic books about history or linguistics or whatever other subject he wants to read about at that time. He also genuinely enjoys math (the theory of it) but can't stand actually solving equations. He managed to get a 77% on a calculus test without making a single calculus error, just making stupid simple math mistakes. He gets along with people who are most like him, so you can imagine what they're like. So, his friend group (I guess that would be the best thing to call them?) is 5 or 6 kids who are all taking 5+ APs and are good at pretty much everything. They've started taking their SATs so DS was surprised when his scores were 100-200 points lower then everyone else. Just today he was talking to one of his friends (who got a 2250), when she casually mentioned an SAT prep course. He asked more and it turned out that all of them but one had tutors or were taking prep courses. He knew they were studying more than him but didn't know about this. The one friend who didn't have a tutor and was just studying on her own got a 2180 (which was the second lowest score out of all of them, and the only other score below 2250 any of them received), so he's worried that a tutor is necessary. Anyways, thanks for the suggestion. I'll definitely check the blue book out. Certainly looks more appealing than a prep class. |
Anonymous
| He does not need a tutor. If he wants a higher score he should just do the blue book tests. His score is exceptionally high. |
Anonymous
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I will be a bit of a contrarian here. It depends where he wants to go to college. If he wants to go to a top school then he'll need a 2250-2300 unless he's an athlete or some other preferred category. My DC's score is closer to 2200 (also with a lower writing score) and it's not high enough for some schools.
$1000 for a class sounds like a good deal though. Many are more than that, and tutors can run $3000+. |