SAT prep course for high school junior
Can anyone share experiences with SAT prep courses? My junior is interested in taking a course to help prepare for the SAT that seniors take in the fall. Ideally he could take the course during the summer. Specifically:
Has your child taken a prep course, which one, and do you recommend it?
Other advice on SAT prep would be useful, too.
Thanks.
Feb 27, 2017
Parent Replies
Khan Academy has free online SAT prep -- they are working directly with the College Board, so they can see exactly what you struggled with on the PSAT and give you targeted practice in the areas where you need it most. As much as you want, and as often as you want. For areas where you maybe never understood a concept all that well to begin with, you can access all of their many hours of video tutorials and get a clear explanation. Did I mention that this is FREE? (I did make a donation, but you don't have to -- the whole idea is to level the playing field.) After earning a disappointing score on the math section of the SAT the first time he took it, my son spent many hours practicing on their website last summer and fall, and improved his math score by 150 points. (They have test prep for the verbal section as well). For comparison, we paid for a very expensive one-on-one test-prep tutor for my older child several years ago, and that had no effect on her scores AT ALL. I know I sound like an advertisement here, but seriously, there's no reason not to at least give it a try. I will add that my son was motivated to practice because he wanted to get into a certain school and knew he had no chance unless he improved his score -- and even with that motivation, I still had to nudge QUITE a bit. (Given the results -- dramatically better scores followed by admission to the school, I'm glad I did, although at the time it was definitely one of those classic parenting quandaries -- how much do I push? How much do I let him fail? But that's a topic for another post!)
One thing Khan Academy doesn't have (or at least they didn't -- maybe they've added something) is practice for the section where you write an essay -- you may want a live tutor or class for that part.
I HIGHLY recommend Khan Academy for SAT practice (https://www.khanacademy.org/sat). First, it is FREE and organized by Khan Academy (a non-profit) and the College Board. You can have practice geared towards your weaknesses, take practice tests with timing as in the real test, and have any previous SAT or PSAT test scores transferred over to really target your needed areas of work.
I gave a donation as I was so impressed with the quality of the site. Maybe give it a try first, and if not satisfied, go on to private companies.