SAT preparation By, Chelsea Mesa

The College Board believes that by spending time in school, taking AP courses, and reading widely is the best preparation for the SAT’s rather than spending money on Kaplan, Princeton, Hunter, and Kepler  SAT prep courses.

Students already have an advantage on doing well on the SAT by working in AP classes. The population of students that score high on the SAT’s practice on their own. To go out and pay top dollar for practice is inefficient. Academic studies about the effectiveness of SAT preparation found that the average score increase as a result of the prep courses is 30 points.

David Hawkins, a counselor at the Association of College Admissions says, “Preparing for the test is a good idea. Perhaps investing large sums of money in that preparation may not be as good of an idea because as the research suggests, you can probably get similar increases just by doing some self study.”

If students are willing to give up their free time to go and support their future, they don’t need a helping hand to succeed in this venture. The current student body only has itself to worry about. Sure it would be nice to have someone there to help and guide a troubled student to succeeding on the SAT but so much money goes into these courses yet students who take the courses don’t score any higher than students who study independently.

The test is assessed to see how far one can reason, the word SAT itself is an abbreviation of  “Scholastic Aptitude Test.”  It’s possible to score high any student could do it, the courses and private tutoring can cost several thousand dollars as opposed to $30 or so for a study guide.

If students actually began to prepare on their own  and dedicate time to focus on the practice for this test, this school will begin to have a greater total in scholarship money and also higher GPAs. It depends on the student, but to hire someone to do a job that a responsible teenager can do alone isn’t worth it.