COllege Admissions News and ACT / SAT Strategy

This year, College Board—the organization responsible for designing and administering the SAT—has made several massive changes to the format of the test. While the SAT has always improved and refined the exam, this year’s changes are going to change the ways high school students all over the world prep for the standardized exam. If you’re planning to apply to college in the near future, then you’ll want to make sure you’re fully prepared for the new SAT.

For ambitious students looking to get into a good college and launch a successful career, SAT prep is a time-honored tradition. For years, increasing numbers of students have been turning to online SAT prep to get themselves ready for test day. In the age of coronavirus, online SAT prep has gone from a convenience to a necessity. But with more and more test prep resources coming online every day, how do you know you’re getting the best online SAT prep for you? Your personal preferences, learning style, financial situation, and more can influence whether online SAT tutoring or online SAT courses are a better fit.

By the time you’re a junior or senior in high school, you’ve probably already heard a lot about the importance of the SAT. This is the standardized test most colleges and universities accept for admissions purposes. Since the SAT has so much influence over your higher education and, therefore, your career, many students work with a tutor for their SAT prep. This is an excellent idea, and something every future SAT-taker would benefit from. But of course, when it comes to selecting a tutor, you’ll have to consider not only the quality of the tutoring, but also the SAT tutoring cost. If you’ve never gone down this road before, there’s a huge range of SAT tutoring rates. In this article we explore what you should expect to pay for your SAT prep cost, and what the rate says about the quality of the education.

College Board Cancels all Spring SAT Exams

Having already cancelled its May 2 SAT test date, CollegeBoard announced this past week that it will be canceling its previously scheduled June 6 test date worldwide as well. This means that there will not be another SAT exam offered until August 29 at the very earliest, so nearly six months will have passed between possible SAT administrations for juniors planning to take the exam this year. In making this announcement, CollegeBoard also indicated that it is preparing an online version of the exam in the fall should in-person administrations still be prohibited by the pandemic. This follows in the footsteps of announcements from both GMAC and ETS that, at least temporarily, each organization would be offering and at-home online GMAT and an at-home online GRE exam respecctively.

In a previous article, we discussed the three main options to choose from when preparing for the SAT exam: self study, 1-1 tutoring, and group classes. In this post, we take a deeper look at self-paced SAT prep courses specifically, the niche’s top providers, pros and cons, and how to make the most of your experience should you decide to take one of these courses.  

When preparing for the SAT exam, you must decide pretty early on which study approach you will take. Although you can always switch strategies if something isn’t working for you or you don’t achieve the score you want, we’re hoping this article will help you make the right decision without unnecessarily wasting time and money on the wrong SAT prep method. Below you’ll find the three most prominent SAT prep options: self study, 1-1 tutoring, and SAT classes, as well as the pros and cons of each.