Test prep in Manhattan appears to be a very profitable business, with some companies charging in excess of $500 per hour – for a tutor. Have these tutors unlocked secrets at the very heart of these tests? Are there secrets to be unlocked, or is test success more a result of a motivated student and lots of practice? There is certainly no scientific study showing evidence one way or the other. But panicked parents are afraid to be left behind. To be sure, there are many NYC students who attend group classes or work with great tutors that they found on Craigslist or by word of mouth. Anecdotally, it appears that these kids see improved test scores as well.
Are fancy test prep companies the “it bag” of the private school world? Is there more value to be found in an expensive tutor relative to less pricey assistance? Do colleges have an expectation that kids at NYC private schools must score higher than those at suburban public schools? How did we even get to this place? What can a panicked parent do?
I have had great luck using Craigslist, for FAR LESS $$, but the key factor was the way the tutor teaches and how the child learns. (Have had two go through the SAT process) There were tutors here, who themselves graduated from the most elite schools, that I thought were great and my kids rejected them to my dismay. And then tutors that just clicked….gave my child what he needed, and the whole process worked well. There is also no doubt that practicing the tests themselves is a huge help, and also that the child has to do the “homework”–whether it’s learning the vocab cards or doing math sections, the practice-makes-perfect model is the backbone of many of the most expensive “it” companies.
I agree that the most important factor in increasing test scores is whether the student is willing to put in the time, do the homework and take the practice tests. Whether the student likes his/her tutor might contribute to this willingness. It is unfortunate that the competitive nature of many NYC parents have driven up the price of tutors. The most expensive tutoring companies show the same bump up in scores as obtained by a self-motivated student studying regularly on his/her own. In my personal experience, paying a lot of money for a tutor helped only by adding a guilt factor in getting my child to study.
I was, by NYC standards, realistic in my approach to this issue. I knew that Olympic medal nagging wouldn’t get my kids to study with books or do practice tests on their own– they were already too busy. My aunt, a teacher for forty years, said that everyone she knew hired Princeton Review SAT prep tutors, the basic level, which is about a quarter of the highest tutoring rate I heard from other companies. We had the same SAT prep tutor for both girls, and both did very well. That tutor helped us find two tutors who were not in the Princeton Review group for special test tutoring (physics and bio) and they were $100.00 per hour. We did spend money on this to support our children, but didn’t go near the scary $500.00 per hour companies.
We decided not to go the route of private tutoring for our senior daughter; she attends an excellent private school and we believed she would do fine on the tests on her own. She took it upon herself to buy the SAT guidebooks, study them and take all the practice exams, and she did exceptionally well on her SATs and subject tests. I’m dismayed that so many parents buy into the whole tutoring myth without question and that it has become one more way in which we commodify our children.
This article was very useful for a paper I am writing for my thesis.
Thanks
Bernice Franklin
At what grade did most of you begin the test prep? Junior year? Senior? Sophomore?
With one child, I began at the beginning of senior year, which was typical of his class. (He is now a senior in college.) But he is a great test taker and he did extremely well. Then in the shadow of that, I thought I better start earlier with my second child because he was not a natural. I started what seemed quite early, Nov of 10th grade, which turned out to be a brilliant strategy because it took off a lot of pressure. He had a lot of time to build up the test taking skills, which he really needed, such as learning the vocabulary. His practice test scores went up slowly, plateau, then up again, etc–in other words, no “break through” moments, but by the end, he ended up with fantastic scores, through sheer consistent, steady practicing and working with the tutor. But my point is that it was a long process–not his idea of fun! but not as compressed and pressured as it would have been if we started later. Also, as an unintended but good side effect, his improving writing and reading skills also showed up in his junior year school work.
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