By Emma Cummins

staff writer

Since its beginning, the SAT has been a measure of how intelligent you are;  it is now often a measure of how much money your parents can cough up on SAT prep.

For many students, SAT prep is a necessity. Nowadays, taking SAT prep has become the standard for many high school students.

Preparation can be very useful in increasing a student’s score and top colleges such as Princeton or Harvard only accept students with almost perfect scores. Because of the high standard, some students begin prep their freshman year of high school which multiplies the cost of prep.

Karen Dillard’s College Prep, with four locations in the Dallas area, offers PSAT/NMSTQT, SAT and ACT test prep and costs $500 in downpayment plus nine monthly payments of $298 which totals at $3,182 if you start your freshman year. This cost covers 14, two hour PSAT/NMSTQT, SAT prep sessions in a class, two in-class diagnostic tests, weekly workshops (Verbal and Math practice sessions, Vocabulary labs, homework assignments and vocabulary lists, and individualized planning for each student. Private tutoring costs $75 per session if a student is enrolled in a complete program.

Both individualized tutoring and a classroom setting are quite expensive and if parents cannot afford either, a student could suffer.

One of my own friends, a sophomore at Coppell High School, is an excellent student. She skipped eighth grade, skipped two grades of math, and is taking very strenuous classes. She has taken the SAT without any prep and received a 1490. This is unusually low from her normal reach of academic success.

My brother took the test without any SAT prep and received an 1870. After taking three months of SAT prep, he was able to score a 2132.

Since the SAT is a very important factor in your college application, having a low score can hurt the student’s chances of being accepted or receiving scholarship money.

Fortunately, there are other ways to prep your student. Libraries offer SAT prep books. College Board, the institution which created the SAT, offers free full SAT tests and questions. College Board also offers online courses for $60.

There are also many other websites providing free SAT prep such as Number2.com which provides SAT and ACT prep while also giving parents the opportunity to check their students progress. ErikTheRed.com is also a specialized online math SAT prep available to students for free.

I am a sophomore and started SAT prep my freshman year at iCollege Prep. Through this prep, I was able to improve both my math and writing scores on practice tests. After about a year, I decided to take a break from the expensive prep and try some alternatives at college board’s online course.

Since, I have not seen as much improvement in my scores. Since the classes are more focused and have a set time it is easier to do better, while doing an online course provides more opportunity to procrastinate which also influences a student’s score.

The SAT prep industry generates more than $1 billion each year, this high amount of revenue is made possible by colleges requiring an SAT and parents paying large amounts of money to improve their students score.

A 2001 Briggs study showed that an overall increase of between 20 to 30 points on the SAT seems to be the average improvement for many SAT prep activities. Unfortunately, there is little data on the effects on long-term test preparation. However, it is proven that test preparation is likely to provide an increase.

Despite SAT prep being helpful, some students can score well without any prep. My uncle earned a 2400 on the SAT without any prep. Unfortunately, nowadays if a student can receive a good score without any prep, they may not have the upper hand in college applications because an average student can receive the same score with large amounts of SAT prep.

Since the SAT is now less indicative of a students knowledge, students and colleges should consider weighing a student’s score less than other components of the application or at the very least factor in a student’s families financial situation.

Spending so much time and money on SAT prep is costly and inconvenient for both students and parents.

Although not ideal, these affordable and available methods are in place for a student to study for the SAT. However, the students who have the money to attend classes or have a private tutor have the upper hand and a better chance of scoring better on the test.

The SAT is very significant in a student’s future and using SAT prep can be a game-changer. Today, the choice to spend money to improve a child’s SAT score or let the student take the test with free prep has become an important decision for all parents with high school students.