Growing up, I dreamed of being a gymnast. My parents told me that before I could have that dream, I needed to at least successfully execute a cartwheel. I simply could not. I am sure that if they hired a gymnastics coach for me, I could have perfected my cartwheels and flips, but no matter how much money they could pour into my gymnastics prep, my body would never be well-suited for the world of gymnastics.
So what do my childhood dreams of being a gymnast have to do with test prep? EXPECTATIONS! Working with so many test prep students, I will hear students (even those who obtain HUGE improvements of 250 points) feel disappointed with their scores. The number they had hoped for was 1450 or 1500.
It’s easy to have these numbers as a goal if you don’t truly understand what the numbers signify. To score a 1450 means you have performed better than 96% of test-takers, and that number jumps up to 98% when speaking of a 1500. To be in the top 4% (or 2%) of test-takers is no easy feat, and, for most students, requires a vast amount of prep and an already-high baseline score. By the very definition of what it means to be top 4%, this is a score that is NOT achievable for most students.
Test scores are only one part of an application — colleges review candidates holistically based on grades, activities, sports, volunteer hours, recommendation letters, standardized tests, etc. Most students are not going to hit that 1450+ mark (even after prep!), and that’s okay! Scholarships open up at many schools at around a 1200 SAT, so a 1450+ isn’t needed for all schools for admission or merit aid considerations.
It’s important to go into a test prep program with realistic expectations. The goal of test prep is to bump a student’s score up a nice amount from their starting pre-prep score. A student starting with a 1020 will most likely not end up with as high of a final score as will a student starting at a 1220. I would be very wary of any test prep professional promising 300+ points as a regular occurrence. We have had our fair share of scores improve by that amount, but most students will not improve by that much. Students will inevitably plateau based on their natural abilities.
So go into a program understanding that test prep isn’t miracle work — you get what your child puts in (better homework completion and participation = better score outcomes!) and shoot for an improvement from where your child is — not just an objective score.
