Too Much for Too Little: How Ridge Students Over-Prepare for the SAT

This past Saturday, many of Ridge High School's juniors took the SAT for what they hoped to be the last time. The exam itself costs almost $50 and takes over four hours to complete. However, for many students, it also represents the culmination of weeks, or even months, of studying, practice, and preparation.

Now, preparation is all well and good. As the most utilized college entrance exam in most of the Northeast, the SAT (the letters don't stand for any words anymore) is certainly an important test. But I think that many, if not most, Ridge High School students go overboard in preparing for the SAT (and for its sister test, the ACT).

First, we buy SAT prep books. We then spend countless hours taking practice tests so that we "become familiar with the types of questions that will appear on the test." More and more of us enroll in SAT prep classes; some even meet for hours with private tutors. We waste days simply completing the homework assigned by these prep classes and tutors. And we sit for the SAT twice, three times, or even four times.

All this preparation for the SAT takes up not only time, but also money. SAT prep courses can cost anywhere from $500 to $1000, and private tutoring can be five or ten times that. And even taking the test itself multiple times not only eats up Saturday mornings, but consumes a significant amount of money.

So, for its great cost in time and money, what does all this preparation accomplish? Juniors often convince themselves that a good SAT score alone will ensure entrance into top colleges, or that a bad score will condemn them to less competitive universities. However, I don't think that colleges place nearly as much weight on the SAT as high school students believe.

For example, some preparation classes guarantee that "Your score will go up 100 points, or your money back!" If paying $700 for a preparation course can truly guarantee a score increase of 100 points, then how can a college distinguish between two students who received scores within 100 points of each other?—the student with the higher score may have simply taken a prep course.

Furthermore, statistically, the average prep course only increases students' total score by about 20 to 30 points. There is absolutely no reason for a college to differentiate between such close scores when the SAT remains only a small part of an application that also includes a transcript, activity resume and multiple recommendation letters.

True, some preparation for the SAT is helpful, and probably necessary. But Ridge High School pays for and offers, free to students, an online review course containing practice tests and study material. Further review books only cost about $20, and are also available in the Ridge High School and Bernards Township libraries. Personally, I did quite well on my SAT after taking it only once and utilizing just these materials, and I know many friends who could say the same.

Overall, I think that Ridge juniors drastically over-prepare for the SAT and ACT. They and their parents spend too much time and too much money trying to improve scores that really matter very little in the end anyway. That time would be much better utilized doing some activity that actually prepares one for college and for life—like volunteering, working, or studying up on anything at all other than how to take the SAT.