Students with above-average scores on standardized admissions tests are likely to get the greatest benefit from commercial test preparation, according to a new report from the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Yet those benefits may not outweigh the costs for many families, says the report’s author, Derek C. Briggs, associate professor of education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “If there are effects to be gained through preparation,” Mr. Briggs said, “can you get the same effect without spending the money? That’s a pertinent question in this economy.”
Existing research suggests that coaching tends to raise students’ SAT scores by up to 30 points. Yet students cannot necessarily attribute gains they might see to coaching alone, Mr. Briggs says.
After all, students who take the test more than once tend to see their scores increase anyway. So, Mr. Briggs suggests, some students may raise their scores just as much by doing what he once did: taking a series of practice tests in a relatively inexpensive book.
But even if test takers raise their scores by 30 points, would that make a difference in admissions? It may depend on the scores they start with and the selectiveness of the colleges to which they apply.
In his report, “Preparation for College Admission Exams,” Mr. Briggs examined to what extent such increases influence admissions decisions. One third of colleges he surveyed agreed that in some cases an increase of 20 points on the SAT’s math section, or an increase of 10 points on the critical-reading section, would “significantly improve” an applicant’s chances.
The proportion of colleges that agreed with that statement rose as the base SAT scores (the scores earned before the gains) increased. That was especially true of more-selective colleges, where applicants’ scores fall in a relatively narrow range.
“If you come from a wealthy family and have high scores to begin with and can spend $1,000, then test prep might be worth it for those 30 points,” Mr. Briggs said. “What’s unfortunate is if middle-class or poorer families think test prep is going to raise their scores by 300 points. If you’re a kid with scores between 400 to 500, I’m not sure it’s going to make any difference.”
Seppy Basili, a vice president at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, was concerned about what that conclusion might say to test takers, particularly black and Hispanic students who, on average, do not score as high as their white peers on the SAT. “I wouldn’t want the message to minority students to be that you can’t benefit by preparing,” said Mr. Basili, who had not seen the report but was familiar with its findings.
Mr. Basili agreed that practice alone can help students improve their scores, but he described effective test preparation as something that also helps students analyze the mistakes they make on exams and develop strategies for correcting them.
Yet Mr. Basili agreed with at least one of Mr. Briggs’s observations: the quality of test coaching, like anything else, varies. “I would be the first to tell you that not all test prep is great,” Mr. Basili said.
