ACT / SAT? Is Tutoring Worth It?

Disclaimer: I am not the authority on tutoring. I swear every page of this blog should have this disclaimer. This is my opinion based on our experience this year.

For 2017 we were told the ACT was the better option since the SAT was a new test this year. And tutors had nothing on which to base their prep lessons. So my daughter took the ACT. Her first go around in January of her junior year was a 21. My kid is not a test taker. And this was with zero prep. And in order to get any sort of scholarships, that score needed to go way up.

We went with a tutor who guaranteed at least a four point increase as long as she did all the homework and practice tests. We felt that the cost would pay off in scholarships with a score of at least 25. So we bit the bullet and gambled the $5k for the few months of tutoring.

Her first retake in June, she only had a three point increase. She attributed it to being tired on the test day after a long week of finals prep and a show the night before. Fortunately(?) she came in under the “guarantee” mark and the tutor worked with her a bit more through the summer for no additional cost. When she took it again in September, she got a 28, including a 35 out of 36 on the English section. Yay tutoring!

So far every school she’s heard back from she has been accepted academically with scholarships ranging from $11k to $24k, renewable for four years. These scholarships were based on her ACT score. So I call that a win, and feel like the $5k for tutoring was completely worth it.

I strongly suggest chatting up an admissions counselor about your student’s current GPA and see what he/she does on a pretest before deciding on the investment. An admissions counselor can give you a better idea of where your student needs to be in order to score some academic money.

Have fun!