Private Test Preparation

Over the last few years the number of companies offering private test preparation services and private college admissions guidance kept on rising. Some kind of increased parental concern or heightened competition for getting into good colleges could be reasons behind this trend.

The Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) says its membership base has grown to 450 from 250 roughly five years earlier and they are predicting that the group's membership will swell to 850 within the next three to five years. For example, Inspirica charges $125 to $400 an hour for private test coaching and has tutors who are available to fly all over the world just to tutor.

Such private coaching are also offered by Test preparation titans Kaplan and The Princeton Review. The Princeton Review offers a standard tutor package featuring 18 hours of instruction, 4 practice tests, and access to their online student center for $2,000. Howard Greene, an author and independent college admissions counselor runs Howard Greene and Associates that specializes in college consulting. Fees could start from $750 for a private meeting that includes a review of the student's curriculum for the current and upcoming academic year, tests taken, and help developing a specific list of schools that may fit the student's needs. Ongoing counseling is available for $6,000.

IvyWise is a New York-based college consulting firm. It charges $1,000 for a 90-minute initial consultation to $32,995 for a two-year, 100-hour plus program working with their founder Dr. Katherine Cohen. They boast of an impressive list of statistics of former students, noting that 75% of their clients have gone on to Ivy League schools.

SATs are typically taken at the end of a student's junior year, or early senior year at the latest. But in recent years more and more kids are preparing for the exam the summer after their sophomore year as opposed to taking a short-course right before the exam. Repeated exposure to the test breeds familiarity, but the time spent studying for the test is taken away from other activities which are important as well.