The Expensive Choice of Testing Prior to Prep
First Posted on October 5, 2015 by adminLisa - reprinted with permission.
Expense can be calculated in the terms of time and money. Taking the ACT or SAT for a “trial run” before embarking on test prep and serious testing is a costly mistake.
LEAP’s proven approach since 1999 is as follows:
Take a prep course – we hope you’ll choose LEAP!
Take the first attempt at the ACT and/or SAT.
Analyze scores and decide which test to retest on. 57% of students increase on a second attempt.
If necessary (not always the case), do additional prep (LEAP offers individualized tutoring) to strengthen weak areas on the test.
Retest on the ACT or the SAT (not both!) and you should be done in most cases.
The ACT costs $56.50 and the SAT $54.50 – let’s call it $55. With LEAP’s approach, you are looking on average at $110 in testing fees. Test day time investment from the time you arrive at the testing site to testing with breaks is about 4 hours. So the proven approach is 8 hours invested in you start by taking only one test or 12 hours if you take both on the first round which will ultimately cost $165 in testing fees.
For the family who decides to do a little experimenting and assessing before a calculated approach to testing, this will likely result in an additional testing attempt at the cost of approximately $55 and another 4 hours of precious time. Our history since 1999 shows the typical student maximizes scores when they test twice after their initial prep. Of course there are outliers for less or more testing, but we make our recommendations on what has worked for the vast majority of the thousands upon thousands of students LEAP has prepped in our history.
Doing so results in a 33% increase in expense and time putting a price tag at $165 for the student focused on one test. Doing both on the first round? Your total cost is now $220 on testing and 16 hours of time. An additional concern is students do burn out when it comes to testing. Speaking from experience, when they hit the testing wall they are done and more testing, more prep do not reap the reward.
If I were getting ready to embark on any journey or purchase and knew up front that not taking an intentional, measured, planned approach would cost me 25-33% more, I’d STOP and rethink the plan.
The college bound journey is an expensive one: college visits, testing, test prep, applications and more. Save money where you can it can help pay for college later.
Lisa Marker-Robbins
Learning Enrichment & Assistance Program, LLC Phone: 513-754-2240 Email: info@leaprogram.com
