Finding a SAT Math Tutor

Greg's SAT scores are almost good enough. He just needs to bring his math up some -- ideally closer to 750. I say 'almost good enough' because Greg has some pretty selective colleges on his preliminary list. These days you need to be strong in all areas to be admitted to a top school. Greg's also interested in going to a good Engineering school, putting extra importance on the Math score. Fortunately colleges take the best score on each part of the SAT, from all the times you've taken it. It even seems like 700+ might even be good enough to get into MIT. So our strategy is for Greg to go with his past Critical Reading and Writing scores and focus all of his SAT test preparation this time on Math.

The first time around Greg self-studied, using the 'Ziggy method' . Obviously that didn't work as well for Math as for the other two tests. So this time around we've decided to hire a private tutor who focuses on SAT Math. The thinking was that this would be the most focused, time-efficient way to improve. In fact, the tutor we choose guarantees a 50 point/section improvement and averages an 85 point/section improvement. So if Greg is just average (and diligently does the homework they assign), he should hit is goal of approaching 750. The other data point that gives us some confidence is that he recently scored a 780 on the Math2 SAT Subject test.

In my next post I'll describe the process we used to find and select the tutor, and who we selected. Then as the experience unfolds I'll post from time to time on how it's working out.