Many people assume that an adult standing in the front of the room, with students listening attentively, will automatically raise scores. But studies among college students have shown that those who listen to a lecture learn no more than those who get a transcript of what was said. That bodes ill for national test prep companies because many instructors are recent college graduates who rely heavily on company books. “What was taught in the classroom was the exact same thing printed in the Kaplan book I bought from the bookstore,” complains a 740 V, 690 M scorer. Another student who prepped at a local firm and scored 610 V, 690 M writes, “It seemed that the instructors became talking books. Everything they told us I had already read…. The instructors often didn’t know the answers to questions outside our homework.”

Despite the subjectivity involved, we wanted to know about students’ perceptions of whether coaching increased their scores. The survey gave students a choice of five responses to how much they thought their composite score increased: None; 50 points or less; 60–100 points; 110–150 points; or 160+ points. The most common response was 60–100 points, followed by 50 points or less. Together, these two responses formed a solid majority across all score intervals and all test prep companies. Lesser and approximately equal numbers of students believed that their score went up not at all, or 110–150 points, and a smaller fraction believed that its scores had gone up 160 points or more. There was only one systematic difference in the responses. Those who scored lower than 1100 were less likely to believe that their score had jumped more than 100 points.

Of the students who thought that their prep course was worthwhile, few cited test-taking strategies or the insight of the instructor as the reason why it was useful. The most commonly cited benefit was access to practice tests; a close second was having someone on the scene to make sure they got done. “The course itself did not provide many helpful hints but did force me to take practice tests,” says a 600 V, 600 M scorer. “My tutor made me do the work on the tests,” admits another student who scored 690 V, 710 M. “If he hadn’t forced me to do it, I probably wouldn’t have done it.”

Many students tended to be forgiving when coaching courses failed to deliver the promised score increases. “I learned a lot of great strategies but did not improve my score by the 100 points that were guaranteed,” said a 650 V, 550 M Princeton Review student of her prep course. “I would still recommend it to other students because I know that it can be very helpful for many students.”

“I only increased 10 points,” wrote a 540 V, 560 M Princeton Review prepper who elsewhere noted, “I would recommend this course. It was very helpful learning the tips on how to take the SATs.” Another Princeton Review student with a combined score of 550 V, 630 M had an interesting hypothesis about score increases: “Each time I took a practice test my score improved. I think the tests they gave got easier, because my real SAT score was a lot lower than my final practice score.” One 640 V, 590 M scorer was perturbed by what she perceived as Princeton Review’s lack of follow-through. “Princeton Review did not keep its word about private tutoring if I didn’t go up 100 points from my first practice test. I had to find a tutor on my own.” (Princeton Review’s guarantee for private tutoring is the same as for its classroom courses.)