Time recently ran an article about how teens and parents are handling the need for SAT prep during a recession. For many years now parents have been willing to shell up more cash than they’d like to admit, just to have their child in private tutoring lessons for the SAT test. As a result, many people believed that the SAT exam was “easier” for wealthy kids because of the resources available to them. It seems that like most other industries, the recession has forced the SAT prep $4 billion industry to stop gouging prices and offer more reasonable prices. Could a recession bring the SAT test down to a more level playing field? We will have to wait and see on that one but we do know that SAT prep these days is centered around online programs with qualified tutors on-call to answer questions.
Is there an advantage or disadvantage to online tutoring? Some say that the reduction in face-to-face time will cause kids to feel less pressure to study and decreasing the amount of actual SAT prep. However, Laura Wilson, founder of WilsonDailyPrep, was able to capitalize on such a turn around. After years of teaching, Wilson concluded that even six minutes a day of SAT prep every day can be more effective than students spend a couple hours cramming for weekly tutoring sessions.
Although WilsonDailyPrep offers private and class tutoring, recently Wilson has launched her online tutoring session. WilsonDailyPrep’s online tutoring program sends six questions every day to each kid over email. Students are also encouraged to keep a stack of vocabulary words in the bathroom for short study sessions at any time. Parents are notified when a kid has not completed specific tasks online or is falling behind in his practie scores. WilsonDailyPrep even guarentees a 200 point increase on the student’s SAT score after just a few months of studying.