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Comment by gotoeleven | Hacker News Reader

This is a bizarre canard that people keep running with. You can prep for the SAT but it adds 20-30 points at most. So mostly you can't prep for it. You certainly can't buy a high score.

College sports is a racket though for sure.

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So personalized tutoring does nothing to improve your score? What an absurd suggestion.

That USED to be line line but it has since changed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/...

Coaching and tutoring has diminishing returns. Simply having done the practice test before the actual one would both significantly boost the score while reducing the anxiety. The tricks are not hard to learn, and practice tests are cheap to buy (or borrow from library). SAT is (was) probably the cheapest way to boost admission chance for a poor student compared to extracurricular, competitions, volunteering, etc. Those with money always have an advantage, but standardized test like SAT is probably the most egalitarian, as everyone has to take the tests by themselves in a controlled environment.

I didn't know Khan Academy was elitist, expensive or personalized.

No amount of expensive tutors is going to help a rich kid on the SAT unless they really do all the work.

Interesting I was 150 points of Stanford.. should’ve prepped.

It helps but you’re not gonna add 1000 points to your score if you didn’t pay attention in high school unless you’re basically attending a high school’s worth of test prep.

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